January 1, 2024
A view of rural America as a font of white privilege--and of resentment that the privileges aren't greater. Political scientist Schaller and journalist Waldman open with an example taken straight from the headlines: the uproar over Jason Aldean's song "Try That in a Small Town," with its implied promises of retribution in a "fantasy of vigilante violence meted out against urbanites supposedly ready to bring their criminal mayhem to the idyll of rural America." While it's true that rural America has been suffering, rural Americans haven't exactly helped themselves. "There is no demographic group in America as loyal to one political party as rural Whites are to the GOP that gets less out of the deal," write the authors, showing how this situation arose because no rural political organization exists to make the vast region an object of true interest for either Republicans or Democrats. Schaller and Waldman come close to blaming the victim in that analysis, but, as they painstakingly document, rural white Americans actually enjoy outsize influence in such things as electoral votes, to say nothing of the increasing rightward radicalization of the GOP. It's no coincidence, they note, that nearly 75% of the votes opposing the certification of Joe Biden for president came from rural congressional districts. There's a certain vicious circularity at work: With few news sources reaching out to rural audiences, radio is king, and radio is almost invariably hard right in orientation, eager to fuel the resentment that comes from the sense that the "real America" is disappearing in the face of demographic change. So it is that while white rural America is getting poorer, sicker, and more isolated, it's also getting angrier--and that anger is poisoning the rest of the nation. A book of broad explanatory power that's not likely to help mend any fences.
COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
January 1, 2024
Acknowledging the real and worrisome state of political disaffection in America, Schaller and Waldman outline why and how rural voter disaffection is especially problematic. Four factors have led to what the authors call white rural rage: despair over a lost past and little hope for a better future, outsized representation that skews self sense of power, xenophobia, and media triggering. These factors transmogrify into the threats of racism, xenophobia, anti-urban disdain, and anti-immigrant sentiment, all of which create a stew of anti-democratic discontent that often manifests in violence. So, while white rural voters often fly American flags, as a demographic they are also prone to taking matters into their own hands rather than adhere to the constitution. The authors are especially deft at pointing out the important differences between rural whites and rural people of color. The only way out of the morass, they write, is to bring all rural folks together, leaven the discontent, disconnect from media that feed conspiracy theories, and form a political movement. The only hope is to replace rage with action.
COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.