White Rural Rage

Why people who most want to rule are those least suited to do it ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ April 10, 2024  |  [Sign Up]( White Rural Rage “It is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.” – Douglas Adams [Reminder: In case you missed [our announcement]( The Essential Investor has merged with legacy contributors to Agora Financial. The new, larger, more inclusive project is called The Grey Swan Investment Fraternity. If you’re interested in the scope and benefits of our new endeavor, please see what prompted us to merge [here](. If you’ve been a member of The Essential Investor, keep an eye out for your new benefits.] Dear [Reader], April 10, 2024 – Yesterday, a civil rights group from Anne Arundel county, MD proposed that funding for the rebuilding of the Francis Scott Key bridge be held up until it’s agreed that the new bridge be named the Parren J. Mitchell bridge. Forget that Key penned the Star-Spangled Banner, says the group. Instead, focus on the fact that Key was a slave-owning racist. Their proposed honoree, Parren Mitchell, on the other hand, was the first African-American from Maryland to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. For their part, the “Freedom Caucus,” made up of House reps who come from a myriad of states other than Maryland, have blocked funding from progressing on the House floor until President Biden agrees to loosen restrictions on liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals in the Chesapeake Bay. Meanwhile, some 55% of respondents to a survey conducted by the London rag Daily Mail say they’re confident the collision that caused the bridge to collapse in the first place was definitely an “inside job.” In each of these three cases, the pontificants are preaching to their respective choirs. Around the mid-20th century, there was a phrase adopted by Madison Avenue advertisers and a rising class of political strategists. “Will it play in Peoria?” was thought to have come from touring bands of vaudeville and burlesque acts, because Peoria, Illinois was considered a “tough crowd” – dull, banal and provincial. If an act played well in Peoria then it would play well coast to coast. Comedians Sam Kinison and musicians Bob Dylan, Robert Plant, and Metallica reportedly refined their acts in Peoria before taking them on the road. Famously, John Ehrlichman, political strategist for Richard Nixon, told one reporter, “Don’t worry, it’ll play well in Peoria,” after Nixon announced a policy the reporter deemed calculated to upset Eastern elites. The phrase was already used to train marketing copywriters when we arrived  here in Baltimore. Although, by then, the phrase had been corrupted to “Will it play in Baltimore?,” because by the 1990s, Baltimore was supposed to have replaced Peoria as a representation of the mainstream. We never really understood that logic. By the 1990s, census-bureau data already showed 60% of the city were African -American. The percentage of black people nationally at the time was around 12%. But from a marketing standpoint, the color of peoples’ skin wasn’t nearly as important as the culture they identified with. Either way, the often bizarre accounts of people’s reaction to the collapse of the Key bridge and the political discussion around funding a new one reveal exactly how disparate news sources have become. And to what extent advertising and politics pander to their own audiences. Our industry, as my email box indicates regularly, is rife with the pandering type. Race is a tough issue. And, man, does it get abused… Below, we have included an article cum press release for a book written by Thomas Schaller, a  political science professor who teaches at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The book is entitled White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy. In it, he and co author Paul Waldman seek to identify a disenfranchised group of American voters: the group of white Americans who live outside urban or suburban areas that Hilary Clinton famously referred to as a “basket of deplorables” during a speech in 2016 while running for President against Donald Trump. At the time, it was clear she meant all possible derision she could muster for the benefit of her audience. Full disclosure: This Friday, a film called Civil War, by British director Alex Garland, is being released. In the trailer, one character who’s part of a militia advancing toward Washington D.C. as part of the plot of the movie questions a group of stragglers on a roadside. “What are you?” the militiaman says. “We’re American,” a dirty and frightened mother says. “Yeah… but what kind of American?” We’d fail that question and probably get a bullet in the eye. More on why, later. Enjoy ~~ Addison (Pre-order [Empire of Debt: We Came, We Saw, We Borrowed]( now available at [Amazon]( and[Barnes & Noble]( or if you prefer one of these sites:[Bookshop.org]( [Books-A-Million]( or [Target]( CONTINUED BELOW... >>ADVERTISEMENT<< Time to Sell NVDA? 50-Yr Wall Street Legend Weighs In Wall Street investors are selling their shares at a record pace. Even AI superfan Cathie Woods is offloading her shares. With the stock already up 63% in 2024 alone – is it too late to get in? One legendary stockpicker – with 50 years’ experience on Wall Street – just gave his answer, [here](. Including the name and ticker of his #1 AI stock to buy NOW. [Click here now »]( CONTINUED... Why ‘White Rural Rage’ Is a Threat to American Democracy [Thomas F. Schaller]( Author Rural white voters have long enjoyed outsize power in American politics. They have inflated voting power in the U.S. Senate , the U.S. House and the Electoral College. Although there is no uniform definition of “rural,” and even federal agencies cannot agree on a single standard, roughly 20% of Americans live in rural communities , according to the Census Bureau’s definition. And three-quarters of them – or approximately 15% of the U.S. population – are white. Since the rise of Jacksonian democracy and the expansion of the vote to all white men in the late 1820s, however, the support of rural white people has been vital to the governing power of almost every major party coalition. Which is why my co-author Paul Waldman and I describe rural white people as America’s “essential minority” in our book “ White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy.” As a political scientist , I’ve written or co-written five books addressing issues of racial politics at some level of government or part of the country. My latest, “White Rural Rage,” seeks to understand the complex intersections of race, place and opinion and the implications they hold for our political system. The unfortunate fact is that polls suggest many rural white people’s commitment to the American political system is eroding. Even when they are not members of militant organizations, rural white people, as a group, now pose four interconnected threats to the fate of the United States’ pluralist, constitutional democracy. Although these do not apply to all rural white people, nor exclusively to them in general, when compared with other Americans, rural white people: – Express the most racist, least inclusive, most xenophobic, most anti-LGBTQ+ and most anti-immigrant sentiments. – Subscribe at the highest rates to conspiracy theories about QAnon, the 2020 presidential election, Barack Obama’s citizenship and COVID-19 vaccines. – Support a variety of antidemocratic and unconstitutional positions and exhibit strong attachments to white nationalist and white Christian nationalist movements inimical to secular, constitutional governance. – Are most likely to justify, if not call for, force or violence as acceptable alternatives to deliberative, peaceful democracy. Let’s examine a few data points. Xenophobia In a Pew Research Center poll conducted in 2018, 46% of white rural Americans said it is important to live in a diverse community. That’s a lower proportion than urban and suburban dwellers and even nonwhite rural residents. And in rural areas, fewer than half the people said white people have advantages Black people do not , approve of the legalization of same-sex marriage, and say immigrants make American society stronger. In addition, Cornell researchers found that rural whites reported feeling less comfortable with gay and lesbian people than urban whites do. And 49% of rural LGBTQ+ people between the ages of 10 and 24 called their own towns “unaccepting” of LGBTQ+ people – nearly twice the rate of suburban and urban LGBTQ+ young people who said the same about their communities. Conspiracism Polls in 2020 and 2021 indicated that QAnon supporters are 1.5 times more likely to live in rural areas than urban ones, and 49% of rural residents – 10 points higher than the national average – believe a “deep state” undermines Trump. Rural residents are also more likely than urban and suburban residents to believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump , according to 2021 polling by the Public Religion Research Institute. And people who live in rural areas are also less confident as a whole than those who live in urban areas that votes will be counted accurately and fairly in their state or across the country, according to a 2022 poll from the Bipartisan Policy Center. In addition, by our analysis, of the 139 U.S. House members who voted to reject the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election just hours after a violent mob of Trump supporters rampaged through the Capitol, 103 – 74% – represented either “purely rural” or “rural/suburban” districts, as categorized by Bloomberg’s CityLab project. Antidemocratic beliefs A scholarly analysis of multiyear data from the American National Election Studies project finds that rural citizens are “ much more likely (than urban residents) to favor restrictions on the press” and to say it would be “helpful if the president could unilaterally work” without regard to Congress or the courts. In addition, more than half of rural residents surveyed by the Public Religion Research Institute said being a Christian is important to “being truly American” – 10 percentage points more than in surburban or urban areas. This is one of several signals that rural residents are disproportionately likely to support white Christian nationalism , an ideology that reaches beyond Christian ideas of faith and morality and into government. Its followers want the United States to base its laws on Christian values rather than maintain the centuries-old separation of church and state the founders saw as fundamental to a secular democracy. Justification of violence Rural residents are more likely than urban or suburban residents to say the political situation in the country is heading to a point where violence may be necessary to preserve the nation, according to polls from the Public Religion Research Institute in 2021 and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics in 2022. Of the estimated 21 million Americans who in late 2021 said Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential win was “illegitimate,” according to the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, 30% lived in rural areas . And 27% of Americans who say Trump should be returned to office even if “by force” are rural residents. Those are minority views, but both proportions are significantly higher than the rural proportion of the overall population. With the 2024 election fast approaching, the views of rural white people are once again of vital importance because they and the members of Congress who represent them disproportionately believe the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump by Joe Biden. A Pew Research Center study found 71% of rural white voters voted for Trump in 2020 , so their preference in November will be key to who returns to the White House for a second term. ~~ [Thomas F. Schaller]( author [White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy](. Addison Wiggin, The Wiggin Sessions P.S. “Greetings,” writes Joe W., who’s off to a good start. “I joined the Grey Swan because I was looking for insights on investment opportunities, and yes my thinking is in line with you and others in the Grey Swan family.” All good. “But…” Hmn. There’s always a “but.” “I'm done with these (not just yours) but others that I'm also going to cancel for the same reason. I have a great stock investment for value and some growth. I'm finding that I'm spending several hours a day reading the same things from the newsletters just worded differently. I have a solid Plan B and feel like I need to take a break and recover my time moving forward.” Hmm. We’re sorry to see you go. Our aim with Grey Swan is to provide more than a community of like-minded individuals. As readers who continue with us will learn, we also plan to share opportunities for saving one’s bacon in the fiscal and political morass the U.S. is barrelling towards. (Pre-order [Empire of Debt: We Came, We Saw, We Borrowed]( now available at [Amazon]( and[Barnes & Noble]( or if you prefer one of these sites:[Bookshop.org]( [Books-A-Million]( or [Target]( Please send your comments, reactions, opprobrium and vitriol to: addison@greyswanfraternity.com The Daily Missive from The Wiggin Sessions is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We do not rent or share your email address. 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