With Election 2024 coming up faster than a salmonella and ipecac shake, the political landscape is going to get contentious in a hurry. And nowhere is it getting more contentious than on…MSNBC.
Yes, our good friends at the cable news equivalent of Vox are already sounding the warning bells on the possibility of Donald Trump becoming President again, and their crack talking heads (or talking heads on crack, I can never tell) have figured out what the Left has to overcome: rural America. From a recent “Morning Joe” appearance by Chris Matthews:
I think voters have got to take their hand in this election and don’t wait for the government to do it. Because, you know this election is going to be close. And it’s going to be very close in places like Pennsylvania, and you’re gonna have rural people out there voting their craziness about the cult.
In case you were wondering, the “cult” Mr. Matthews was referring to was…Trump voters. Yeah, I was shocked when I found out, too. And by shocked, I mean shocked someone took Chris Matthews out of cryogenic storage to appear on MSNBC.
Regardless of whether you think Trump voters are in a cult, this little snippet exposes how the Left feels about people who don’t live on the coasts. And it means I have another topic for the Lexicon.
rural America
What the Left thinks it means – a bunch of uneducated rubes who need smart people with the right politics to run their lives
What it really means – people whose voices the Left love to silence or ridicule
For purposes of transparency, I have lived in Iowa my whole life, so I would identify as a rural American. Granted, I don’t have Puddin’ Head Joe’s phone number on speed dial or access to all the most elite dinner parties on either coast, but I do know the people who have the attitude Mr. Matthews expressed usually haven’t been to a rural area for more than the time it takes to get a Starbucks.
Which means most Leftists. But speaking out of abject ignorance is on brand, so they see nothing wrong with it.
The problem is…there’s a lot wrong with it. Painting rural America as a swath of rabid Trump supporters misses the mark. It also misses the Matthew, the Luke, and the John, it’s so off base. The thing about rural America is how diverse it is ideologically, philosophically, and yes, even racially. We’re not all white people here, and we’re definitely not all conservative Republicans.
Take Iowa, for example. As of November 2023, the Hawkeye State is pretty evenly split, with Republicans and that powerhouse of politics Unaffiliated taking the top two spots, and Democrats in a close third place. That doesn’t exactly scream “Trump Republican stronghold” to me. And it certainly doesn’t sound like a cult, unless it’s the world’s lamest cult.
Things get even more murky when you consider the Midwest as a whole. Although it’s mostly a sea of red, there are states like Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota that buck the trend, and they are certainly rural, or would be considered rural by the MSNBC morons. Yet, in their haste to whip up hysteria about Trump 2.0, they ignore the reality on the ground in those states.
Unfortunately, there are enough people unaware of the reality ready to believe rural America is like the bumpkins on “Hee Haw” only dumber. Including a former Senator from Missouri, Claire McCaskill. On the same show Matthews made the “rural cult” comment, she agreed with him, saying:
…if you are not on Donald Trump’s bandwagon, if you’re not a member of the cult, then you just stay quiet.
And people wonder why she’s no longer a Senator. Oh, wait, it’s because she’s a moron!
Anyway, both Matthews and McCaskill mirror the Left’s attitude about rural America, which has been pretty much a constant since I’ve been an adult. (Biologically, not emotionally.) The Left believe if it doesn’t happen on either coast, it’s dumb and needs to be converted to the “correct” way of thinking. And they’ve been pretty successful, converting states like New Mexico and Colorado from red or purple states into blue ones. They accomplish it like people who get STDs get them: they fuck people. And not unlike the aforementioned STDs, once one person/state gets it, pretty soon another one gets it.
But look at the bright side, kids! Pretty soon all states will need shit maps like San Francisco! Then we’ll all be equal! Won’t that be awesome?
The thing is rural America might not be the intellectual and ideological pushovers the Left thinks it is. People from the backwoods and gravel roads have a lot more life experience than Leftists do, and that shapes who they are more than any college curricula can. They worship God, they hunt and fish, they drive beat-up pickup trucks, and they know the value of a hard day’s work. And, yes, they have different political beliefs. You’re just as likely to find a farmer who votes straight-ticket Democrat as you are a farmer who votes straight-ticket Republican.
And the best part? These two farmers can be friends and/or neighbors without it descending into “Summer of Peace” style anarchy. That shit’s on you coastal Leftist motherfuckers. We may not walk in your circles, but we may not want to in the first place. Rural America is a simpler existence, but not an empty one because we don’t have what Leftist cities have. In fact, I think we might be better off that way.
Should Donald Trump become President again, Leftists won’t change their opinions of rural America. They’ll only quadruple down, saying Trump won because rural America is stupid as they point out the number of “smart” people who voted for Puddin’ Head Joe and Kamala “Word Salad” Harris. Just remember, some of those “smart” people came from rural America and found their way into your ideological bubble in spite of it. To have know-nothings like Chris Matthews, Claire McCaskill, and the entire MSNBC network from top to bottom paint rural America as some right wing feeding ground is not only insulting to me, but should be insulting to every Leftist in rural America who is fighting to bring a little more East and West Coast into the Midwest.
So, to the Leftists who think rural America is a vast intellectual wasteland, I offer two invitations. The first is to come to one of our rural communities and spend six months to a year here. Then, you can see what goes on here and be better informed. Maybe you’ll even like it enough to stay.
Should you reject the first invitation, I formerly invite you all to shut the fuck up about rural America. Thank you. Fuck you. Bye!
