The urban-rural divide does create issues, though the author is very selective and invents a fractious view of reality concocted from stereotypes that does more

The urban-rural divide does create issues, though the author is very selective and invents a fractious view of reality concocted from stereotypes that does more to perpetuate the problem than help, and blurs cultural and political lines. Politically, rural States are inherently over-represented Federally by virtue of each State having two Senators regardless of population, and that has and will continue work to the detriment of urbanized States. Politically the complaints about government dependence by urbanites selectively ignore that more tax dollars are sent proportionally to rural States than urban states, which are in no small part a product of rural States having immense power over the Feds. relative to urbanized States. Slagging the "The Life of Julia" as a "dependency narrative" ignores that a big point of the narrative was keeping the government out of Julia's reproductive choices and other life choices, freedoms rural religious-minded folks are not keen on protecting. On top of that (and perversely amusingly), rural areas have steadily outgrown proportional rates for use of food stamps and food assistance programs than urban areas. Culturally, rural states idealize a kind of independence that's a product of a political structure that hands out capital and favors to quietly prop those rural areas up while turning a blind eye to their benefit from the government to assist themselves.