I have been talking since 2016 about how Democrats and really the whole country needs to do more for America’s rural white working class.
White rural Trump voters are not all racists. They have genuine economic grievances. Their factories have closed and their farms have been bought up by Big Ag. If we show that we truly care, then Democrats can even recruit rural white voters. Workers of all races, in the country and the city, unite!
That story has gotten harder to tell after 1/6. Insurrectionists who broke into the Capitol were mostly white, working class, and largely rural.
But what exactly did they ask for? More jobs? Better trade agreements? Fairer immigration rules with better enforcement? Tax reform and government programs to help working families make ends meet? A $2,000 stimulus payment?
Trump wasn’t even good for working people, including the mostly white workers in rural areas:
The “war on workers” waged by this president has received far too little attention. From making the workplace more dangerous to overseeing the longest period without a minimum wage raise to judges and justices who nearly always side with corporate bosses over workers, Trump’s anti-worker agenda is as bad as or worse than the Republican presidents who preceded him. His callous attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act would devastate poor workers if successful while delivering a huge tax cut for the rich Americans who need it least.
But you’d never know that from the turnout at Trump’s attempted coup. Nor from the things that protesters said.
I heard “Stop the Steal” and “take back our country” and give us four more years of Trump. Your media is rigged, your courts are rigged, your elections are rigged — but we’ve got guns and you can’t stop us. We “real Americans” deserve to rule more than libtards and people of color do.
After years of feeling disrespected, we’re going to show them who’s boss.White rural working people need to go beyond the language of MAGA. The rest of us don’t understand it. And no amount of guns will be enough to make us change our minds. Or to cow us into submission.
“Yeah, but Antifa and BLM” is also not an answer.