Objectively Speaking....

First -- yes I am predictable -- it is utterly bizarre to write on this subject & barely mention right-wing media, which has utterly captured rural America & is filling its head with lies & conspiracies. There's no way to understand what's happening without understanding that.

— David Roberts (@drvolts) February 17, 2022

Second: it is also bizarre to write a story like this without noting that, in general, there are *fewer* rural Americans & the only reason their votes are so important is that the US constitution gives power to land, not people, & they're spread out over more land.

— David Roberts (@drvolts) February 17, 2022

But why would that be? As you move closer to dense city centers, you find voters that are producing more GDP, are more educated, have more accurate views of the world, are more involved in culture, art, & learning, have lower per-capita GHG emissions, are more diverse, on & on.

— David Roberts (@drvolts) February 17, 2022

And yet, go back to the original piece. That's not urbanites disdaining ruralites, it's the opposite! It's diverse urban populations being effectively invisible in political media in favor of bi-weekly check-ins with MAGA hats in rural diners. It's faux populism all the way down.

— David Roberts (@drvolts) February 17, 2022

One might think it striking -- worthy of comment! -- that the nation's most educated, its high-skilled professionals, its scientists & scholars, its non-white working class, its minorities & single women & immigrants ... have utterly rejected the GOP. Seems like a thing!

— David Roberts (@drvolts) February 17, 2022

So we get this story -- "Why aren't Dems more popular with people who believe they are an organized global pedophile ring?" -- again & again & again & again.

I have no solution. But it's real dumb for a wealthy advanced technological culture in 2022 to be operating this way.

— David Roberts (@drvolts) February 17, 2022

On the one hand, yes, it is dumb for a wealthy advanced technological culture to be acting this way. But that's the culture of the people setting the narrative. It's not the culture of the people addressed by the narrative.  Which establishes the "two cultures" nature of this problem.  

I'm still unclear on this "land over people" argument that makes the rounds.  First, that's a feature, not a bug.  When the Constitution was written, this was a rural nation.  We didn't start to become an urban one, at all, until the mid-19th century (i.e., barely 100+ years ago).  Whitman wrote about it; as did Poe.  Thoreau lamented the enroachment of technology (the train) that we're all nostalgic for now ("this train's got the disappearin' railroad blues").  Texas was a primarily rural state until almost 20 years into my lifetime.  This idea that cities should rule because that's where the people are is a curious one, because while the cities of Texas are all Democratic enclaves (as are some of their counties, now), Texas is still a red state.  Because we value land over people?  No, we have a handful of statewide offices (more than some states, but there you are; we elect everybody here).  But city-dwellers just don't vote, and that gives the rural areas far more clout.  Even Harris County, which elects Democrats almost county-wide, has federal districts and state districts (for representatives and senators) that elect Republicans.  I don't know what you do about that except to concede that it is, after all, a representative government.  It represents the people who actually vote.

And yes, voter suppression is real, but so is voter disinterest.  I'm old enough to remember when 18 year olds getting the vote was going to change the world!  Yeah, not so much. Voter participation really is the Holy Grail.

That said, this thread is a fine rebuke to the journalists on Twitter who all insist there is no "narrative" and they have no idea what their critics are talking about.  Especially the "we only report the facts" crowd that insists Democrats must "reach out" to "rural America" (because, as the thread says, they are the "real" Americans, an idea that dates back to the 19th century rise of the cities in what had been a rural country), while refusing to see the elephant in the room:  FoxNews and Newsmax and Q-Anon and Facebook, because to notice that is, somehow, to engage in "opinion."  So long as "Dems in disarray" and "Dems losing rural voters" is an acceptable narrative, it is somehow not opinion.  But stating the plain truth about the propaganda machine that is FoxNews or how Facebook enables Q-Anon, is not yet a narrative, and so it is not a "fact."

Journalists have funny ways of deciding what is "objective" and what is not.