I wanna call some hard bullshit on this "left behind rural American" narrative that’s been circulating through every media source this year. They weren't left behind. They got off the bus. Everything they're talking about now, the outsourcing, the lack of infrastructure, the fact that the old jobs are dying, etc. was talked about long LONG before Trump was known for anything but mutilating the NYC skyline.
I hear so many people from rural areas squawking and complaining about how their infrastructure is soooo bad but what have THEY done to fix it? Nothing. Anyone who proposes doing anything about it gets shouted down by the Infowars conspiracy brigades that think ANY public investment (outside of high school football) is part of some grand plan to herd people into FEMA camps or some other junk, the anti-tax whiners, and the people who are opposed to the existence of government in general. Every single time. I've sat in on these council meetings. It's fucking funny. They say they want good infrastructure but the minute it's proposed you gets screams of "MUH TAXES!" That's why their infrastructure is crap. Rural America's chickens have come home to roost. You can't neglect your infrastructure for 60 years because you want to keep your precious taxes low and expect it to remain in good shape. Infrastructure costs money.
Low taxes or infrastructure. Choose one.
Outsourcing could have been curtailed too. John Kerry made that a key part of his platform in 2004. But the locals wanted someone "they could have a beer with." They were mad about gay marriage (despite none of them being affected in the slightest). They were mad that John Kerry wasn't “manly enough.” Plus, at the time, outsourcing was seen as an urban problem. A problem for "those people."
When urbanites, particularly in places like Cleveland and Pittsburgh, were saying "Hey maybe we should make outsourcing harder," in 2003-2004, many people in rural America told us that we should stop being lazy, get off our butts and learn new skills. Stop expecting the government to protect our jobs and revive dying industries they said. Move to where the jobs are.
They said that companies should have the freedom to outsource jobs and screw consumers. They were secure in the knowledge that the bad stuff would only happen to the big immoral cities. Outsourcing and corporate corruption (like say, and I'm just using an example from my backyard, an energy company concealing, with the help of the state government, a coal ash spill that contaminated wells and rivers) would never happen in "God's country."
And then it did.
And rural America has the audacity to blame "urban elites." They say the government doesn't do anything for them but they keep saying that the government is pure evil and should be toothless for anything except fooling around in foreign conflicts. Which is it?
Sorry, as a city dweller, I'm tired of hearing this whole "rural whites have been ignored" horse crap. Your entire thing is that you WANT government to be weak and useless. Don't bitch at us city folk when your government can't do anything to help you. You didn't want it to.