Going Rural

Everyone wonders, “How can Democrats win rural voters again?” At least in LGM comments, the answer seems to be “Fuck rural voters if they don’t agree with my personal values,” which isn’t good politics at the very least. But you have to do engage rural voters. I’d recommend starting by not creating batshit ballot measures to ban hunting. But more to the point, I was struck by this quote from Michael Ignatieff in this article about the success of Peter Magyar in defeating Victor Orban in Hungry.

I“In 2015,” recalled Ignatieff,

was asked what it would take to defeat Orbán and replied that a leader would have to get out of Budapest and its cafés and go out on a rainy Thursday night to a small hotel or sports hall in the countryside and take the villages and small towns away from Orbán simply by showing up over and over again for two years. And that’s what he did.

I mean, yes. That’s what Democrats have to do. Get out of Austin. Get out of Iowa City. Get out of Bloomington. Get out of Missoula. Go to rural places again and again and again and again and again.

This is why the rise of Troy Jackson in Maine to replace Platner fills me with some hope. This is a guy who has nothing to do with Portland until he hit the state legislature. He was a guy from the forests. You can actually reach out to rural voters by prioritizing the values you can agree with. It won’t be all the values. But it will be some of the values. And then, like with Jackson, the values of those politicians change as they learn more. It’s a positive. And while it sounds cliche, it is the only way you are ever going to win back rural (or for that matter, white working class) voters in this country. Seems like a good strategy to invest in.