From 16 to 23 I lived on a ranch in rural Washington. My aunt's family are multi-generation dairy farmers. A formative part of my life was spent with rural folk. I also spent my childhood near Boston Massachusetts but visiting my rural relatives. My perspective is unique.
When we talk about rural types, there are a few myths that need debunking. One of them is the idea that rural areas aren't hierarchical. They absolutely are. Landowners are king. Now, some of these are genuinely 5+generation working farmers, like my extended family.
Most of these people are not "poor" as we think of it. Some of them are less well off than they used to be, but as a rule of thumb, the poorest people in a rural community are the laborers, sometimes even the skilled ones. The trailer park people.
In a lot of places these people used to benefit from a lot of social services during hard times. But they've lost a lot of that in a lot of places, and I encountered one of the reasons why. See, there's a dirty secret in these places. A lot of those rich farmers aren't FROM there
They're wealthy, hard-right urbanites who moved to the country, bought a bunch of land on the cheap, and poured their money into wrenching local politics rightward so they wouldn't have to pay any more taxes supporting neighbors they didn't give a shit about.
You can always tell, once you've lived there long enough. They're the ones who scream the loudest about "outsiders" and "urban folk" and try extra hard to look cowboy but never have any dirt on them. I went to high school with a lot of their kids.
These are the people I want to point out to you. Because there are a number of myths that are buried deep in and around rural culture that can be traced directly to the deep pockets of these motherfuckers. The ones driving pristine, huge Chevy trucks while their laborers starve.
My experience is that the people who have genuinely lived there for 15 generations are the most unthreatened, welcoming folks you will ever meet. Especially the poor ones. They'll give you the shirt off their back when it's all they got.
These outsider wannabe cowboys are also the ones who clutch their guns like they're some sort of guarantor of safety against the mean, mean city folk while the genuine people they're hiding among just treat their firearms like tools rathr than dick replacements.
Left-leaning (especially urban) politicians don't understand this, and they desperately need to. When people would ask me if Centralia Washington had always been rightward I would remind them that it used to be known for the loggers union getting in gunfights with the army.
Look, rural communities have a shitton of problems. And plenty of them are of their own making--but it also has to be acknowledged and remarked on that these places have been the refuges and victims of hard-right transplants looking for a nice game of Aristocrat LARP for years.
Oh and those people? Those wannabe cowboy pretenders with a massive arsenal of guns, a gigantic Chevy with twin stacks, a cream-white cowboy hat and boots hat don't have a single work-scar on them? THESE are Trump's base. Them and the people they've spent years enthralling.
And THAT is why so many of them are the first to scream about city-folk influence. They are TERRIFIED that the locals will see through them. They're also scared that the city folk will bring back the things they've spent a lot of money taking from the locals. PETRIFIED.
Oh, and plenty of the locals know it, too. Usually the really poor ones. The PoC. The teachers. The ones with good sense. And if you ask them? They'll tell you. There are still plenty of rural folk who see through the bullshit and they HATE these people.
And that's your story for this morning. Take, weaponize, understand. And know that if you go to these red state or blue state small towns, you can find allies, if you know where to look and will conduct yourself with respect and decency.
Don't abandon these people.
The end.
Don't abandon these people.
The end.
Wow holy shit this is blowing up again. Reminder to buy my books! You can find the first one here. If you like what you saw, consider supporting what I do:
amazon.com/Skyfarer-Drift…
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