How Does Democrat Party Properly Message to Rural White Communities

[discocrisco01]

This is one trillion dollar question in the room right now? The reason why I am contemplating this question is that I consistently hear about rural counties in Oregon that want to secede from Oregon became part of Ohio.

I know that this problem is not fixable and given the scarcity of resources, it is extensively more efficient to target suburban and urban voters given that the amount of votes in urban/suburban area far exceed that of rural area.

However, one thing that you can do is try to raise a grassroots movements where people can learn how to build working-class polticial organizations in these areas. You can provide the tools and training for people who might want to take at the stab at this problem even it should not be the target of state/national parties.

So the question that I have is what type of outreach strategies would work and what we can do improve the situtation. I am know that these people will most likely to become conservative, but building a grassroots movement even with limited success can go long way to challenging stereotypes and other issues especially if it is homegrown.

Just my thoughts. Peace out.

[Ocelot II]

1. That would be the *Democratic* party.

[chowder66]

2. +1

[Progressive Jones]

3. Yep. nt

[ShazzieB]

6. Yeah, I was going to comment on that. 😋

Not sure why the righties decided to start calling us that back in... ugh, it's been going on so long I can't remember. But we need to not lose sight of the fact that we are, indeed, the Democratic Party.

As for the questions raised in the o.p., I'm afraid I don't have any thoughts. But then, my orientation is suburban and urban, not rural, even though I have family in a rural part of my state.

[wellst0nev0ter]

18. Gingrich and Dumbya brought that word back in fashion

Because the word ends in "rat" ya see?

[Arkansas Granny]

8. Correct.

[blueinredohio]

28. My first thought too!

[diehardblue]

32. +10000

[a kennedy]

37. Always makes my ears burn when I hear that..... 🤬 🤬 🤬

[RegularJam]

4. Showing up in every cycle. nt

[jcgoldie]

5. Seems like

... Ohio would be sort of far for people in Oregon... like if they wanted to go to the state fair or something...

[Buckeye_Democrat]

11. The OP meant Idaho, of course.

You knew that already, of course.

Ohio State will play Oregon in football this year, so it could make for some interesting stakes in that game.

If the Buckeyes lose, we get that part of Oregon. If the Ducks lose, they get some red and rural swath from here.

[jcgoldie]

15. sorry I was being a jerk...

"the democrat party" always makes me do bad things

[Buckeye_Democrat]

19. I get it.

[Coventina]

7. The Democrat party doesn't exist.

If you mean the Democratic party, however...

I feel those voters are lost for at least a generation. That's not where we will grow our base.
We need to get everyone in the cities registered and voted, and then start campaigning hard in the suburbs.

[ShazzieB]

10. Sounds like a plan to me!

I live in a suburban area that was pretty bright red when we moved here over 25 years ago and has gotten bluer and bluer since then. Things really hit the fan after Chump got elected. It was like everybody went "Omfg, wtf just happened?" and Democrats came streaming out of the woodwork ready to get to work. I know from personal experience that there is a lot of potential in the suburbs.

[librechik]

33. 100% agree

they are gone for now. But give em all broadband, and they could climb out of the pit
in 20 years or so.

we don't have that much time in this world, I fear.

[LonePirate]

9. Focus on economic, education, infrastructure, health care and environmental issues.

Economic issues cut across all areas of America.

Education matters to all Americans and rural Americans, just like their suburban and urban counterparts, want access to good education for their families.

Infrastructure, particularly reliable and quality utilities and broadband internet, are deeply needed by many rural Americans.

Health care is a necessity for everyone and it is scarce in rural American. The challenges here are massive but the benefits of it are priceless.

Environmental issues - including green energy initiatives - make lives better for all Americans, including rural Americans who are far too often the subjects of polluted water supplies.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

12. So many of them never suffer from GOP decisions.

If their farms are failing, or whatever, Democrats are quicker to help them for the sake of the general welfare.

It's like they expect the favored treatment now, no matter how they vote.

That's my take on it, anyway, and I could be wrong.

[jcgoldie]

20. Its not about farms

So few people actually are farmers anymore. Small family farms like mine amount to almost nothing in terms of production and even less in terms of voters. Most of the people who are actually farmers own so much land and equipment that they probably should be republicans.

The overwhelming percentage of rural Americans are not farmers. They are racists who live in small towns and are scared and ignorant of anyone who doesn't look like them and on some guttural level they understand that they benefit in terms of status if not economics from white privilege.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

22. Racism is definitely a part of it.

Point taken about farms, btw.

And more evangelical beliefs in rural areas, being perfectly fine with the idea of government compelling their beliefs on others. They're regularly compelled to convert others to their religious beliefs anyway.

Per CNN exit polls, both Biden AND Clinton would've won the "white vote" too if none of the white evangelicals had voted. They instead voted both times with great vigor, at percentages higher than their share of the general
population, and at 80%+ for Trump each time.

African American evangelicals have a long history of unwanted compulsion foisted upon them, so they're not that way so much.

Evangelicals in Africa, on the other hand, likewise wanted Trump to be elected in 2020.

US elections: The African evangelicals praying for Trump to win
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54297372

Nigeria, Africa's Largest Nation, Backs Trump Despite Black Lives Matter Hostility
https://www.newsweek.com/nigeria-backs-trump-black-lives-matter-hostility-1542271

Edit: The evangelicals are currently TRYING to get a foothold in blue and mostly rural states like Vermont too.
https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/good-news-evangelicals-are-planting-dozens-of-churches-in-vermonts-rocky-soil/Content?oid=28561219
If New England as a whole needs religious defibrillation, Vermont would seem to represent the extreme case. The state has earned the distinction of being the least religious in the country almost every year since Gallup began conducting its annual religious attitudes survey in 2008. (The one exception was 2015, when New Hampshire claimed victory by two points.) A 2018 article in the Biblical Recorder, a North Carolina evangelical newspaper, offered this bleak synopsis of Vermont's Jesus situation: "The state has proportionately fewer Bible-believing churches and Christians than any other state. Scores of villages in Vermont have had no Bible-believing [evangelical or fundamentalist] church for decades. Thousands of families have had no Christian members in five generations. Vermont is not just lost; it is hardcore lost and gospel-resistant."

[JI7]

13. We let local and state level people do what they need to try to win . But nationally not much

of course we try to get the message out that we do to others and those that care about civil rights , economic fairness and, climate change etc will vote democratic.

But with a population that is getting more diverse we need to try to get them registered and to vote.

We would get a lot more votes focusing on hispanics that don't vote than on rural whites .

[Elessar Zappa]

36. Exactly.

I think I read somewhere that if Hispanics in Texas had a better voter turnout rate, that Texas would be blue already.

[OAITW r.2.0]

14. I live in a Central ME rural community.

Hoping that the new working paradigm about home working brings in a a whole new generation of outsiders who buy cheap intown property and improve them ($40,000 for great improvable intown homes).

I was doing this in 1981...not working at home - working at Fayscott, building industrial machine tools (Lees-Bradner Gear Hobbers, Reid Surface Grinders' and Leland-Gifford Multi-gang Drill Presses). World class products. Warner Gear was good for 80-90 LB Hobbers/year.....every year.

Fay-Scott and Dexter Shoe employed 1800 people combined. . Both gone now. So time to create a new economy up heah.

[Klaralven]

35. Off-shoring of manufacturing has devastated many towns and small cities

Consolidation of farms into ag businesses,as well as the decline of forestry, mining, fishing and other extractive industries have hit rural areas.

But the biggest impact has been the decline and closure of manufacturing in the US. Often rural towns and small cities had one or a few large manufacturing businesses and a number of smaller feeder businesses. When one of these close, the impact on the community is devastating.

A big part of Trump's attraction for these people is that he was seen as being against globalism. While anti-globalism is uncomfortable for the big business and sole superpower wing of the Republicans, it actually fits with the small and medium business and main street wing of the Republican party, since SME owners are being impacted by globalism just like their workers.

There is no equivalent anti-globalism wing of the Democratic Party, probably because the Democratic Party is more pro-consumer than pro-business and worker. Consumers want the cheap imports.

[Crunchy Frog]

16. Please stop calling it the "Democrat Party".

Please learn to use its proper name, and please learn the difference between a noun and an adjective.

[Skittles]

17. I am sick of having to pander to people who vote against their own self-interests

I say WRITE THEM OFF and concentrate our efforts on the people who currently do not vote

[Buckeye_Democrat]

21. I tend to agree.

Even Kansas voted for FDR in 1932 and 1936 after the Great Depression, getting aid because of the "Dust Bowl", but it didn't last long!

Then they quickly returned to being proudly independent and self-sufficient, supposedly, and it's been that way ever since... except for 1964 when LBJ was running against a kook.

[trusty elf]

23. I won't bother reading your post.

Sorry, but you lost me at "Democrat Party".

[UCmeNdc]

24. Get their own news media broadcast. Rural America only has conservative radio and TV stations.

Rural America only hears conservative propaganda 24hrs a day.

[SheltieLover]

26. This!👆

Each time I see a media outlet sale announced, I am hopeful it will be a wealthy Dem. Hasn't happened yet.

[NJCher]

27. I think this is a big part of it

Of course I have a bias, being a communications person.

A national syndicate of programming explaining the liberal POV. Would have to be very carefully explained.

[betsuni]

30. But that takes a great deal of money.

Nutty right-wing billionaire ideologues funnel unlimited money into media. There's no such thing on the Left. Where's the money to do this supposed to come from? And it doesn't help when "corporate money" and "billionaires" even if they're liberals are demonized as if money automatically makes one corrupt and right wing.

[solara]

25. You lost me at "Democrat Party"

Every Democrat (n.) on DU should know not to use 'democrat' as a pejorative.

It's 'Democrat' when referring to a person. It's 'Democratic' when used to describe a platform, a credo, a meeting, a convention, etc.

The word 'Democratic' is correct when used as an adjective and 'Democrat' is correct when used as a noun.

sorry, but this kind of thing really bugs me.. it is just so, so republican..

[Scrivener7]

29. It doesn't waste its time on that. There are plenty of non-voters we can get, ala Stacy,

who can turn purple states Democratic.

Anything we do to pander to the moronic, entitled, butt-hurt "heartland" lysol drinkers would lose our voters somewhere else.

[Botany]

31. "Democrat Party"

'nuff said.

[scarytomcat]

34. support dump then don't vote him, the rethugs way