State politics are often little more than a reaction to national politics crossed with support for moneyed interests like car dealerships and some grandstanding

State politics are often little more than a reaction to national politics crossed with support for moneyed interests like car dealerships and some grandstanding/boot-licking race-to the bottom job policies. National politics really sets the tone, context, and priorities people are aware of, especially so in an era when most reporting and commentary is national in scope and local information is often via word of mouth and social media. I do think it's true that in many rural-dominant states you can't blame a state-level urban elite, and that's not really what I intended to suggest in my comment (though I do think in "blue" states there very much is such a dynamic, witness Jefferson, rural sheriffs flatly stating they won't enforce various state laws, etc.). Frankly, I don't think blaming an urban elite at a national level makes sense either, as I don't believe what I referred to is at all intentional. That said, I think the examples you list of things subsidized may also be examples of things that are likewise slightly misplaced priorities in terms of the larger picture. For example, I'd imagine (though I don't specifically know that) agriculture subsidies mostly go to large enterprise farming operations and have little trickle-down effect to many every-day rural people. Likewise, subsidizing rural infrastructure seems like it may be necessary regardless of any significant benefit, though it's once again highly speculative on my part (for example, I'd guess fire-fighting services require significant external subsidies in some areas, but also don't have tremendous effect on the day-to-day life experiences of average "locals"). My previous statement is also why I think the election of Trump may be an important milestone in solving some of their problems: namely I think (hope) he may be a gateway to the realization in certain quarters that what were presumed to be their problems and solutions actually aren't, leading to a significantly reformulated and broadly unified national consensus. (Yeah, probably a pipe dream...)