20 ms·

I’m a Coastal Elite from the Midwest: The Real Bubble Is Rural America

• flukus 10y ago
  > And rather than embrace it, rural and white working-class Americans are twisting and turning, fighting it every step of the way. We will never return to the days where a white man could barely graduate high school and walk onto a factory floor at 18 and get a well-paying job for life. That hasn’t set in for much of the Midwest. There's the problem and the bubble people are talking about. White men (or any sex and color really) that can barely finish high school aren't going away anytime soon and they still need jobs. Not everyone is capable of more academic work.
  • cheriot 10y ago
    They need job skills and few high schools teach them. One of the high schools I went to had a small program with the community college next door for people to learn marketable skills instead of the usual electives. The other had nothing like it. tl;dr Study beyond high school is not just liberal arts.
    • flukus 10y ago
      My high school was similar but that's all gone now. But this was 15 years ago and not finishing high school was still common. In fact I didn't and later learned programming through a trade school. I'm pretty sure there are next to no opportunities for anyone following my path today though.
    • serge2k 10y ago
      They have job skills, the jobs disappeared. It's not their fault. If outsourcing suddenly produced high quality issue free software for cheap tomorrow then we'd all be just as screwed despite having such great skills.
      • dx034 10y ago
        Most job losses were due to automation, not necessarily outsourcing. And if they have job skills for jobs that don't exist anymore it's as if they don't have job skills at all. But it's certainly not their fault, it's the education system that has to teach job skills, you can't learn that by yourself.
        • ubertaco 10y ago
          > if they have job skills for jobs that don't exist anymore it's as if they don't have job skills at all. Exactly this. At the risk of reductio ad absurdum, would anyone consider the ability to write (not compositional writing, just literally the ability to put a pen down on paper and form letters) a "marketable job skill" any more? Not likely, since that skill can be replaced by a $60 printer what doesn't need a salary.
      • cheriot 10y ago
        What are those skills? My high schools taught regular academic subjects and electives. What job does that qualify a person to do? They can't fix a car, drive a big truck, or operate specialized machinery. Yes, the unskilled jobs moved. That's why high schools need to teach actual skills now.
• huffmsa 10y ago
  It's curious that in America, the peoples of the coast demand our inland citizens tolerate and accept other nations inland people's beliefs. The United States is far and away one of the most multiethnic nations in the world, yet we still insist on crying "not good enough!" Yet the coastal elite have had little compunction sending the same middle Americans they so revile out into the world as agents of American imperialism to foist upon others like middle-Afghanis and middle-Veitnamese the parts of Americana that the coast likes -- consumerism, secularism, universal suffrage etc. And guess what? Generally these middle-* people dislike being told that their way of life is wrong, and it typically hardens their resolve -- yielding Daesh and Republican Presidents. So no, sir, the coast is wrong, and frankly, most of the world is growing tired getting belittled by "tolerant" people.
  • CalRobert 10y ago
    "Yet the coastal elite have had little compunction sending the same middle Americans they so revile out into the world as agents of American imperialism to foist upon others like middle-Afghanis and middle-Veitnamese the parts of Americana that the coast likes -" What?!? The coasts have been more strongly anti-war than middle America for a long time.
    • bmj 10y ago
      The anti-war voices of both the Right and the Left have been marginalized by the Center for a very long time. Do you really believe that Mrs. Clinton is anti-war? Or even Mr. Obama (Nobel Peace Prize notwithstanding)? You are correct, however, that middle America tends to be more honest about their perspectives on aggressive US foreign policy. Many liberals would say "yes, the US should get out of the Middle East" but then they pull the lever for a rather hawkish presidential candidate.
    • huffmsa 10y ago
      Curious, the AUMF 2001 was reupped even when the coasts had a super majority 2008-2010. And while yes, the coasts might be, but it doesn't stop them from letting the Hawkish Midwest go to war.
• cityandtech 10y ago
  Travelling is such an important way for people to grow, but it's so hard to appreciate its value without actually doing it. It's shocking how many people have only left their state to visit Disney Land.
  • nradov 10y ago
    Travel is great, but it's an expensive luxury especially for families with multiple children. Sometimes that one trip to Disneyland is all they can afford.
    • jacobolus 10y ago
      Even poor families with multiple children can manage to travel on a limited budget, if they really want to. The bigger impediment is profound lack of interest/curiosity about other places. Take George W. Bush as an example; he certainly didn’t lack for resources. http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/102900a.html http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/102900a.html
      • ashark 10y ago
        > Even poor families with multiple children can manage to travel on a limited budget, if they really want to. You mean with all that paid vacation time they don't have, after using all 5-10 days of it (if there's any at all) to stay home with sick kids, or holding it in reserve to do same later in the year? Hell, that's a problem for most families period, poor or not. Vacation time is very scarce for most people and will continue to be until some significant minimum is required by law.
        • jacobolus 10y ago
          Sorry, that was inelegantly stated. Obviously there are folks having a hard time just getting by, and taking long vacations to jet around the world for months at a time is infeasible. I’m not suggesting that anyone struggling to survive should prioritize travel over eating. But I know plenty of people who grew up in dirt poor families who managed to take occasional long road trips in their childhood. And I know people who grew up in extremely wealthy families who barely ever left their hometown. My point was just that means aren’t everything; attitude is also important.
• jbelich 10y ago
  keep telling middle america how wrong they all are. When they rise up against you at the ballot box, keep telling them how wrong they all are. It'll work eventually!
  • cheriot 10y ago
    It goes both ways. Keep telling minorities and the educated that they're not "real" America and we'll just trade whose most angry this election. The hard part is understanding the other perspective and building bridges.
  • AnOscelot 10y ago
    That's been such a winning plan for middle America, hasn't it? They rise up, only to vote for the politician, usually Republican, who panders to them most. That same politician who will then proceed to do absolutely nothing to help them, and often vote for policies that hurt them. So we can either ignore middle America and let them continue this self-destructive cycle, or can point it out. Which will then make them mad and they'll continue voting in the useless pricks who do nothing to help them. I know you tried to make your statement sound like a threat. But I live in the rural Midwest. I've seen the politicians voted in at the local level. Politicians like Brownback who have trashed the state. It's cutting your nose off to spite your face, as Mom used to say.
  • edmccard 10y ago
    >When they rise up against you at the ballot box... Fewer votes than Hillary. Fewer votes than Romney's failed 2012 run. Hardly an "uprising".
    • skuhn 10y ago
      18.3% of the total population of the United States voted for the winner this time. In 2012 it was 20.9%. Doesn't seem like a huge uprising to me, but those numbers certainly have been disheartening all the same.
    • ptaipale 10y ago
      All the votes of 2016 election aren't counted yet, so Trump's votes will come up as more than Romney got 2012. Absentee ballots, provisional ballots and early votes are counted later. Also, the turnout in 2016 election is 2 % higher than 2012 (56.9 % vs. 54.9 %).
• savagej 10y ago
  Pure ignorant writing. Do we live in a country of immigration laws or not? This author seems to think it's a one world government.
  • grey-area 10y ago
    Try to engage reasonably with other views, even if you really disagree. For example if you expanded on your first sentence and deleted the first bit 'pure ignorant writing' you're far more likely to have a meaningful conversation with someone, maybe even change their mind.
    • savagej 10y ago
      The author was intentionally writing around the fact that these "undocumented immigrants" are illegal. When someone purposefully obfuscates an issue, I'll call a spade, a spade, and say the writing is pure ignorance.
• pipio21 10y ago
  I have traveled the world and not just "shaking hands with a Muslim" but lived in Muslim countries. I have studied Q'ran in order to understand it and have friends there. When you travel to another country at first you get in love with the new culture but after some months you also start understanding the "not so good things". If you believe you know about Muslims because you shake hands with one you are totally wrong. This Muslim is totally surrounded by a foreign culture and he has to adapt. It is a completely different thing when you(as Christian or worse atheist) are the one who has to adapt to theirs(atheism is punished in most Muslim countries, Christianism means you are at best second class citizen). Most of you Americans live in a bubble(all of you, not just the MidWest) because you are at least 5000 miles away from EuroAsia (and Africa and SouthAmerica) where 5 billion of the 7 billion people on Earth live. You speak just one language and have a tremendously homogeneous culture and population. In other countries just for survival you need to speak several languages and understand-respect several cultures, not just shaking hands with isolated members of them. This makes extremely easy for media to manipulate you. If you hear Putin talk, you are never going to understand what he says and make your own opinion, you can't talk with actual people living in Ukraine, or India or China, or just go there(in China for example most people do not speak English), you have to trust others that have, and these people have their best own interest in mind, not yours. For example, we know from wikileaks mail leaks that France invades Lybia for two main reasons: First to steal their gas and oil, second because Gaddafy is saving an enormous amount of gold and silver and wants to create an African currency backed by precious metals. Was the American public aware of those interests? Of course not, they believe it is about freedom and democracy, as if people enjoyed having their country devastated by war by foreign powers, their family members die or be raped, to loose all their possessions. Is the American public aware of the deal(of an American oil company with contractors and other countries) to make a pipeline over Syria to transport the natural gas of Qatar to Europe? Agreement done without the support of Assad of course, which meant the civil war for his country. Of course not, people buy whatever they watch on tv, war is a racket and it has always been. I am not American and do not like Trump, but I'm glad Hillary is out as she was the main responsible of direct Russia confrontation, as she wanted to repeat the Cold war as having most of the population scared and frightened of a new nuclear world war is the best way for people not to oppose the militarization of the USA and it is a great excuse to control the media when the final debt bubble makes the financial system implode(Remember it was Bill Clinton who remove the Steagal Act and created all the derivatives mess). If you want to get out of the bubble you need to get out of America for a while. It is certainly going to make you go out of your comfort zone, but then it will become easy as you will discover a world and opportunities you didn't know existed.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• tzakrajs 10y ago
  When you live in the country, you are less likely to bump into, well, anyone. This is only exacerbated for minorities.
  • ptaipale 10y ago
    I'm not so sure of this. There is a significant aspect of loneliness in cities, often more so than in rural areas. And quite some research done on this. Physical proximity does not mean that people actually meet and engage with each other.
    • tzakrajs 10y ago
      Loneliness and access to other residents (be it minority or not) are related but not the same. If you are cloystered inside your city apartment, it will still be hard to avoid people that you must interact with on a daily basis to support yourself. This fundamental level of cooperation creates opportunities for respect to be formed.
  • douche 10y ago
    Although, if you live in the country, and you were born there, then there is a good chance you know everybody in the community, and are possibly related to a good chunk of them.
    • tzakrajs 10y ago
      So imagine the confirmation bias at play when those same people try to imagine policies or politicians that can help all Americans.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
• dmode 10y ago
  Finally someone had the guts to speak truth
• tashi 10y ago
  While I agree that travel is a great mind expander, telling people that they need to travel is about as effective as just telling people directly that they need to expand their minds. Which is to say, maybe a good nudge for people who were already leaning that way, but otherwise ineffective. I hope the lesson we all learn from this election is that if we have ideas we want to spread in the near term, the only effective thing to do is engage with people who disagree and respectfully make our case to them and listen to what they have to say.
• spiritofenter 10y ago
  - I hear a lot from people that issues like gay rights didn't hit home until they became friends with (or realized that they were friends with) a gay person. Similarly with for example Muslims. This article hit home there. - The point about jobs seems very spot on - jobs have been drying up throughout the Midwest, particularly steady/long-term low-education (i.e. manufacturing) jobs, and national leadership has not done anything to address it. The economic story of the last 8 years has been a recovery for the wealthy and financial sector only, so it's no wonder the rural midwest see no hope from the Democrats. It sounds like Trump's main plan for this is to create jobs for people that destroy the very environment they live in, which is tragic. Long term, I wonder what feasible plan could address the jobs issue besides a basic income, or massive government hiring for jobs like building infrastructure.
  • rtpg 10y ago
    This is a bit besides the point, but my understanding is that a lot of the recovery has not been in high-skill jobs, but lower-skilled jobs. Especially in plaecs like Texas. Though these jobs were not being generated in rural areas
    • spiritofenter 10y ago
      Thank you, I will try to research this for myself.
  • ianai 10y ago
    I'm thinking drones help maximize how much distance you can place between workers in some abstract way. Maybe there's a way to use all of our technology to make rural America more relevant. I know you could outsource call center stuff if broadband were more available.
    • threeseed 10y ago
      Call centres are the next industry to go. 5-10 years max. Machine/Deep Learning is rapidly improving beyond anyone's expectations and you only have to look at Microsoft's recent advancements in speech recognition that match humans to see the disruption in action.
• jroseattle 10y ago
  Ex-midwesterner, different coast. I did not enjoy growing up in the midwest. I had a similar experience growing up: completely white town, minorities counted on one hand, zero african-americans. Not a single gay person to be found. Not until I attended college did I meet an african-american, or any non-native english speaker. Muslim? What's that? I was raised to believe african-americans, gays, and communists are bad, evil, flawed, un-welcome. In junior high school, a friend invited me to attend a church social event near a river one night. Some of the guys put together a big, makeshift cross out of lumber they brought with them and planted it in the ground. We had a small bonfire going, and then they lit the cross. Several of the guys in the church put their Sunday robes on...then they pulled hoods over their faces. Yeah, KKK. I knew a policeman who drove drunk all the time. I knew a teacher who bought high school students liquor many times. I knew a peer in high school sleeping with that teacher. I knew girls pregnant by 11th grade. I knew domestic violence that happened in my house, in my friends' homes, and in the homes of people I barely knew. In a small town, most of my friends and I experienced separated families through divorce. My experience could be unique, or it could be quite common. At any rate, by the time I finished college, I needed to leave. The midwest isn't all bad, but I saw some of the worst it has to offer.
  • heroprotagonist 10y ago
    > Not a single gay person to be found. Honestly, that speaks for the repressive force of the culture more than the lack of other minorities. A lack of ethnicity can be somewhat explained by a lack of historic migration. Homosexuality is everywhere. They were there; they're just still in hiding.
    • bduerst 10y ago
      >repressive force of the culture That was their point, if it wasn't obvious with the part about the KKK.
  • AJ007 10y ago
    What year was this? I grew up in a midwest town and when I was young, and there were no black residents, but by the time I left there was. There certainly were other minority racial groups as well as gays as lesbians.
• serge2k 10y ago
  > More Americans need to see more of the United States. They need to shake hands with a Muslim, or talk soccer with a middle aged lesbian, or attend a lecture by a female business executive. First off, why is this site screwing with my clipboard. Ugh. Anyway, that's all fair. The people who are making decent money living in cities should go out to Michigan and spend some time looking for a factory job or talking to the workers who have been dealing with a shitty situation for decades. > If we pin this election on coastal elites, we are excusing white working-class and rural Americans for voting for a man accused of violating the Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent apartments to black people. If we pin this election on coastal elites, we are excusing white working-class and rural Americans for voting for a man who called Mexicans rapists, drug dealers and criminals. If we pin this election on coastal elites, we are excusing white working-class and rural Americans for voting for a man who called for a complete ban on Muslim immigration. Yes, people did vote for a man who said/did all those things. We can choose to believe these people are just racists/sexists/too dumb to do anything else, or we can ask them why and see what the response is. You can also ask why the democratic voters just didn't feel bothered to show up. Was this just arrogance? Was it apathy? > We will never return to the days where a white man could barely graduate high school and walk onto a factory floor at 18 and get a well-paying job for life. That hasn’t set in for much of the Midwest. The problem isn't the 18 year old who's upset about a factory job he can't get. It's the 50 year old who's job is gone, or under constant threat. It's about the 35 year old who's life hasn't really gone anywhere, because he got caught in the whole thing falling apart. You tell someone who is living the good life on the coast that it's time to "make america great again!" and they will wonder what wrong with it. Say it to someone in Michigan and they will remember that Detroit used to have the highest per capita income in the country.
  • lithos 10y ago
    Pretty sane compared to some of the posts here. It seems like people are completely ignoring that all age groups are involved. It's very easy to say make America great again and capture: the 80 year old that has had there retirement plan disappear from a company going to rust, to capture the 50 year old that wants to help their children through college (but instead needs help themselves), it's pretty easy to capture the people who watch a plant/factory finally get off shored (after its third try of doing so, this time with the only apparent difference of NAFTA). It's also pretty easy to see the opposite candidate 'playing dirty' against the person who would have been a great help to their child, having secret meetings with the 'type of people'(financial) that helped create a region called the rust belt (that's bigger than all but a handful of countries), and it's pretty easy to see a candidate so unversed with dealing with people unlike her that she can't even properly shame them (while I imagine most people can't shame Trump, better is expected of a candidate. The last one isn't my words). Likewise grew up in Wisconsin (now in VA), even voted against the nightmare that is Trump. But a lot of people here are lacking perspectives on other parts of the country. they are a lot more similar to their rainbow workforce (perspective, daily problems, expectations, fortune, humor) than they think they are, even if they do differ culturally.
• ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  One technical factor I don't see discussed much is that when someone immigrates, they generally choose a specific location with job opportunities. If you look around you and don't see many immigrants, that should tell you something.
  • humanrebar 10y ago
    There's some truth to that but immigrants also move to cities where people like them already live. To some degree, they also move to cities they have heard of from American TV and movies.
• tomohawk 10y ago
  The real bubble is the press. Their unsustainable model of patting themselves on the back and getting in bed with the politicians they're supposed to be shedding light on has them in a downward spiral. Case in point: the front page of the NY Times the day after the election. The false narrative in tfa is another example of denial. How could Trump win unless everyone in the midwest is a racist homophobe? The fact is, Hillary was such a poor candidate that even Trump was able to defeat her. Just accept it and move on. Accusing people in the midwest of being racists just makes you look like a fool. Take some constructive action like making sure the Democrat party has a less corrupt nominating process.
  • Swizec 10y ago
    > Hillary was such a poor candidate that even Trump was able to defeat her Which is sad because she really truly is more qualified than he is, I think. But she's just so damn unlikeable. It's not even about the emails or anything. She literally represents everything everyone (including many liberals[1]) wanted to change about The Man. The only thing she had going for her on an emotional personal level was that she's a woman and that having the first lady president would be cool. Imho Sanders stood a better chance. At least he was [trying to?] giving hope to the same audience as Trump was. I guess we'll see what happens next. [1] Here I consider things like "alt hacker propaganda" a la Mr. Robot and movements like Occupy Wall Street as "liberals". Perhaps they're more libertarians, I don't know. But the zeitgeist amongst many young people has been extremely anti-establishment in recent years.
    • serge2k 10y ago
      Yup. People were rabid to vote against trump. Not so much to vote for Hillary. Turnout sucked. Compare it to rabid Trump supporters, or Obama.
    • Philipp__ 10y ago
      What you say is exactly what happened. If people wanted so much not to elect Trump, they could vote for Sanders, and I am somehow sure Sanders would won the presidential elections. And in my opinion, he would be best bet for America that is shaken by many things right now. Seeing wealthy, white people, from America (mostly artists and to some extent engineers), crying all over the internet how everything is doomed and unfair is making me nausea. Guess what? My country was destroyed by provoked civil war and NATO bombing after that. (Bill Clinton played big part in that) After that we have chosen new government, everything was going to be better, new economy, new young smart people, then our prime minister (who was the bastion of those changes and reforms) got assassinated. And after that? After that we got same shitty government that was during the 90s (right/extremists, radical party), and now they "are" pro-EU oriented. So much bullshit, country elected the party that was the worst possible choice, that nobody from circles of my family, friends and people I know didn't even dare to think of as a leading party. And it happened. And guess what, you live with it! How? Well, country is people, not one man. Sure it is bad, it hurts, but you live your life following your own internal compass, not somebody else's.
• bloat 10y ago
  The author may be right about the cultural factors he talks about, but the economic issues, which I suspect are much more significant in the midwest's decision on Tuesday, are being seriously understated. One sentence only, and a major understatement at that: "Change has not been kind to the Midwest and rural America."
• woodpanel 10y ago
  "If we pin this election on coastal elites, we are excusing white working-class and rural Americans for voting for a man accused of violating the Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent apartments to black people." This sentence alone illustrates the very membrane at work that holds together the "intelligentia" bubble. Accusing the dummies of immorality while just employing more advanced tools for your deviseveness does make you the bigger bigot. When your mind starts copy pasting headlines from the "accusational BS by trolls" folder to your personal "trusted facts" folder thats stupidity at work. But if the passing BS is just allowed if its coming from inside your echo chamber that doesn't make you more elevated. It just elevates your ignorance.
  • threeseed 10y ago
    But Trump did violate the Fair Housing Act: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/us/politics/donald-trump-housing-race.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/us/politics/donald-trump-h... But I guess believing in "facts" means I am part of some out of touch intelligentsia.
    • justaaron 10y ago
      to the degree that you haven't convinced these backwards types of their backwardness, then yes, you have failed to communicate the clearer view you have of the world from your mountaintop. studies of over-intelligent people repeatedly confirm how lonely they can feel in a world where stupid is normal. so what. you had one job to do (I'm running away with the idea that this is a giant missive about the election results) and you screwed it up. you screwed it up by putting on an elitist face that says "we know whats best for you" when the voice speaking it was not a trusted voice nor a voice that actually DID have the concerns of those being spoken to at heart. The premise of calling the electorate ignorant racist etc is belied by the 2 terms of Obama. silly presumption. I contend that it was a referendum on elitist pols represented by one of the most unpopular faces in insider quid-pro-quo politics of the last 30 years. Should have run Sanders, you rich privileged outta-touch bi-coastal self-hating Americans :D see, you think you have rid yourself of the stench of redneck but your snarky gabby talkshow hosts, your fancy globetrotting cuisine, and your view of the world all belie this by reasserting what really stinks about us Americans: know-it all, we do it better than anyone else, we have a solution for your backwards ass, heavy-handed, unilateralist, non-listeners who just want to tell people how to live or ideally force them into an uneasy compliance and dependency upon our cultural products. Hollywood makes lame 1 dimensional propaganda films with the same basic plotline ad nauseam, our dot-com industry makes more mobile phone apps to keep people staring at their choice of hand-held status symbol, and we try to shove GMOs and overpriced pharmaceuticals in everyones face via one-sided trade agreements like TPP. We already are Donald Trump, collectively speaking. We ARE the ugly American so stop pretending that our embarrassment begins with G.W. Bush and ends with Trump. The world has been both in fear of our nuclear arsenal, and laughing at our foibles for decades now. Our polite presidents engender as much amusement as our cowboys, because behind the scenes its the same shitball of unilateralist global empire that should benefit our fat-sofa-asses back at home. If you unplug the bubble it's this reality that should sink in to both the coasts AND the midwest. Only then can we confront and tame our inner monster, as so long as we pretend that our coasts and interior have nothing to do with one another, or that our "liberal" coasts are not also involved in the same "team america, world police" activities, that is basically a lie in service to no one. We need to own our ugly rump side. Pretending that our cousins are stupid and backwards while not seeing the oppression we are also part of creating (for example the PC culture of no-platforming, etc. completely goes against the actual principles of the left, of a fair and just society. we have allowed PC culture to hijack the stillborn tiny baby of our nearly non-existent left wing. any leftist movement that forgets labor is elitist and will die or be absorbed as another mask for fascism, which is what our PC culture has become- observe the Hill-bots treatment of Sanders and the creation of "Bernie Bros" as part of their strategy to kill any leftist movement within the DNC, thus handing the victory to Trump as the only populist on the list...) yeah, if you guys would turn your lens inward that would be great. take a frikkin look in the mirror and then think about how you failed as a communicator. I am an ugly american. I've started to become ok with it, as the village locals refer to me as "the American" I can joke about it with them in Portuguese...I grew up in the midwest, did 20 years in California and after over a decade of global travel for an odd line of work, find myself on a mountainside in rural Portugal where I realized that the local country folk have more sensible knowledge of how to live sustainably than most of the new-fangled "permaculture" folk who moved here to farm. In the end, I realize that its our media and self-image that's doing the most damage- we are lying to ourselves about who our country is and what its history is. Shame is not the desired end result, but a recognition of what has happened can allow for healing...
• said 10y ago
  We have read this piece 1000 times before. And for the 1000th time, it is necessary to say, "rural America understands that they are not your priority". The modern left finds it more virtuous to hire a wealthy black man or a wealthy white woman than to hire a poor white man. Rural America knows. In fact, and more people are coming to terms with the modern left's perverse priorities. Indian people? Indian people don't even exist to these costal elites. Indians are dramatically underrepresented in popular culture, but the left only cares about replacing white people in popular culture with black people. People like Mr. Thornton would never dare demand that we replace black people with Indian people where black people are overrepresented. You can keep lecturing poor white people about how backward and toothless and spoiled they are, while never daring to say a negative word about black people. You can keep telling poor white people to stop being tribal, while fomenting tribalism in every other group (except Indians). You can keep claiming to care about representation, while ignoring everyone but the groups that earn them the most virtue points. My Thornton, everyone is wising up to your priorities and the priorities of those in your wealthy costal social circles. Yeah, I'm bitter.
  • blub 10y ago
    And whose priority are those people exactly? It seems both parties are against social support, encouraging smaller, local companies or regulating corporate behemoths to protect citizens. USA is remarkably weak in supporting its less fortunate citizens. And just because someone is ignored, called racist and dumb it doesn't mean they aren't. From what I read as an outsider, many US citizens are in fact both. Any country has its share of such people and the US is huge, so of course there will be more. But now everyone should listen to them and stop calling them names and it's all gonna be alright somehow. The problem is education, and it will take decades to fix, if it can be fixed.
    • leereeves 10y ago
      > And just because someone is ignored, called racist and dumb it doesn't mean they aren't. From what I read as an outsider, many US citizens are in fact both. Any country has its share of such people and the US is huge, so of course there will be more. There are numerous racists on both sides. Among them, those on the left who believe social justice means hiring a rich black person before a poor white person. There are numerous dumb people on both sides. Among them, those on the left whose arrogance led to being utterly, devastatingly wrong about the election. We can only wait and see whether Trump was serious about helping middle America. He wouldn't be the first politician who failed to keep campaign promises, nor would his supporters be the first group to be disappointed by their candidate. But to dismiss him before he's even taken office is pure ignorance.
• edblarney 10y ago
  "I’m from the Midwest, and I love the Midwest, but it’s not representative of modern America" This is your political bigotry. BTW - the issue regarding 'Coastal Elites' not being 'true Americans' is not so much where they live - it's the fact that NYC, LA, SF etc. are highly transient cities - without multigenerational communities - they import culture, or create little bits of fleeting culture on their own. Large American cities are a new phenom in the West. Even in Frankfurt, Germany, it's still walkabout and people live near their families etc..
  • edblarney 10y ago
    Sorry, by 'political bigotry' I meant the assumption that 'The Coasts' represent what is 'modern' or in any way ideal.
    • serge2k 10y ago
      > I meant the assumption that 'The Coasts' represent what is 'modern' They do though. Multicultural, global trade centers, high tech industry. They are the modern world. That's a big part of the problem, there are places that haven't adapted and as a result are suffering. For a lot of people (say, the vast number of americans who live there) they are closer to the ideal than living in a town in wyoming or wherever. Same thing is true the other way.
      • edblarney 10y ago
        "They do though. Multicultural, global trade centers, high tech industry." No they don't. They represent a specific vision of the future. There are many people living very high standards of living all around Bavaria, Stwitzerland, Netherlands, Scandinavia - that are not part of 'city centres, multiculturalism, or high tech'. The future is whatever we want to make it.
• Inconel 10y ago
  "They had not seen the Apollo moon lander, nor George Washington’s Revolutionary War uniform. And they certainly have not seen the new National Museum of African American History and Culture." This quote really hit home for me. I spent part of my childhood in rural Texas as a new immigrant to this country. My parents were poor, although not as poor as some around us, and what they lacked in money they more than made up for in love. For this I will be forever grateful. I had a friend who would frequently have to come over for dinner because her mother was too strung out to pick up groceries. I had another friend who never owned a pair of shoes that fit properly until he enlisted in the Army. I'm pretty certain both of my friends would have loved to see the Apollo capsule and the assorted museums in DC. They were however, a bit preoccupied in trying to get enough calories throughout the day to maintain a healthy weight. It's been a while since I read something on the web that made me cry, the condescension displayed in this article has succeeded.
  • AdeptusAquinas 10y ago
    Really? You took a comment about people who lived next door to DC, where he lamented that they had no interest in visiting any of the cultural attractions available despite for them it being easy to do so, and decided to make that into a personal insult about poor families in Texas? That made you cry?
    • Inconel 10y ago
      Yes, really. Taken in the broader context and tone of the article and the memories it brought back of my own childhood, I found it dismissive of the struggles many poor people face that might prevent them from partaking in such trips and being exposed to different cultures, particularly as children who have little say in the matter, even if in that particularly case it might have been easy for the author's relatives to do so. Regarding my being moved to tears, I offer you my sincere apology, I'll certainly try and "man" up to keep my emotions from bothering you.
  • davmre 10y ago
    I think it's important to view this piece in the context of the recent election, where the median Trump supporter had a higher income than the median Clinton supporter. Yes, rural poverty is a thing and we should provide compassion and assistance to everyone trying to escape it. But that's not the family described in the article (who clearly did have the resources to visit DC), and it's not what swung the election. Trump got the votes of a huge number of middle-class, older white people, who have had many opportunities to venture out of their bubbles, to get to know their country better, to reach out to immigrants and the vulnerable in their own communities, and have just never bothered. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard, and work to empathize with the "cultural anxieties" driving rural Trump voters, just as they have never worked to understand the anxieties of their coastal/urban counterparts, let alone those of blacks, Muslims, and other persecuted minorities. But we shouldn't idolize them as "real America". They are a part of it, yes, but the real America is a much bigger, more diverse and welcoming place.
• ramblenode 10y ago
  I've lived in both places and each one absolutely has it's bubble. But to say that rural America is a special case is wrong. I've met prolific travelers who have gone up and down each coast but who would never think of visiting the interior--something they are quite proud of. "Real America" is frequently the butt of jokes, and the people there are caricatured or casually dismissed as less important. This is all really unfortunate. US politics won't evolve past a tug-of-war if the sides don't attempt to sincerely understand each other (and that is almost never the case). The worst part of this election for me was seeing how each side would immediately jump to the least generous interpretation of an ambiguous or unclear statement made by the other. Since language is rife with ambiguity, that virtually guarantees you see your opponent as consistently wrong, stupid, and evil. If that's what people want to see, that's what they'll see no matter the words. Bubble vision.
  • woodpanel 10y ago
    Agree. I happen to think that a lot of US domestic issues could be solved if Americans would accept the other side of "population-density" as equal before law. For example: The acceptance of Gun Laws are directly correlated to density as density makes dense policing more affordable. How is it so complicated arguing about this, when all you'd need is accepting that different areas should be able to loosen/strengthen gun control, as the populace wishes? How much of that inability to understand each other comes from the fact that media is usually produced in high density areas?
  • marmaduke 10y ago
    > each side would immediately jump to the least generous interpretation of an ambiguous or unclear statement made by the other This is the frustrating part; there's no dialog, and no one's motivated to have one because it would deflate the polarization which props up the two party system.
  • someguydave 10y ago
    This mutual ignorance is greatly assisted by 'traitors' like the one who wrote this article. He trashes his kith and kin because it increases his status with the low information coastal bigots. He could promote mutual understanding but he chose not to do so.
• sleepydog 10y ago
  Many countries, such as Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam, require all males to serve ~2 years of military service (usually not in the field, just training and drills). While there are ways for the most privileged to get out of it, the people who I've talked to have described meeting people from parts of their country that they had no idea about. I wonder if this idea could be applied to the US, making everyone 18-25 go 6-18 months of basic training and drills. You would certainly get to meet a lot of people you would not have otherwise.
  • ptaipale 10y ago
    Sure it is possible, and it was there, but the U.S. got rid of the draft after Vietnam war. And meeting everyone of your age cohort in the army conscription service is a revealing experience, I can assure you. More so than elementary school, because schools are like the areas where the pupils live; there is less diversity. To meet everyone is an experience. On the other hand, nowadays countries with conscription (like where I live, Finland) are not quite the same. The army here is more picky that before, so you actually don't see everyone. For instance, when I entered service (1986), only 2-3 % entered the alternative civilian service and 1-2 % were disqualified. Now 7 % go to civilian service and 2-3 % are disqualified (for medical reasons, etc). Thus, you have less pacifists in the army, and drug users and career criminals are excluded. The same would surely apply in the U.S. even if it had conscription.
• curiouscat321 10y ago
  While this thread is on the topic of stereotyping, I'd just like to point out that the entire Midwest is not on this rapid decline. If you look at Metro Detroit, the area's still one of the richest in the country and is thriving. In fact, the metropolitan areas in Michigan were the only parts that went blue. I appreciate that the author specifically mentioned he/she was from the rural Midwest. It seems like we need to establish more metropolitan areas in the Midwest (also better define the boundaries of that region) so that service jobs can be created there. Manufacturing allowed factories to be built anywhere. As it currently stands, it seems like service jobs require a large urban area.
• crdoconnor 10y ago
  As Bill Clinton once said (ironically enough): it's the economy, stupid. Mid-westerners accurately saw this election as a way to do away with job killing trade deals. If coastal elites were really serious about bridging the divide instead of talking down to unemployed midwesterners about gay rights they'd educate themselves about the TTIP, NAFTA & TPP and stop pretending that "a robot is going to steal those jobs" is anything more than an article of faith. Edit: kind of figured this would get no coherent response and more downvotes than upvotes :)
• snarfy 10y ago
  It's not because you met Dave. It's because you're an elite from the midwest that moved to the coast. How many of your small town friends moved out and went to college? The smart people move out of small towns for better opportunities abroad. What's left is a group of people struggling to make ends meet. About the only opportunity they have left is the electoral college.
• ainiriand 10y ago
  If you want the opinion of a fairly educated european white male, we see the rural US as a bunch of Cletus Spucklers. No offense. Trump's victory seems to be only the confirmation to this. I hope I am wrong.
  • Inconel 10y ago
    No offense That's rich. As a fairly uneducated, I have no formal education beyond high school, foreign born non-white American male who had the "luxury" of growing up in both rural Texas as well as a pretty crappy part of Houston and then Oakland, before Oakland was a refuge for well compensated techies seeking escape from high rent in SF, I'm curious how you see poor uneducated urban minorities, and what terms you would use to describe us?
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  • shaftoe 10y ago
    I think you'd find stereotypes of European males similar. If I may make a suggestion that has proven valuable to me as an American in the deep south: don't project your local politics and assumptions when understanding others. Only when you walk a mile in someone's shoes, do you realize most perspectives have a point and reality is fractally complicated. Oversimplifying viewpoints or dismissing them is objectifying and othering. We all do it, but the group that does it "for tolerance" is the one that just lost an American election.
  • alva 10y ago
    "fairly educated european white male". IYI And no, "we" do not all see rural US as Cletus Spucklers. You certainly do.
    • lorenzhs 10y ago
      I suppose "IYI" here means "Intellectual Yet Idiot"? That's not the level at which we lead discussions on this site. Save for the people who've actually been to rural America, people's opinion here of rural Americans certainly is very undifferentiated.
• chadcmulligan 10y ago
  Did anyone else make up BS answers to the questions they asked before you can read the article - what a waste of time.
• trynumber9 10y ago
  I still live in rural Wisconsin. I wanted to disagree from the title but after reading it I really can't. And I agree, we're not special. Rural Wisconsin went Obama in 2008. I didn't see a deluge of articles discussing the implications of the rural people. Wisconsin has been pretty close to the US vote, as a whole, for years. If your candidate wants to sway that vote maybe they should travel to the state at least once in the campaign. Well, it's just a thought.
  • huffmsa 10y ago
    You'd think she would have given that Walker has survived basically an election every other year. I've spent some time in Wisconsin recently and got the feeling that the people are hungry for something to be proud of (in their humble Wisconsin way). Something that they can point to (when asked) and proudly say it's a product of Wisconsin, it's people and industrious morality.
  • bduerst 10y ago
    As someone also from rural Wisconsin, I can tell you that the ignorance there is more palpable than ever. I'm not talking about record levels of domestic abuse cases, meth labs, or even leading the nation in DUI's. Rural Wisconsin has always had it's own issues in a charming sort of way. I'm talking about the sheer gleefulness with which rural Wisconsinites abandoned critical thinking this election. There was always a small spark of anti-intellectualism in rural Wisconsin, but this election was unlike any other in how the misinformation being spread fanned the flames of that rhetoric.
• throwanem 10y ago
  > the author is from Middle America; there is no 'they', it's 'we' Yeah, playing Uncle Tom isn't just for black folks any more.
  • namecast 10y ago
    Welp, here's your flag.
    • throwanem 10y ago
      Sorry, I don't follow. Is that an attempt at a Bill Engvall reference? If so, it's not "flag" but "sign". Otherwise, I'm afraid you've rather lost me. In either case, perhaps you'd care to explain in more detail what you mean by this rather cryptic comment.
      • namecast 10y ago
        "I have flagged your comment for moderator review, as you are using a throwaway account and spreading racially charged rhetoric in lieu of engaging in civilized discussion". I hope that makes things clear.
        • throwanem 10y ago
          A nearly year-old and fairly active user with a few thousand karma, making a point that you don't agree with via a phrase which you don't like. No doubt the black man from whom I learned it was racist. But of course it's always far easier to reflexively attempt to suppress, than to engage. I have gathered the impression in my time here that talking about moderation actions isn't really the done thing. In any case, I see no very probable way in which doing so will add value to the discussion, so you're welcome to the last word if you feel the urge to have it.
          • namecast 10y ago
            I don't feel the urge at all, actually, and since you're engaging in discussion now, I'll address you: I'm certainly willing to engage with you if you make a point that I disagree with - read this thread and my comments in it for proof of that - but that "phrase I don't like" is a racial slur, full stop, and the idea that you "learned it from a black man" fully excuses it's use in every conversation, in every venue and at any time you like going forward is, well, wrong in a way that I don't think you'd ever be able to accept. Consider editing your initial comment, and reflect on the idea that butting into a thread with a throwaway racial slur is perhaps not the way to get people to engage with you.
• hhjkjhkjhhlkj 10y ago
  > people who choose to develop a substance abuse problem Are you really this naive?
  • yummyfajitas 10y ago
    You should consider reading the HN guidelines. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html In your case, "Are you really this naive?" can be shortened to "".
    • subway 10y ago
      Since we're already breaking rules: Fuck off, mate.
      • dang 10y ago
        I understand the provocation but please don't make bad threads even worse.
  • dang 10y ago
    The comment you're replying to was being trollish both by making an outrageous claim as if it were a simple matter of fact and by brushing off suffering people's fate ('so what?') as if they don't matter. Nevertheless, your reply was an unsubstantive one that could only, and did, make the thread worse. Please don't roll snowballs down large hills with wet snow when there are people at the bottom. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12929868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12929868 and marked it off-topic.
• mirimir 10y ago
  The Trump victory looks a lot like Occupy Wall Street, I think, but the mainstream version.
• sebringj 10y ago
  Totally accurate IMO as I have relatives from the midwest but I can't imagine them reading this type of stuff, let alone agreeing with this. I have this hope the federal government will increase the power of states to have much more autonomy in their own laws so the ones pulling their own weight can do so unencumered. Let the other ones be better or worse off on their own accord and see where people move to as things get more extreme. Maybe that's a nice idea for a simulation.
  • ashark 10y ago
    > I have this hope the federal government will increase the power of states to have much more autonomy in their own laws so the ones pulling their own weight can do so unencumered. A lot of really nice things that already exist (at least somewhere) or may soon exist, like single-payer healthcare or universal basic income, don't work very well if you can't control borders and imports, which states can't do. Without actual sovereignty they'll still be subject to many of the same problems that make it effectively impossible for voluntary associations to address all sorts of important issues.
    • sebringj 10y ago
      I hate that I can't fix my misspelling of "unencumbered" as I wrote it around 2 AM... but to further explain my imagined and laymen view point in terms of politics, the federal government would be responsible for things like borders and constitutional rights etc. but step back on things the state legalizes that do not infringe on those basic freedom's such as weed for example and money toward scientific research or a carbon tax, etc, that the state's themselves can decide on. Even Roe vs. Wade and Gay Marriage can be up for grabs. The places that are backwards cannot force people to live there and CA and other progressive states will get all the good people anyway. The country cannot have a black and white approach, one-size fits all, obviously as it is so divided as the author describes. How can you have people living in the past dictating our future? It is dead weight. Try telling someone in the backwoods they have to have more restrictions on their guns from a perspective of being in a crowded city. It doesn't make sense to have the same laws everywhere although I still think the gays and women's rights are fundamental but that doesn't seem to be the consensus on the red states.
• austincheney 10y ago
  I live in a big urban area in the midde-west. I don't care about poor white people sadness or coastal elite arrogance. To me both of those are ignorant extremes in isolated bubbles. You people seriously need to join the military, live in foreign country for more than a year, or go shake a stranger's hand. Seriously... the level of ignorance and isolation demonstrated in some of these comments is dumbfounding. It college is your solution to "shaking it up" you are probably still really isolated.
• ryanackley 10y ago
  I'm tired of the idea that hicks and blue collar workers won the election for Trump. A majority of white male college graduate voters voted for Trump [0]. Clinton won less of the white female college graduate vote than Obama even after all of the Trump scandals. My take is that, sadly, there are a lot of so-called "elites" that care more about their own self-interest than social issues. In other words, people hate paying any amount of taxes regardless of where the money goes. One of the "dog whistles" that the media didn't pick up on was trump signaling that "hey, I'm rich too, I will lower your taxes if you vote for me". That being said, I am also sick of articles that say the Democratic party needs some reflection, introspection, etc. , It was an extremely close race. We did well but we didn't win. That is all. [0] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/clinton-couldnt-win-over-white-women/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/clinton-couldnt-win-over...
  • rayiner 10y ago
    Trump got about the same percentage of white votes as the last several Republicans, less in absolute terms because turnout was low.
  • awinder 10y ago
    The Democratic Party hasn't been competitive in the house for 6 years, was only able to pick up 1 senate seat in a very unfriendly election, and now, they can't win the presidency. Republican governors outnumber democratic ones by nearly 2-1. Republican state houses outnumber democratic ones by over 2-1. I'm sorry -- what was the part of the Democratic Party platform that's really speaking to America again?
  • humanrebar 10y ago
    > We did well but we didn't win. That is all. No campaign or party did well. If either were competent or wise, they would have won handily. This election was like Pat Buchanan running against Richard Nixon. I guess one of those two were bound to win if those are the options. Does that mean one side did well? Nope.
  • humanrebar 10y ago
    > We did well but we didn't win. That is all. No campaign or party did well. If either were competent or wise, they would have won handily. This election was like Pat Buchanan running against Richard Nixon. I guess one of those two were bound to win if those are the options. Does that mean one side did well? Nope.
• glook 10y ago
  I am amazed that this will be the first comment on this page that includes the word RELIGION.
• monkey88 10y ago
  This about rural America sitting in a time bubble, isolated from the rest of the world? This is true. Our dear values, the Aaron Sorkin kind of shows we love, are meaningless to a population that have always understood the city as a thing to visit one of these days, where multiculturalism is an impossible luxury, and where making do with tthe clothes from 5 years ago is necessary because the factory has been closed since that guy from NY bought it, dismantled it, and started importing the pieces from elsewhere. They are in the past, because that's what they have, and none of this media we tout and eulogize means anything to them, isolated from the world and only receiving messages from the usual populists messengers.
• kelukelugames 10y ago
  Trump supporters have have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing misogyny. They're bringing homophobia. They're racists. And some, I assume, are good people.
• kelukelugames 10y ago
  I grew up in Ames Iowa and my sister was born there. An adoptee and I were the only Asian kids in our class. There were a total of three in the entire school. I had at most two incidents related to race. Two is a lot fewer than the number of incidents I've dealt with in coastal cities.