"Rural" gets brief mention in second night of Democratic debates

I was only able to watch one night of the two nights of debates (accommodating 20 candidates!), so I can't say for sure what I missed the first night.  But I was pleased last night to hear Mayor Pete Buttigieg (South Bend, Indiana) mention rural places in what seemed to be a very helpful way.  When asked about how to respond to climate change, he had a long, thoughtful answer that included this:

Now, here's what very few people talk about. First of all, rural America can be part of the solution instead of being told they're part of the problem. With the right kind of soil management and other kind of investments, rural America could be a huge part of how we get this done.  (emphasis mine)

And secondly, we've got to look to the leadership of local communities, you know, those networks of mayors in cities from around the world...

At a different point in the night, Buttigieg also referred to South Bend (northern Indiana, not so far from Chicago) in relation to Trump's trade war(s) (emphasis added):

I mean, first of all, we've got to recognize that the China challenge really is a serious one. This is not something to dismiss or wave away. And if you look at what China is doing, they're using technology for the perfection of dictatorship.

But their fundamental economic model isn't going to change because of some tariffs. I live in the industrial Midwest. Folks who aren't in the shadow of a factory are somewhere near a soy field where I live. And manufacturers, and especially soy farmers, are hurting.

Tariffs are taxes. And Americans are going to pay on average $800 more a year because of these tariffs. Meanwhile, China is investing so that they could soon be able to run circles around us in artificial intelligence. And this president is fixated on the China relationship as if all that mattered was the export balance on dishwashers. We've got a much bigger issue on our hands.

But at a moment when their authoritarian model is being held up as an alternative to ours because ours looks so chaotic compared to theirs right now because of our internal divisions, the biggest thing we've got to do is invest in our own domestic competitiveness. If we disinvest... 

Transcript compliments of the Washington Post.