The Entitlement of Rural Americans Has Got To Stop.
Rural geography does not entitle anyone to outsized political influence.
There is a deeply ingrained pattern in American politics: the contradictory blend of resentment, entitlement, and cultural stubbornness that dominates the mindset of many rural communities.
Our federal government pours billions of dollars every year into rural communities, agriculture, infrastructure projects, broadband access expansion, and plenty more to explicitly benefit those living in more rural, disconnected areas. Rural citizens, instead of acknowledging the progress that has been made to accommodate their lifestyle out in the sticks, have employed a perpetual victim mindset which leads them to believe that the federal government is solely comprised of evil people who wish to see them all die (Take “Don’t Tread on Me” and “Still a Rebel”, for instance) and scoff at all the work that is routinely done for them despite their objective reliance on federal money to survive.
Allow me to say that many rural communities are suffering from real problems, including declining access to healthcare, shrinking job opportunities, and crumbling infrastructure. These are not small issues, and they deserve national attention. But the way these struggles are being politically weaponized and culturally misdirected is what fuels the toxic entitlement I’m calling out.
Rural communities receive more back from taxes than they contribute. This comes in the form of postal service maintenance, Medicaid, social security services, agricultural and infrastructure development, etc. Federal aid disproportionately benefits rural areas. When I talk about entitlement, I’m not only talking about economic entitlement (which, for the record, shouldn’t stop. Spending federal money on increasing the standard of living in underserved communities is a good thing, whether they agree with it or not). My main issue lies in the cultural and political mindset of rural citizens that leaves them demanding services whilst resisting taxes and opposing the government despite being dependent on its support.
Seriously, what’s with the 'limited government' obsession? I get that some rural voters don’t have access to the same quality of education as people in cities, but that doesn’t preclude them from making informed political decisions or researching and debating their opinions before settling on them. The real problem is a political culture that rewards knee-jerk tribalism and punishes curiosity. Said political culture has left many rural citizens with a distorted view of how the rest of the country actually lives, and how deeply they depend on it. This is largely present in the “Make America Great Again” movement, a political phenomenon which enjoys the extreme support of rural reactionary populists across the country who believe that the main issue affecting their lives is immigration when they’ve never seen a brown or black person in their 98% white county before besides their colored friend from high school whom they still preach about to this day when confronted about their racism.
This is especially visible among older rural citizens who decry "socialism" while living off Social Security and Medicare. No, the U.S. isn’t turning into a Soviet state just because you're receiving a $1,300 retirement check. And no, you're not politically silenced because your vote doesn’t dominate a diverse metropolitan area.
Despite their shrinking populations, rural areas also wield outsized political influence on a national scale, particularly through systems like the Electoral College and two-per-state U.S. Senate system that give a disproportionate advantage to rural states. Even then, rural communities seem to believe not enough is done to represent them federally. They seem to believe that their vote should matter more corresponding to the amount of land they live on. Have you ever had a discussion with a rural Republican? It’s common in rural discourse to hear the idea that urban voters are ‘ruining’ democracy as if landmass should determine political legitimacy more than people. Living in extreme physical isolation fosters a sense of political and social detachment, one that often translates into dehumanizing rhetoric about people in cities, immigrants, and anyone seen as ‘other.’ They feel entitled to better political representation despite the fact that only 17.9% of America lives in a rural area (Yet, they occupy 97% of our land area.) This leads to a sort of resentment-driven nationalistic tendency, where they believe in a great America so long as all of it looks like their small town in Bumfuck County, Nebraska, which went 94% for Republicans in the last election.
This resentment leads many rural Americans to believe that urban citizens enjoy an elitist, entitled, classist attitude themselves despite cities driving economic innovation, cultural progression and advancement, higher education standards, and tax revenue. They find people who live in cities “un-American”, despite living within the same borders as them their whole life.
When this topic comes up, one thing I look to as an example of the reinforcement of rural delusions is the media and political narrative that rural America is the “real” America. That the vast emptiness between our coasts where not many people live and thrive is what actually represents our people.
I currently live in a small town in Western North Carolina. It sits a few minutes to a half hour from the border of the Charlotte Metropolitan Statistical Area. Let me tell you this: Rural America is, in no way, representative of the actual spirit of America or what it stands for. In any small town you visit, the people there will be extremely rude behind your back—and if not, to your face. Public spaces in rural areas are often unsafe for women due to a lack of oversight, addiction issues, a corrupted local police force, and social stagnation—problems that go unaddressed because leaders are too busy fixating on so-called “cultural threats.”
They will (particularly the older women) pretend to be benevolent to get on your good side and personally excuse all of their abhorrent behavior with the notion that they are a good person because they feed people who come to their house or love kids.(See the Taylor Swift lyric: “I disguise my covert narcissism as altruism like some kind of Congressman.”)
They constantly involve themselves in pointless domestic disputes at the hands of alcohol because there is no recreation or entertainment — everyone drives to Charlotte to actually do things. The infrastructure is crumbling. The youth flee upon graduation from high school.
Gen-X women are either so obsessed with the notion of independence that they become actual assholes and pass it off as “just not caring what anyone thinks,” or they exist to serve their husbands, who all have drug convictions. It’s just all around a mess.
This isn’t just my town either—there’s a remarkable cultural homogeneity across rural America, not because of some grand conspiracy, but because isolation tends to produce insular values. This isn't true of every person or town, but it’s true often enough to notice.
Another issue that arises in these communities is their vehement social regression and refusal to progress despite demanding economic relevance. They will push back on green energy and lambast it as a “Marxist policy” despite the fact that rural communities would, objectively, economically and socially benefit from solar and wind development. They refuse DEI initiatives despite the fact that no one is coming to work in their town in the first place and everyone is flocking to the cities as they handicap themselves in the name of sticking to tradition or preserving their town as is. If Rural America refuses to evolve, it will go extinct within the next few decades, and I’m not sure whether the negatives or positives in that event would be more pressing.
If rural areas want better support and political representation, here are a few options:
a) Promote Reciprocity. If you want support, you should engage constructively with national goals and ambitions instead of holding all of America back off of the notion that immigrants, gay people, and Democrats are ruining your lives, when, really, it’s you. Holding yourselves back from progress because you feel a greater commitment to holding onto a tradition that is escaping you by the day is wrong and the opposite of what you need to survive. Ancient Times in a Modern Land is an album title, not a viable lifestyle.
b) Commit to Shared Responsibility. America is one of the largest projects of all time, and the support and commitment of all of its citizens is necessary for it to succeed. We all have an equal responsibility to promote and uphold the principles of our economy, of democracy, of liberty, of culture, of justice, and of hegemony.
c) Quit Dehumanizing Other Americans. City dwellers are people too. They deserve political representation just as well, and nothing constructive will come about to benefit your communities if you use your voice to further divide an already politically polarized country. Of course, saying so is a little hypocritical of me given the contents of this article, but I do mean it. We all share this country, and challenges face each one of us every day. If we do nothing to meet those challenges with a united front then they will continue to grow and grow until, eventually, they consume us.
Of course, this is not to say that rural communities do not face issues that need to be addressed. Job loss, a lack of healthcare access, education deficits, and infrastructure abandonment are all real problems that are actively attacking the very soul of rural communities. These hardships, however, are often politically weaponized and used as a talking point instead of being considered as a real issue, by politicians and citizens alike. Rural citizens will harp about how one side of the aisle is doing too much to protect LGBTQ+ people and not enough to fix their roads, so, in turn, they use the lack of attention placed on them as an excuse to act bigoted towards minority communities and try to remove them from the equation altogether. We need to consider, though: Why is so much time being spent on silencing these minorities instead of actually working to address the problems faced by these communities? What happened to bringing down grocery costs? Why are we starting game shows where immigrants compete for fast-tracked citizenship instead?
This divisive rhetoric is only fueling the lack of attention paid to rural areas and their needs, and rural people are allowing themselves to be used as a stepping stool for people to get into office and “solve” these “issues” that, in essence, have no bearing on these peoples lives. Rural citizens are not solely to blame, for this, though. In fact, if anything, you can’t blame them so much for being constantly lied to. The blame rests with the politicians who continually insult the intelligence of their constituents and purposefully keep them uneducated so that they will continue their blind support for their irrational, reactionary policies, and…yes.
Urbanites are partly to blame for this issue as well.
By continually downplaying issues faced by rural communities and acting as if we are superior, urban citizens fuel the contempt that rural citizens already have for them and cause rural citizens to turn to people who promise to solve their issues instead of “ignoring” them. While many politicians from urban areas attempting to enjoy a semblance of crossover appeal will act like they care about these issues, the negatively polarizing figures will usually be the candidate’s voter base rather than the candidate. At the same time, however, rural citizens undermine their credibility by making their primary focuses reactionary responses to third-rail issues instead of voicing concerns about the pressing problems that actually affect them.
This is not to say that rural Americans should be forced to adopt progressive social values. We are a big country, and getting everyone to agree on one thing, especially something as divisive as the LGBTQ+ or abortion is nearly impossible. However, these issues should not be a large focus of rural communities, and it certainly should not be a primary political concern. What should matter to rural Americans, and what would help them gain a large part of their political credibility back, is focusing on voicing concerns over issues that actually affect them, like poor infrastructure or lack of resources to maintain a good education.
The urban-rural divide won't heal overnight, but it also won't change unless rural citizens prioritize education, self-reflection, and civic engagement—and unless urban citizens stop projecting superiority that only fuels rural defensiveness; Tribalism thrives on mutual contempt. If both sides confront their own biases and listen more honestly, the result would be a stronger, more unified America.