I live in & come from places like Levant & I have a couple thoughts--not about the election so much as to whether Trump's approach actually helps give voice to these communities' concerns or further alienates them from the rest of the country.
(For context: I grew up in swPA outside of Pittsburgh & currently live in swVA. My husband has pastored in both regions & our friends & relatives tend to be very pro-Trump.)
From purely annectdotal standpoint, I have seen intensification of Trump support from 2016 to 2020. The common explanation is that he gives voice to their concerns. Also, I think he pays attention to them & validates them which is just, if not, more important.
Rallying the base means centering the base & looking in their direction. I think this is similar to what's happened among evangelicals & there's obvious overlap in the two demos.
But as this article mentions, communities like Levant aren't large even if they are numerous. To complicated things, they are overwhelmingly *local* --for both good & bad. They preserve that sense of being known while being isolated from other communities.
It's my sense that the combination of the digital age & Trumpism has allowed them to band together despite numbers & geography. Trump's particular kind of idenitarian politics has let them find tribe & the internet has facilitated is in ways it never could have happened before.
But this comes at a cost: It actually further alienates them from the rest of the country. It deepens the divide that they are already experiencing & is in reality true.
IOW, the siloing effect of tribalism & online life is going to hit places like Levant doubly hard. Already isolated, the negative effects of digital age (encouraged & reinforced by Trumpism) are going to become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
There's an old adage: "When the rich catch a cold, the poor get pneumonia." The point is that those with resources & wealth can overcome negative effects of their environment while poorer can't.
This applies to social capital & communal disenfranchisement, too. For populations already isolated & w/ little social capital, the effects of filter bubbles, tribalism, & narrowing of online life are going to mean increased isolation & sense of alienation.
Ironically, what could have granted access & provided the infrastructure that these communities need to flourish despite geography & size has been used to execerbate the divides.
Yes, you can connect w/ a person 4 states away in another small town that shares your political & social worldviews, but that's not sufficient to truly flourish & overcome the challenges facing these communities. It *feels* like solidarity, but it isn't actual solidarity.
This isn't intended to be political so much as observational. I care deeply about flourishing of these communities & am concerned about the unintended fallout of digital age combined w/ rhetoric that ostensibly centers them but may actually isolate them further.
Been reading through I Timothy lately & there's a lot in there about fighting the good fight & contending for the faith. Interestingly, tho, the primary threat seems to be... yourself.
Paul seems very concerned that Timothy wage the good warfare against his own sinfulness & lack of faith. Learning to train himself in godliness is how he would lead others to godliness.
This is really important frame of reference b/c Scripture does describe Xian life as warfare & struggle. Too often, tho, we co-opt this language as cover for hating our ideological enemies.
Per previous threads: Things are both simpler & more complicated than initially appear. Simpler in sense that we all fundamentally want & need same things. More complicated in that our contexts & differing experiences of the world affect how we go about trying to achieve them.
I struggle w/ expanations that reverse these: That frame the differences btwn people as something essential to their very personhood rather than explained by their context, history, distinct challenges, & lived experience.
This isn't to say that we don't respond wrongly or unethically in trying to meeting core needs. We absolutely do & we must challenge this. It's not okay to solve a legitimate need in an illegitimate way.
So digital life is both new & untested & also a lifeline. Some folks are actively discovering it in context of Trumpism. That's part of there reason why they're so concerned w/ what they perceive to be social media censorship.
Imagine living in a somewhat isolated area, catching up with digital age & all it offers you irt shopping, connection, education, etc. at the same time that politics is going extremely online.
You've just decided you can trust it. You like it even. You've found folks who share your views & you're not isolated anymore. & then, like that, your experience of it is threatened--maybe you can't trust it after all? Especially if it's suggested that "they" are controlling it.
B/c of lag time btwn these communities & suburbs, cities, reliable internet & culture of digital age is at a different stage of development. Here's what I mean:
It's only been 2-3 years that our local elementary school has taken communication online. As PTA, we debated about whether enough parents & guardians were comfortable enough w/ it for it to be main source of communication.