There is an "intellectual" trope that goes: "I know something you don't know: rural people feel alienated and we should listen to them." I am deeply concerned about every word and nuance of this trope.
It's emerging again as it did in 2016, just in time for the election.
Authors, can you at least see how this trope can be used by the ultra right.
Part of what is so disturbing about the trope is the “this is a totally new take on things that you simply must pay attention to, it’s the key!”…the fact that one has read this amazing insight about a thousand times already.
Another aspect is, of course, the fact that “rural” is not very subtle code for “white” with a lot of extra bells and whistles: some kind of disturbing fusion of ignorance and authenticity, like the bigoted old Hobbits in the Ivy Bush Tavern.
I was in the doctor’s office in Davis, CA, when a surly teenager’s phone went off. He had the studied appearance of a “rural” person, and his ring tone was “I like a chicken fry, / Cold beer on a Friday night”…which for me is the idiotic menace of fascist enjoyment in two simple phrases.
I understand about the need to talk to the part of the brain where the memes are wired in, the part that processes 50 billion bits per second as opposed to the frontal cortex to which the left is keen to craft its messages.
...but you're not talking to that part. You're talking to the frontal lobe of a left wing reader. This isn't reaching "rural" people. This is a threat, whether you meant for it to be a threat or not.
