Thread by @JuliusGoat

Wondering when rural elites will reach out of their conservative bubbles to understand how they can win over the hearts and minds of hardworking Real Americans from the urban heartland, some of whom work multiple jobs but get as little as 10% as much representation in government.

Faraway rural elites don’t understand the struggle and economic anxieties that heartland urban Americans are going through in our neglected cities. I visited this Cleveland parking lot barbecue to interview “real Americans” on what their concerns are and what motivated their vote

It won't be enough for rural elites to simply express their outrage at the vote from urban areas; they're going to have to engage in introspection and listen to the real concerns that working-class everyday Americans have, who live in the cities they've rarely—if ever—visited.

These urban working-class citizens from "real America" aren't just going away. It's going to be important for rural elites to break out of their usual narratives and encourage their representatives to reach across the aisle in a spirit of compromise, to find bipartisan solutions.

If rural elites can't manage to break out of their tribal partisan bubbles to try to craft a message that appeals to everyday Americans, it's hard to imagine how they'll ever put together a winning coalition, even though the system literally structurally cheats for them.

After losing the popular vote seven times in the last eight tries, rural elites have to look at their failure to connect with regular everyday Americans as a repudiation of their obsession with unpopular social justice issues, like gay marriage, abortion, and police brutality.

Lot of soul searching needed from conservative Republicans and their rural elite base, if they ever hope to build a coalition that can attract the left-wing majority from our coastal, southwestern and northern heartland that's just issued such a rebuke of their agenda.

Speaking as a swing voter, I would love to vote for a Republican in 2024, but I just worry that they've gone too far right for me.

If they'd just go a *little* bit more to the left, I'm sure they'd win my vote.

No, not quite enough. Just a *little* further.

Just a bit more.