White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy
White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy answers the question, do white rural residents have legitimate reasons for feeling neglected, disempowered, and disadvantaged? Of course, the answer is yes. Rural whites in the US could have exceptional political power, but as long as approximately 70% automatically vote Republican, a party controlled by the wealthy, Republican politicians can avoid a rural agenda that might actually better the lives of their supporters. The book contains a chapter on culture wars followed by a discussion of the politics of Trump and his MAGA followers. The book concludes with the theme that rural whites have become conditional patriots.
This book is solely about the United States, but political scientist and journalist Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman write that the supporters of Trump, Orban in Hungary, Brexit in the UK, the Alternative for Germany, and the National Rally party in France typically reside in rural areas.
Eighty percent of the American population are urbanites; 15 percent rural white; and 5 percent rural nonwhite. Rural and urban may once have been discrete categories but now they are a continuum. A county at the extreme rural end of the continuum is very rare, perhaps impossible now. Their different voting patterns are, according to the authors, a new phenomenon that has come into existence since 2000.
Latinos – in other words, Christians who come in all colors – should be easy to assimilate. Why then are economic immigrants and political refugees from South and Central America so problematic? It is the exaggerated fear of being swamped by a foreign culture. Our ancestors did overwhelm an indigenous population not that long ago. It can still happen. The force that drove voters to Trump was feeling culturally threatened, especially in “fly-over states,” which is most of the nation.
Hyper-masculine, embittered and a descendent of German immigrants, Donald Trump was the ideal candidate of rural whites despite his radically different lifestyle. The uniqueness of authoritarian populism, which Trump represents, is that it “not only focuses on a conflict between ‘the people’ and the elite but also rejects democracy, as democracy might enable those who are not like ‘us’ to win and hold power” (p. 236).
The title of this book, in my opinion, suggests a level of anger (or danger) that may not be as strong as the authors believe. Apathy is more common than rage. When I visited my Indiana hometown in 2018 after a 15 year absence, I did not hear rural rage. No one wanted to talk about politics of any kind other than an artist with an MA degree. I returned days before the 2024 Presidential Election. Signs promoting candidates were rarely displayed. Perhaps signage was unnecessary because there was little to debate. The state was going to back the Republicans.
The town is located in a county which has a population of slightly less than 10,000. The US Census defines geographical areas as rural if they have less than 50,000 residents. I was visiting a classic rural county although one with beautiful natural amenities. You could argue that my experience should be ignored. It’s nothing but an anecdote after all. Alternatively, you might conclude that Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman rely too much on the political expressions of activists, a tiny minority of the national population. There, is the anger. Prime news values are novelty, negativity, and deviance. This is selective attention that can lead even educated outsiders astray.
The unemployment rate in the US ranges from 1.8% (South Dakota) to 5.8% (Nevada). The Indiana unemployment rate is 27th out of 50, but the rate itself is not very high (3.9%). Nonetheless, I could see in southern Indiana that urban decay, historically associated with the downtown of large cities, had arrived in small towns.
Heritage buildings in southern Indiana were being neglected, replaced by vacant lots or buildings with less charm than the Victorian originals. Earlier, it had been possible to see the contrast in the exterior of houses where the owners lived and houses that were rental property. But in the neighbourhood where I spent my childhood there are now abandoned houses that have become firetraps (including my grandmother’s home), rentals that badly need painting, restored century-old houses, and houses built in the last ten years. This range of housing did not exist here before circa 2000. Houses in the countryside, however, have never been so luxurious.
The local newspaper had disappeared and been replaced by an electronic alternative whose editor copes with fewer resources. Police reports listed arrests for meth labs. Obesity is common. Rural residents have shorter lifespans due to diet and insufficient exercise. This general decline in the quality of life is not due solely to globalization, although the closing of factories is significant.
Immigrants go where jobs are available, usually urban areas. Consequently, the rural population continues to be overwhelmingly white but given the ethnic diversity in North America, the societal prestige of British and Northern-European heritage may have diminished. In my hometown there are now one Chinese restaurants and three Mexican. There were no ethnic restaurants earlier. The population is still 96% white.
Another characteristic of the present era is brain drain and loss of entrepreneurial spirit because children go off to college and never return unless there is paid employment for the highly educated. The Artistic and Music Director of the Houston Grand Opera grew up in this town. Of course, he lives in Texas.
I’m told loneliness has increased, although it is difficult for people to admit this; and that participation in voluntary associations is not what it used to be. The town lacks places for informal socializing. Profit-oriented businesses provide relatively few places for adequate socializing and community gatherings. Indeed, it has never been easy to entertain yourself in small towns and in the country. Church attendance declines due to secularism and disputes over official beliefs.
The present socio-economic situation is in some respects ironical. It is not rural residents in overwhelmingly white areas but urbanites in ethnically diverse cities coming into close contact with newcomers, who have the most positive opinion of immigrants. Secondly, Schaller and Waldman are correct that white rural Americans, despite thinking they are invisible, are in the eyes of many fellow citizens the “essential minority.” Their mythic status comes from the idea they are the real Americans because of their continuous heritage back to the English founders of the nation, a view that ignores value differences over the generations.
Third, you could argue that rural whites are potentially more influential in politics than any other minority group in the nation. Think about the organization of the Senate. California and Vermont have the same number of senators. Think about the gerrymandered boundaries of political districts which gives Republicans greater influence. And so, rural whites imagine, correctly, that they are relatively disadvantaged and Trump taking advantage of this perception has become “their voice of anger.” What rural whites do not seem to understand is that the benefits they get from the Republican Party are more emotional than financial. They are “angry when they should be constructive, passive when they should be engaged”.
It is not surprising that there are strident disputes over culture as a sign of group identity. Both American political parties essentially agree on economic issues. They support private enterprise but differ about the ideal size of government. For people who are not political nerds, privatization versus government services may not be an exciting topic. It is easier to get enraged about group identity, us versus them, and ignore the similarities and fuzzy boundaries. Debates about gender, religion, sexual orientation, and public education can outweigh socio-economic class in influencing people’s voting patterns when “we” feel invisible.
Another potential concern is the authors’ misunderstanding of the consumers of mass media. One tradition in the social sciences emphasizes the intelligence of average people. Intellectually active audiences, that is average TV viewers, are smart enough to critique the content they see in the news. Audiences take what is personally useful and consistent with their own opinions. They do not naively believe everything they hear. It appears that Schaller and Waldman assume audiences are unrealistically passive.
Despite those qualifications, I highly recommend White Rural Rage. It is very professional, scholarly but reader-friendly thanks to collaboration with a journalist. I appreciate the way Schaller and Waldman explain the present situation in such depth, but nonetheless admit that the anger in the countryside still seems a bit incomprehensible because it is so irrational. The authors offer a solution for the present situation, but it is unfortunately left at an embryonic stage. They advocate the creation of a multi-ethnic rural political movement. Defining the goals are left for the future – hopefully for another book by Schaller and Waldman.
