Rural America

I have to take issue a bit with this characterization of the importance of rural versus urban America in the political process. One of the claims is that rural America, particularly the part that are actually farmers, is too tiny to justify the attention the media gives to it:

[O]nly 17% of Americans live in rural settings anymore. Only 2 million of those people work on farms or ranches (USDA figures). Hell, only ten percent of the average farm family's income even comes from farming.... [W]hy in the name of John Deere's Blood-Soaked Wood-Chipper Gears, every time I hear a news report on what "real Americans" think do I wind up watching some farmer in their fifties and sixties bitch as they survey the blasted plains landscape behind them, and not only that, somehow their cultural observations are assumed to have more relevance than anyone else's?... [H]ow did we get to a point where this report may as well have started: "Hi there, Carol, we're about to talk to people twenty years older than the average American living a lifestyle less than one in five average Americans live ... to find out what the average American thinks" and somehow nobody blinks an eye?

There are four times as many Americans living in urban than rural areas.

I am biased - my brother is the third generation in my family working in the tractor business and I have relatives who are farmers, I worked my way through college partly by waiting on a parts counter at a tractor store - but I think it's a mistake to ignore the large number of people these "middle America" voices represent. In a state like California, cities like Woodland, Redding, Red Bluff, or Chico in the north; or Fresno, Visalia, Madera, or Merced in the south understand how dependent their economies are on the farm economy. There are more businesses than you might realize, belt and bearing shops, diesel mechanics, fertilizer providers, hydraulics, banks involved in agricultural finance, pump sales and repair, crop dusting services, truckers, insurance agents, and so on, and so on, that rely on the agricultural economy for their survival. More than that, there is a cultural tradition in these areas that is not limited to farmers or even to rural areas that embraces the ideals that you hear when farmers speak. I can think of many, many people who do not live in what we would classify as rural areas, family in Sacramento come to mind, who certainly are not farmers but grew up around it and still feel a part of that culture and embrace its ideals. I don't mean that they would support price supports, etc., they may or they may not, I mean that they share more fundamental social values. In any case, the somewhat dismissive view of rural America within the post is one that will do nothing to bridge a gap Democrats have had trouble closing. I am not a political scientists and apparently others disagree with me, and California is a telling example because votes in the larger cities tend to carry elections (same with Oregon and Washington), but I am worried about dismissing these areas as unimportant, and about how the current Democratic candidates will play in these areas once push comes to shove in the days ahead. Part of the post I didn't quote talks about how well Hillary will do in "middle America" and expresses optimism that it's a right-wing myth that she will have trouble, but I think she has lots of work to do yet to win over these voters and gain their full confidence. I am admittedly doing something you shouldn't do - generalizing from my own experiences - but I grew up in areas where farming had a large influence on both the social and economic fabric and I have been frustrated with the degree to which Democrats have been able to connect with people living in these areas. Maybe they don't need to, the urban population does dominate and "middle America" is quite set in its ways, but I think its a mistake not to try.

Comments

[save_the_rustbelt]

If you want information, ask a professor.

If you want it to hear the plain unvarnished truth, ask a farmer.

If you want common sense, ask a plumber.

If you want wisdom, go to the VFW Hall and ask the guys with the Purple Hearts and Bronze Stars.

[anne]

I am slow of understanding, having noticed the post and not getting what it was about. The question seemed to be whether Hillary Clinton could appeal to rural voters (who may not play video games as I do not city voter though I am). My worry is whether Clinton can appeal to me unless she takes a decided stance for peace in Iraq and the Middle East. So, count me as from Wyoming.

[Mark Thoma]

I think there were two questions, the one you stated "whether Hillary Clinton could appeal to rural voters," and also whether we should even care given how small a chunk of the overall picture rural voters represent.

[mp]

Bravo! Dismiss the farmers at your own peril. He's an economist; he should know that.

Sidebar: Funny, but I don't see Republicans or Democrats dismissing the 1/10 of 1% who fund their campaigns.

[anne]

When I began to read Franklin Roosevelt speeches, I was struck by the emphasis rural emphasis from the earliest approach to Presidential candidacy on through the Presidency. I have not forgotten this, and would find no contradiction in doing so still though we are so much more urban.

John Kennedy, I know, made a point of reaching to rural interests and John Edwards made a similar point though to relatively less effect. I find no inherent contradiction, based on population density or cultural differences that should be straining.

[anne]

There is no bias in being fair to the needs and interests of rural households as to urban, I find no necessary division due to population density though we understand shifting power relations. Fortunately there is a Senate as well as a House of Reprersentatives nationally and often in the states. We are interdependent creatures though we might wish not to be. The health of the countryside effects every city dweller.

Nicely argued.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Most of the farmers I know never miss a vote.

[D_rumsfeld]

Professor,

I believe you should read the post in full. The original author is not at all dismissive of "rural culture" represented by an older farmer. The original author was dismissive that the "rural culture" of farmers in the heartland of america somehow is more representative of America than that of some college kid playing World of Warcraft or your typical Yuppie urbanite. In terms of sheer numbers, he certainly has a point.

Why are the views of latte-sipping urban dwellers, video-gaming adolescents, and other non-romanticized demographics somehow not representative of America? That's the rant he gave and your post completely misses that issue. The plight of rural America notwithstanding, they have no more insight into what being American is than the effete urban dwellers.

[Mark Thoma]

I suppose I didn't take the complaint all that seriously becasue I don't think that an interview of a farmer every once in awhile offsets all the urban influences that exist in the media, nor does it change to any significant degree their interpretation of data/events. The media is, largely, in NY and DC and the idea the their vision of America is through a rural lens is hard for me to swallow. DC talking points, polls, NY Times editorials, all sorts of things have more influence than these interviews with some farmer on a tractor somewhere. Political power most certainly resides in urban areas. I just don't buy the premise and my argument was the opposite - that it would be a mistake to dismiss or overlook these areas (as some seemed to be suggesting would not be much of a problem).

In any case, the people I have in mind have kids who play video games and they are quite familiar with the Starbucks culture, probably stop there or someplace like it to and from work. I don't think that really gets at the difference so, I'm not sure what those measures signify.

[anne]

Well, I had no idea what the original garbled post was about, and do not really know now, so I focused on whether Hillary Clinton would pledge to end the war in and occupation of Iraq, which is what city me wants an I hope country me would wanr as well, but I suspect Mark Thoma was right.

[S Brennan]

I suspect the good Professor is right, but that doesn't stop me from throwing this log on the fire:

Monday, October 08, 2007
Nix the Farm Bill
- by Robert Reich | 3:52 PM |

I’ve got a way to reduce global poverty, decrease the number of workers crossing our borders illegally, save American taxpayers money, and cut your supermarket bill -- in one fell swoop. How? Get rid of US farm subsidies and tariffs.

They were supposed to be a temporary remedy for small farmers during the Depression. But, renewed every five years regardless of which party controls Congress, farm subsidies keep going and going. They've been costing taxpayers some $11 billion a year. The Senate is now considering the latest version, and it's hardly better than what's come before.

Look, I have no problem insuring small farmers against major losses. But farm subsidies go mostly to big agribusinesses that hardly need them.

But the big problem isn't just the waste of taxpayer money. Americans -- including the US media and even Washington politicos -- tend to regard agriculture policy as the exclusive domain of legislators from farm states. Yet our farm policy is the single most damaging thing we're doing to the world's poor. Ending farm subsidies and tariffs would be the single most important thing we could do to reduce global poverty.

Fewer than 2 percent of Americans even work on a farm. Yet about half the population of the developing world depends on farming for their livelihoods. They can’t earn what the global market would otherwise pay them because America’s subsidized farm exports keep prices artificially low.

American cotton growers, for example, export cotton for just over half what it costs them to produce it. Which means more than 10 million African cotton farmers are stymied. If we stopped subsidizing our cotton businesses, world cotton prices would rise, increasing the value of cotton exports from Africa by some $300 million a year.

Meanwhile, the average American tariff on agricultural imports is 18 percent – much higher than the 5 percent average tariff on other imports. So not only do the world’s poor suffer because of our outdated farm policies, but Americans get hit with a double-whammy – we’re subsidizing US agribusiness with our tax dollars while paying some $35 billion a year more for our food than we’d pay if we didn’t also protect agribusinesses.

Our farm policies are even encouraging illegal immigration into the United States. That's because many of the world’s poor who can’t earn enough by farming are desperate to immigrate – legally or illegally – to richer countries like America.

Message to the U.S. Senate: You want to fight global poverty and illegal immigration? You want to reduce the budget deficit? You want to give American consumers a break? There's no simpler first step to accomplish all these things than to end farm subsidies and tariffs.

[Kaleberg]

I've lived in cities. I've lived in suburbs. Now, I live in a rural area.

Rural areas, agricultural and resource oriented, are heavily subsidized by latte sipping urbanites and degenerate suburban video gamers. The people out here know it. If they lose their subsidies, they have to give up a lot - roads, law enforcement, businesses, schools, young people who might want a future. Even with subsidies, it's a fight keeping things going. That's why rural voters tend to vote for rural subsidies, even as they yammer about self dependence and death to welfare mothers and government waste. That stuff is just projected self loathing. No one likes to take charity.

The issue is real. Somehow, farmers, meth lab operators and other rural types are seen as more authentic, more American than the vast majority of Americans. Are the vast majority of Americans fake, non-Americans? When did the saucers land? I've heard people talking about poor Americans when they were talking about families making $45,000 a year! By that standard, over half of all Americans are poor.

Sure, the rural community has issues, and there are good reasons to subsidize it, but there are lots of Americans out there, and they are just as authentic and American as all the others.

[William Smith]

Prof. Thoma,
I think D Rumsfield had a broader point about the original post, which was to distinguish between farming culture (culture of farming communities and areas) and culture of farmers (culture that the small farmer is the typical or real American). The broader point isn't DC or NYC view most Americans as such, but the media there does view themselves and the citizens of the Eastern seaboard as exceptional (with all the hidden meanings) while the 'middle American' is a small-town farmer.
Put into Northwest terms, the difference is like that between Eastern and Western Washington. The people, the economy, the money, etc are all in Western Washington (Seatte-Tacoma, etc) but the 'average' person is much more akin to someone in Eastern Washington farm country.

[Mark Thoma]

Yes, I'll admit to saying what I wanted to say without paying enough attention to the original argument.

[richard]

If anything, rural American is over-represented, at least politically.

The 100 senate seats added to the electoral college give representation to the Plaines states much in excess of their population, as well as biasing the senate towards agricultural interests.