>No, that's not it. I'm writing this from rural America in deep Trump territory, and people here are already struggling and have been for years. From their perspective they've been left out of the benefits of the global economy—the big cities and the coasts might be better off, but the middle of the country wants to go back to when they had opportunities and jobs for working class Americans.
But they haven't, they're just completely uninformed about what they're getting. If you think ANY of the rural farming communities could continue to exist without significant federal subsidies, you're crazy.
Ask a farmer whether globalization has helped him or not the next time China retaliates to a tarriff by refusing to import any US soybeans and you'll quickly discover that it has absolutely helped them.
Globalization is less the cause of their issue, it's deregulation. Consolidation of manufacturing has killed plants in those small towns. Consolidation of groceries[1] has made it impossible for small-town grocery stores to survive on their own. Both can be traced back to Reaganomics.
Are the Democrats at fault for not attempting to reverse any of that? Absolutely, but the answer isn't: we need someone who wants even more consolidation and to kill all international relations.
But they haven't, they're just completely uninformed about what they're getting. If you think ANY of the rural farming communities could continue to exist without significant federal subsidies, you're crazy.
Ask a farmer whether globalization has helped him or not the next time China retaliates to a tarriff by refusing to import any US soybeans and you'll quickly discover that it has absolutely helped them.
Globalization is less the cause of their issue, it's deregulation. Consolidation of manufacturing has killed plants in those small towns. Consolidation of groceries[1] has made it impossible for small-town grocery stores to survive on their own. Both can be traced back to Reaganomics.
Are the Democrats at fault for not attempting to reverse any of that? Absolutely, but the answer isn't: we need someone who wants even more consolidation and to kill all international relations.
[1]https://ilsr.org/articles/policy-shift-local-grocery/