Urban vs Rural - 2

[timelets]

We [conservatives] prefer the “Real America,” which apparently means depopulated rural areas and moribund Rust Belt mill towns, outer-ring suburbs, declining mega-churches, Idaho, Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming. We aren’t even very sure about Montana these days. If by the “Real America” you mean the parts of the country where the people and the capital are, we are not quite so sure of ourselves.

Americans, in particular the younger ones, don’t seem to be getting the message. The best and brightest of them keep going to the colleges we hate, studying for the professions we hold in suspicion or contempt, and dreaming of moving to cities that we’d be content to see washed into the sea.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/conservative-message-to-residents-metropolitan-areas-must-improve/

And here's some data to back it up.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-really-popular-in-rural-areas-other-places-not-so-much/

Comments

[peristaltor]

To me, it points to something most pundits are afraid of: the rise of corporate capture of media. The rural places noted are awash in right-wing radio (especially on the AM band, which is seen as moribund by most).

Though there is, of course, such radio in less conservative areas, those areas are also places where people can talk to each other, thus providing a counter-balance to the paid placement of political concepts.

Since pundits are mostly paid for by the same forces that plant this bastion of conservative/corporatist thought, they are less likely to call it out.

[timelets]

It's way deeper than that. Here's a good conversation with Philip Auerswald about the urban vs rural divide http://www.econtalk.org/philip-auerswald-on-the-rise-of-populism/

He's an economics professor at George Mason, specializing on Governance issues.

[peristaltor]

I should have run when I saw George Mason (read Nancy MacLean's book yet? The econ department was developed specifically as a propaganda outlet); but in the spirit of learning something new, I listened. The conversation raises more questions than it answers.

Really? Roberts is part of something called the Library of Economics and Liberty? Jeebuz. And in the intro, I think Auerswald was described as someone who deliberately ignores social and governmental solutions in favor of biziness. Not hopeful signs for either, sadly.

I am glad that Auerswald mentions and praises the insights of Henry George, but then get dismayed when the two talk about real estate and pointedly avoid mentioning the very, very popular solution to the real estate problem that George effectively solved (in his 1879 book, which I highly recommend).

There was also an element neither of them seemed to consider: if urban areas thrive due to contact between people in real life, wouldn't non-urban areas falter and fail in exactly the way they seem to be failing when human contact diminishes through depopulation?

I'm standing by my original media critique, simply because nothing these guys have said takes the media into any account whatsoever. Typical of economist types who ignore empirical evidence whenever possible.

Nonetheless, thanks for the recommendation. One can even find nuggets worth considering in….