Healing the Rural Urban Divide

A lesson in Civil Discourse

Welp. It happened again.

            With the final election of this cycle – the runoff between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker—we see the same map that we have seen across all of America. Urban areas are blue (democrat) and rural areas are red (republican). Why is that and why is the difference so stark and consistent?

            My oldest daughter who lives in New York City has a theory. She believes that in cities, which are so reliant on things like public transportation and government services to keep things running smoothly, people are forced to co-mingle, to get to know one another. On every city block there are people of every color, religion, economic class and nationality. She and her husband are happy living there with their two children, the older one of whom goes to public school.

            A lot of people I know out here “in the country” look at New York City as both a place of awe (Broadway!) and a place of terror (crime everywhere!). I am somewhat in the middle (my Pennsylvania county swings back and forth between blue and red and is currently blue). I reside primarily out here in PA but have spent enough time in NY over the years to have had to pay taxes there. Compared to the 1970’s, crime is practically nothing in New York City. The most fear I feel regarding Manhattan is the traffic getting in and out of the tunnels. So yes, I am a democrat.

            But I’m not going to lie. I have personally felt and witnessed the New York media elitist disdain for us country folk – even though many of them originally came from the country! So I can understand some people’s frustration with the media.

            Out here in PA I live on the edge of red and come in contact with republicans on a constant basis. Especially over the past few years, as I have been having a significant amount of work done on my almost 20-year-old house. An addition. Many, many repairs. A few upgrades. Over the past few years I’ve had hundreds of “worker guys” (because yes, there has only been one woman out of all of them) come through and spend time here. We don’t start out talking about politics. But a few of them ask me if it’s true that I knew Greg Gutfeld, the late-night talk show host on Fox News. Yes, I knew him. He worked for my company in his early days and was both funny and horribly mean even back then. He was fired and no one I know was sad to see him go.

            I don’t argue politics with these workers because I need them. I need them to work on my heating and electric systems. I need them to pour concrete and apply stucco. I need them to paint and trim and build and sometimes tear things down. I need them and their digging machines to move earth that needs to be moved. I need them to hunt on my land to keep the deer population under control. I can’t—we can’t—survive without the people who build and repair things for us. (Not all of them are republicans, but many are.)

            So I talk to them. I ask them questions. I try to understand their position. Most of them are super hard workers who go home at the end of the day exhausted and too tired to do much other than eat dinner, have a beer, turn on the TV and watch sports and maybe Fox News. In their free time they like to hunt and fish. And I realize they need me too because I pay them.

            But not all republicans out here are trades people. I recently discovered that the guy who has done my taxes for my whole life is a Trump supporter. We had a fairly long conversation about it. At the end of it he said he appreciated my willingness to talk with him without getting angry. I laughed and told him that the only thing we can truly agree on is how great the songwriter Leonard Cohen is. But seriously, many of the wealthy republicans I know are more concerned with taxes being low than whether other people can afford medical care. (For the purpose of this post, I will not even discuss abortion and the divide around that – that’s deserving of its own post at some point.)

            One of the most interesting conversations I had was with a legal Romanian immigrant (now a citizen who has always paid his taxes) who has a stucco business. It’s a super hard job. He had to carry buckets of stucco up a ladder three stories high to repair a part of my house. One day I will also do a whole post on this guy and his theory based on his experience, but suffice it to say he said that neither republicans or democrats wanted to truly solve the immigration problem because if they did, it would result in exorbitant food prices, which no politician wants to see on their watch. Which reminds me, all the urban people really need the rural people who grow their food! I don’t know how this guy votes, but I learned stuff from talking with him.

            Which brings me back to the divide. Reality is complicated and requires deep thought and work to understand. It’s much easier for politicians and the media (including Elon) to try to simplify and create controversy to get people all riled up. Immigrants! Caravans! Guns! Abortion! Inflation! Taxes! War! Fauci! Democrats I know find it hard to understand why so many people voted for Herschel Walker. My theory? Football! He reflects the celebrity culture that appeals to many people in rural areas where the TV is their main and often only connection to the outer world. For many of those people celebrities still hold a magical, almost cartoon-like appeal that provides an escape from their own troubles.

            Fortunately, younger people have found other ways to connect to the outer world through social media, which does tend to expose us to newer ideas and different perspectives, if used with intelligence. And it was the younger people who made the difference in the most recent election cycle (thankfully, I might add).

            So, how can we heal the rural urban divide? As one worker guy told me just yesterday: Civil discourse. How do we have civil discourse?

1.     Listen.

2.     Don’t judge.

3.     Ask questions to learn more and understand.

4.     Agree to disagree.

5.     Find things to agree on and be grateful for that.

6.     Laugh together about it all.

My youngest daughter who is still too young to vote goes to a great school and a recent assignment was to write letters to a pen pal in a different state. When I mentioned I was going to write about this topic, she let me know that it was the very same topic she had just written a letter about. So I’d like to quote her here:

“In the county that I live in, we have some of the most swinging populations of democrats and republicans, this means that local elections hold a lot more power for our community. The main issue with this divide is the amount of conflict that arises around politics. I see this conflict in my own neighborhood every day, and it’s even worse right before an election. I’ll be driving, and I’ll see a sign poking fun at Biden, or an official republican sign, and the next house over has pride flags and official democratic signs. This is what I see every day, and it’s sometimes strange to see these contrasting opinions so close together.

This difference in opinion will never go away, but I think that the ability to be more tolerant is key to making a community that works together. Political views shouldn’t keep neighbors from enjoying each other's company, or keep families divided at reunions. Even though the town I live in is large, the communities are built around smaller establishments, like a gym, a coffee shop, churches, even restaurants. This community brings together people around a common interest, and I feel that making sure a community can bond despite separate political beliefs is crucial to making sure our country thrives through democracy and does not become violent in unnecessary ways. I do understand that violence is almost inevitable in a lot of these situations, but maybe by building more tolerance in communities the amount of conflicts could be decreased.”

I love my kids! And I don’t mean to ignore my middle daughter, who lives and works in Massachusetts which is a solidly blue state. Her challenges are different. She works in a town where many highly trained people (mostly scientists) who work there can’t afford to live there. (She currently rents a room in a house.) Her issue is less about political divides, and more about class and financial divides. Which just goes to show that it’s always something. But without something, there would be nothing.  And nothing is kind of boring.

But the bottom line is that no matter how we vote or where we live, we need each other!

Let’s talk about it! What do you think? What am I not seeing that I need to see?

Toby the concrete form builder guy and I bonding over a snake he found in the wall.