After winning the Grammy for Best Música Urbana Album the first thing Bad Bunny said was, “ICE out.” He then continued his acceptance speech with a simple but powerful call for love over hate, saying “we need to be different…we don’t hate them, we love our people.”
This call for loving more than we hate “the other side” stood out to me as what has been missing from the “rural versus urban” debate that consumes politics in the United States. As a self-described “liberal coastal elite,” if you had spoken to me after the 2016 election (when I was only 16) and again after the 2024 election, I would have told you, quite honestly, how much I hated the “other side.” At that time, the “other side” wasn’t limited to Trump or the political systems that enabled him to become president a second time. I meant anyone who voted for him and I was far from alone in that feeling.
“Rural bashing,” as described by Kaceylee Klein and Lisa R. Pruitt, refers to a phenomenon of “harsh criticism - even disdain...” towards rural voters or often all people living in so-called “red states.” While Klein and Pruitt detail that this is not a new phenomenon, they note that it has intensified in the Trump era. Importantly, this bashing isn’t limited to politicians or media, there are a multitude of examples of everyday people unable to feel empathy for those suffering in rural areas because “they voted for this.”
This bashing is further exacerbated by the tendency to equate “rural” with “white." In fact many who support liberal politics fall into the trap of believing that rural white people are the problem. While it is true that rural America votes predominantly Republican, as seen is the 2024 presidential election in which Trump won 93 percent of rural counties, believing rural America doesn’t deserve to benefit from any “liberal” policies or social systems is an uniquely unempathetic belief. As a condition of democracy, many believe that red voters should be held accountable for their actions, or in this case their votes, especially if and when those votes lead to unfavorable outcomes.
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2025.
To be clear, I am not saying we need to have empathy for ICE, Trump, or the political and economic systems that have allowed racist, homophobic, sexist rhetoric to flourish. These systems deserve to be challenged, and when necessary dismantled. But when does hate for these systems turn into hatred for the people living within them?
Increasingly, politicians are beginning to realize that writing off rural Americans is not effective or sustainable. As Hannah Thomas has previously discussed on the blog, politicians like Bernie Sanders have been working actively to rally rural American voters rather than dismiss them. Even Hillary Clinton, in her The Atlantic opinion piece titled “MAGA’s War on Empathy,” reflects on her own struggle to feel empathy for people whom she passionately disagrees with. Although the piece, published just last week, may feel like too little, too late, it nonetheless underscores why the rhetoric of active politicians toward rural Americans must change.
If we are serious about creating political change, we must shift our strategies. Active politicians, media, and everyday liberals alike must take note of what is driving us. If the driving force is hate for the “other side” in the form of rural Americans, we will continue to live in a divided America.
Increasingly, politicians are beginning to realize that writing off rural Americans is not effective or sustainable. As Hannah Thomas has previously discussed on the blog, politicians like Bernie Sanders have been working actively to rally rural American voters rather than dismiss them. Even Hillary Clinton, in her The Atlantic opinion piece titled “MAGA’s War on Empathy,” reflects on her own struggle to feel empathy for people whom she passionately disagrees with. Although the piece, published just last week, may feel like too little, too late, it nonetheless underscores why the rhetoric of active politicians toward rural Americans must change.
If we are serious about creating political change, we must shift our strategies. Active politicians, media, and everyday liberals alike must take note of what is driving us. If the driving force is hate for the “other side” in the form of rural Americans, we will continue to live in a divided America.
I find this entire concept really interesting as someone who, until I moved to California, lived in “blue dots in a red sea”. I grew up around a lot of classic republicans, but I really noticed things start to get truly out of hand after 2016. I think I see two sorts of “flavors” of the lack of empathy: the thinking that it’s “those people out there” (you don’t live near or engage with people who vote/think differently than you) and the “I thought you were better than this” (for example, my relationship with most of my extended family) idea. I’ve definitely fallen into both of those traps, and I have been told by coworkers that I’m the kind of liberal elite that they hate. We have to come back to a more unified America, and I think that that requires steps on both sides of the aisle.
ReplyDeleteI am someone who expresses my great dislike for people who voted for Trump in any election from 2016-2024. The optimistic side of me agrees that as a nation we cannot get anything done if we are always beefing with the other side. While I still would not want to be friends with someone who is MAGA, I do think we could be more productive if we start actually holding our politicians accountable, instead of just hating and blaming on other people. The pessimistic side of me would say: I don't think we are angry enough. When bad things keep happening as a result of people voting for Trump in 2024, it makes it hard for me not to justify my anger. And I cannot help but want to direct that anger towards his voters. But obviously my anger would not be productive for moving forward within this nation and fixing anything.
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