Paul Krugman splatters on rural America, again

The New York Times columnist wrote yesterday under the provocative headline, "Can Anything Be Done to Assuage Rural Rage?"  It's little more than a redux of a column Krugman wrote in October, and which I blogged about here.  This time, instead of responding to scholars Munis and Jacobs, Krugman is responding to Thomas Edsall's column of a few days ago.  Here are some highlights--or perhaps I should say lowlights--of the Krugman column: 

Rural resentment has become a central fact of American politics — in particular, a pillar of support for the rise of right-wing extremism. As the Republican Party has moved ever further into MAGAland, it has lost votes among educated suburban voters; but this has been offset by a drastic rightward shift in rural areas, which in some places has gone so far that the Democrats who remain face intimidation and are afraid to reveal their party affiliation.

The answer will depend on two things: whether it’s possible to improve rural lives and restore rural communities, and whether the voters in these communities will give politicians credit for any improvements that do take place.

This week my colleague Thomas B. Edsall surveyed research on the rural Republican shift. I was struck by his summary of work by Katherine J. Cramer, who attributes rural resentment to perceptions that rural areas are ignored by policymakers, don’t get their fair share of resources and are disrespected by “city folks.”

As it happens, all three perceptions are largely wrong. I’m sure that my saying this will generate a tidal wave of hate mail, and lecturing rural Americans about policy reality isn’t going to move their votes. Nonetheless, it’s important to get our facts straight.

Krugman then goes on to rely on questionable constructions of "facts," including the notion that entire states are "rural," a notion that Kaceylee Klein and I recently debunked in our article on "Rural Bashing."

Prof. Ann Eisenberg of the University of South Carolina, a scholar of the rural, offered this short tweet storm in response to today's Krugman column.  

It reads"5 Mistakes Paul Krugman Made in Today's NYT Op Ed" and then "#1 Conflating rural and white conservative.  White conservatives are everywhere.  many rural residents do not vote.  Many are liberal.  Substantial populations are indigenous, Black and Latino (or otherwise not white). 

#2. Dismissing the idea that "city folks" are every disrespectful to rural people.  There are entire fields of study on this.  Decades of research.  So many slurs linked to rural.

#3 Assuming that Democrats are unquestionably, obviously great for rural communities.  They are in many ways, but that ignores the many policies Democrats have favored that are unfriendly to rural communities, like liberalizing trade and transportation deregulation.

#4 Missing the chicken for the egg in rural "subsidies."  Public policies have contributed to rural regions being poorer, which contributes to apparent "urban dependence."  There are many models for capacity building that can and do make distressed communities more prosperous. 

#5 Forgetting rural-urban interdependence.  "Giving" rural regions a better economy isn't just charity.  It means better food, jobs, resilience, & infrastructure for everyone.  A lot of big systems in the country are broken, & rural people are caught up in them like everyone else.

If you want a more informed, more hopeful op ed, check out this by @lisareneepruitt [Lisa R. Pruitt] @ShoemakerJess [Jess Shoemaker at University of Nebraska] and me. 

And here is part of the response from Tony Pipa of the Brookings Institute: