Fox News comes to the defense of rural America--in spinning elite disdain for the heartland

I wrote this blog post last week about the anti-rural Tweet by a guy named Jackson Kernion, a PhD student at UC Berkeley.  As I noted there, I didn't know what the the Tweet said in its entirety because he deleted it before I captured all of it.  Now, however,  Fox News has picked up the controversy and run three stories about it--all coming to the defense of rural America, even as they also supply us with the full text of Kernion's Tweet.

First, then, here's the text as presented by Fox News:

"I unironically embrace the bashing of rural Americans," Kernion wrote in a now-deleted tweet. "They, as a group, are bad people who have made bad life decisions...and we should shame people who aren't pro-city." 

Kernion started going after rural citizens, saying they should have higher health care, pay more in taxes and be forced to live an "uncomfortable" life for rejecting "efficient" city life, Campus Reform reported.

An Epoch Times piece gives an even more complete account of the original Tweet storm by Kernion:

“I unironically embrace the bashing of rural Americans. they, as a group, are bad people who have made bad life decisions,” Kernion wrote. “Some, I assume, are good people. But this nostalgia for some imagined pastoral way of life is stupid, and we should shame people who aren’t pro-city.” 

Before turning to critique the rural American lifestyle, Kernion wrote in another post about affordable healthcare for rural Americans. He said he believed it would mean they have to be subsidized by “those who choose a more efficient way of life.” 

“Rural healthcare should be expensive!” he wrote. “And that expense should be borne by those who choose rural America!”

“It should be uncomfortable to live in rural America. It should be uncomfortable to not move,” he added.

The Fox News item goes on to quote Brad Blakeman, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, who called the comments "nuts."  Blakeman added, 

cities need to take care of their own [because] rural America is doing just great.

Doug Shoen, a Fox News contributor, is also quoted:  

We started as a rural country. We remain at our heart linked to rural communities. Thank goodness for small towns, farms, and traditional values.

And that's just one of the Fox News story about the Kernion Tweet.   Another is on Fox Business, with commentary by Stuart Varney.  Note on the following how the UC Berkeley brand--a very liberal one--is played up:

FOX Business’ Stuart Varney said UC Berkeley's philosophy instructor and Hillary Clinton have revealed the "new American divide" during his latest “My Take” and argued that it will help Donald Trump get re-elected. 

Forty years ago, Republicans were the party of the rich country club types, now that’s been “turned on its head,” Varney argued. 

UC Berkeley instructor Jackson Kernion said rural Americans are “bad people” and that people who are not “pro-city” should be shamed, Varney said. 

Kernion, according to Varney, argued rural America should be forced to pay more in taxes and live an “uncomfortable” life because of their rejection of “efficient” city life in a tweet that has since been deleted.

I wrote some about rurality's greater carbon footprint here, which is probably what Kernion was referring to when he said cities are more efficient.

In any event, I think the most striking thing about this Fox News coverage is that it so deftly spins a Berkeley-ite's disdain for rural people and places.  The first Fox News piece, for example, notes that Kernion has taught 11 courses at UC Berkeley--suggesting he is the sort of coastal elite who is spreading his contempt for rural people and places to the youngsters being educated at the University of California's flagship campus.