Mastodawn

MicroWave Mar 2, 2024

White Rural Trump Supporters Are a Threat to Democracy

White Rural Trump Supporters Are a Threat to Democracy - Lemmy.World

In the popular imagination of many Americans, particularly those on the left side of the political spectrum, the typical MAGA supporter is a rural resident who hates Black and Brown people, loathes liberals, loves gods and guns, believes in myriad conspiracy theories, has little faith in democracy, and is willing to use violence to achieve their goals, as thousands did on Jan. 6. According to a new book, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy, these aren’t hurtful, elitist stereotypes by Acela Corridor denizens and bubble-dwelling liberals… they’re facts. The authors, Tom Schaller, a professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Paul Waldman, a former columnist at The Washington Post, persuasively argue that most of the negative stereotypes liberals hold about rural Americans are actually true.

Show thread

givesomefucks Mar 2, 2024

The electorial college is a threat to democracy.

But neither political party wants to hand that control over to voters.

We need a critical mass of progressive politicians in office before we can fix the system, which is why they’re everyone else’s biggest political enemy

Show thread

oxjox

The electorial college is a threat to democracy.

This is correct and the actual point of the story.

I read the MSNBC article about this book last week and came away with “Wyoming’s 600,000 residents hold the same influence as California’s 39 million.”

The frightening truth about the key demographic buoying Trump - Lemmy

As Trump heads toward the nomination, rural voters are once again the foundation of his support. In a statement that had all the enthusiasm of a hostage video, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, a “reasonable” Republican and occasional critic of Donald Trump, endorsed the former president this week. The two other “Johns” angling with Thune to be Republican leader when Sen. Mitch McConnell steps down at the end of the year — Sens. Cornyn of Texas and Barrasso of Wyoming — had already given Trump their support. Thune was late to bend the knee, but bend it he did. One more prominent Republican lining up behind the party’s inevitable presidential nominee is not shocking news. But the fact that Thune was so clearly reluctant to genuflect before Trump shows that someone like him — a rural-state Republican who’s very conservative, but not a MAGA bomb-thrower — is already an anachronism. In the kind of rural, overwhelmingly white state that Thune represents, Trumpism is the only game in town.