THREAD: The most common rebuttal to my Politico article has been “Yes but what have R’s done for rural America?!?!" and "Why do you blame it all on D's?!?" Here are my thoughts on that question. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/01/democrats-rural-vote-wisconsin-441458

1) R’s have done little to benefit rural Americans & have contributed to an economic system that treats rural communities like resource extraction zones. The difference is R’s are speaking directly to rural Americans. They are telling a story. D’s are not telling any story

2) Economic despair I describe in my article creates a situation where people look around and try to figure out what is happening to them. They reach for stories to help them make sense of the reality they are experiencing.

3) People in my community are mostly hearing stories that divide us along racial, geographic, and partisan lines. There are few if any other stories being heared in my community that have explanatory power to compete with the prevailing story. We need to start telling stories.

4) A story has a plot, characters, and a moral. A story connects with emotions and speaks to experiences. A story clarifies the world and help us see ourselves more clearly in it. Policy plans and campaign slogans are not stories.

5) Stories also have villians. R’s tell us the villian is other working people who look different than us. D’s need to be crystal clear that the villian is a system – propped up by corporate bosses & corrupt politicians – that enables the economic plundering of rural America.

6) So if you are asking “what have R’s done for rural America?” You are missing the point. The question is which party is telling a story that speaks to the pain and stress of feeling begin trapped on an economic treadmill, running faster, going nowhere.

7) There’s the saying… if you aren’t telling your story then someone else will tell it for you. This is what is happening with D's in rural America right now regardless of who has the best policy plan.

8) Example, talk a dairy farmer. Work 80 hrs/week only to teeter on the razors edge of profitability. If you went to work everyday but didn’t get a paycheck, struggled to feed your family, then you might also feel pissed off and want to burn things down.

9) So if D’s want to win rural areas, they need to learn to see pain. They need to look it in the eyes with an empathetic and non-judgmental heart. And then they will understand how pain shapes the way people in my community understand politics.

10) My purpose in writing the article was to ask D’s to look in the mirror, do some soul searching. My hope was to encourage D’s to take responsibility for where they need to improve and can do better. Instead I hear the old mantra “But R’s are worse!”

11) There is a strategic opening for D's right now. They could carry the torch of economic populism. Name the villian in the story. Connect with the real pain felt by legit injustices of rural people who are working and working more and more for less and less.