MSNBC, Paul Krugman Panic Over “White Rural Rage”

To recap: globalization and technological change have devastated small towns and made the urban keyboard warriors richer, and rural voters can t move to the cities because they can t afford to. However, instead of being grateful for the huge de facto transfers of money from rich, urban states like New Jersey to poor, relatively rural states like West Virginia in the form of federal programs paid by the taxes of luckier citizens like Krugman, small town America is unaccountably hostile.

Schaller and White Rural Rage co-author Paul Waldman make the same point, that cities produce far more of the nation s wealth, and rural citizens are increasingly subsidized by the taxes paid by higher-income metropolitans. What gives? Why won t they shut the fuck up?

For so long, complained Waldman on Morning Joe, Democrats have been told& that in order to get rural voters& you have to go there& you have to show them that you understand& You have to put on a Carhartt jacket and go down to somebody’s farm, right? Maybe milk a cow?

Yes! exclaimed* Mika.

But it turns out, a sad Waldman pronounced, that you don t have to do any of that, because Donald Trump didn t. He just gave [rural voters] a way to essentially give a big middle finger to Democrats, to people who live in cities and to the rest of the country.

The Morning Joe set looked perplexed. Why would that work better than wearing a Carhartt jacket and milking a cow? It didn t make sense.

Educated America. We re in good hands!

*The correct phrase is really Yes, dipshitted Mika, but I was afraid the usage would throw off some readers. For future reference, it may come up again

via www.racket.news

Matt Taibbi.