I’m a Coastal Elite from the Midwest: The Real Bubble Is Rural America
I&#x27;m also from the rural Midwest. My home county [0] is 97.3% white. It also went heavily for Trump (72.95% vs. 21.88% for Clinton) and claims three astronauts. Enrollment in my high school for 2013-2014 was 552 [2]. The population of my home town has dropped by about 10% in the last 25 years (est. 4,252 for 2015). Basically, I have a lot in common with the author and can relate to where he&#x27;s coming from.<p>Let me add a bit of context, however.<p>I don&#x27;t live there now, although I&#x27;m not too far away. Most of my family still lives there but, roughly 15 years ago, I moved one county to the north, and now live in Bloomington, Indiana, which is much, much more diverse.<p>My hometown, as I mentioned, is overwhelmingly Republican. Regardless of who the Democrat was in the presidential race this election, they almost certainly would have lost my county. Suprisingly, there were a lot of folks in my hometown who did not care for Trump. At all. To them (and me), it truly came down to &quot;the lesser of two evils&quot;. For many of them, that was Trump.<p>I&#x27;m lucky enough to have traveled a fair bit. I&#x27;ve been exposed to much more &quot;culture&quot; and &quot;diversity&quot; than many others I grew up with (who still live in my hometown, of course). My thoughts and beliefs have changed tremendously. I consider myself fortunate to have &quot;gotten out&quot;.<p>A lot of my friends and family &quot;back home&quot;, however, are the same as they&#x27;ve always been. I agree with the author when he says that us rural folks need to &quot;get out more&quot; (paraphrasing, of course).<p>I&#x27;m trying to avoid going on a way-too-long &quot;defense&quot; of &quot;rural America&quot; but I do want to mention one thing in particular. Immigration and globalization are huge issues to many folks here. They don&#x27;t care much for foreigners and the &quot;Mexico issue&quot; is a big deal. You know why?<p>Even though the population of my home county is only ~45,000, I personally know several hundreds (possibly into the thousands) of people who have seen their (manufacturing) jobs disappear. My mother&#x27;s last day of work -- after 30 years -- was just about two months ago. Her employer, after moving ~3,000 jobs to Mexico over the last 15 years, finally shut down for good... and that&#x27;s just one company. Her fiancee will also be out of a job in a year or so. His employer is also moving operations to Mexico (his previous employer did the same). We&#x27;ve had several other companies around here do exactly the same thing.<p>The primary reason for the 10% population drop in my hometown is because a manufacturing company shut down and moved out. This area has probably lost 10-15k jobs in the last 20 years. No, they aren&#x27;t high tech programming jobs making six figures, but they made a decent enough wage to support a family. People get bitter when they lose their job to someone who will do it for 5-10% of their wage.<p>This causes them to not care for &quot;corporate greed&quot; or the party that allowed it to happen (Secretary Clinton&#x27;s husband is the one who signed NAFTA into law, remember). So no, they don&#x27;t care for corporations or large government or the typical politician. They also don&#x27;t want Hillary coming for their guns (yes, I&#x27;ve had that several times in the last month or so).<p>I&#x27;m not trying to &quot;pin the problem&quot; on any one group in particular and while I do agree that rural America could benefit by &quot;getting out more&quot;, perhaps coastal America could try, just a little bit, to understand <i>WHY</i> rural America feels and believes the way it does.<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lawrence_County,_Indiana" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lawrence_County,_Indiana</a><p>[1]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wbiw.com&#x2F;local&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2016&#x2F;11&#x2F;lawrence-co-general-election-results.php" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wbiw.com&#x2F;local&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2016&#x2F;11&#x2F;lawrence-co-genera...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Mitchell_High_School_(Indiana)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Mitchell_High_School_(Indiana)</a>