The urban archipelago ... https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-urban-archipelago/Content?oid=19813 https://twitter.com/pbump/status/1326377844574973961

Cities produce the vast majority of economic & intellectual activity in this country, but whatever you do, don't repeat that, much less show any pride in it, lest you be accused of insufficiently venerating America's furiously mythologized ruralites. https://twitter.com/MarkMuro1/status/1326195182056902657

Countdown to one of the aforementioned ruralites telling me that rural areas "feed the cities" ...

If urbanites are given equal democratic representation, ruralites will get in a snit an stop feeding them, and they'll all starve, staring helplessly at the empty Starbuck sandwich cooler ...

... seems to be the implied threat.

The irony being that the bulk of rural farmland is owned by a handful of extremely large corporations run by wealthy Republicans who live in cities.

The other irony being that the most florid & demagogic claims made on behalf of ruralites come from Ivy League-educated Republican politicians who also live in cities.

The final irony being that the massive program of reinvestment that would be required to renew & revitalize America's rural areas is being pushed hardest by the left side of the Democratic Party. It's called the Green New Deal, and the ruralites hate it.

Of course, what they hate is a deranged fantasy version of the Green New Deal in which cows are illegal, windows are shrunk, and electricity costs a jillion dollars a kWh, but no one in their world, no one who they trust, is telling them anything different, so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯.