Read on Twitter
Because of the geographic biases created by the Senate, Democrats need to do better with rural white voters on empirical—not normative—grounds if they want to govern. But despite all the hot takes from the left & center alike, it's completely unclear what the best strategy is.
I grew up in a rural white area. I know rural whites who were inspired by Bernie and I know rural whites who were inspired by Clinton/Biden. But I know a lot more rural whites who hate all of them.
This is perhaps the biggest problem. Do many rural whites value their racial status above their narrowly conceived economic interests? Yes. But it's not impossible for at least some such people to vote on other grounds, given sufficient incentives https://twitter.com/l_eckhouse/status/1324395296617422848
I would also like to see more qualitative studies on the political information environment in rural areas.
The One Weird Trick of northern New Deal liberalism wasn't making white people less racist, it was convincing a bunch of them to at least treat their class identity as a bit more salient and vote accordingly in respond to very concrete economic benefits https://twitter.com/l_eckhouse/status/1324404708660768768
I'm thinking here more in terms of CIO unionism, not southern New Deal politics.
