The Revenge of Rural White America

This is the story of the election:

“It was supposed to be the year of the Latino voter. Unfortunately for Hillary Clinton, white rural voters had an even bigger moment.

Now Democrats are second-guessing the campaign’s decision to largely surrender the rural vote to the GOP. With their eyes turned anxiously to 2018, they’re urging a new strategy to reach out to rural voters to stave off another bloodbath when a slew of farm-state Democrats face tough reelection battles. …”

Everywhere we look from Iowa to Maine to Pennsylvania to Wisconsin to Appalachia, we see the same story of the rural surge. Rural Whites overwhelmingly voted against the cosmopolitan coastal elites. The 2016 election was a racial, cultural, and class divide.

Hillary Clinton bridged the ethnic divide between rural Whites in the South and Midwest:

“Rural white America has staged a political rebellion unprecedented in recent American history, propelling billionaire developer Donald Trump to an astounding presidential victory.

The result is essentially a repudiation of Washington and overthrows a pundit class that, as late as Tuesday afternoon, thought Hillary Clinton was poised for a tight but clear victory. A Republican surge undetected by virtually all polling kept the party in solid control of the House and Senate as well …”

It is what it is.

This is a big change. Just look at Trump’s 10 point victory in Iowa. Maybe it was the assault on Christianity? Maybe it was the total cultural alienation of the Heartland?