1. Our politics and economy have largely failed rural communities -and working people more broadly – under both Republican and Democratic presidents.
The past forty years of federal economic policy has fostered growth without prosperity, concentrating nearly all of the increases in income and wealth among the top 20% of wage earners. The economy has grown nearly five times faster than the population, yet Incomes for middle and working class people have stagnated or declined. At the same time, health care costs, college tuition, housing costs and economic insecurity have all skyrocketed.
While this is true across the nation, it is acutely so in rural communities, particularly as fossil fuel jobs have disappeared, independent retailers and small town banks have been swallowed up by big box stores and mega-banks, and farmers have struggled through low prices, unpredictable markets and increasingly challenging climate conditions.
Republican administrations have pushed anti-union, anti-worker and pro-corporate policies throughout this period, without a doubt. But it’s also the case that Democratic administrations have supported bad trade deals, bank and Wall Street deregulation and middling policies on health care, taxes and rural development. Anti-trust laws and enforcement have been gutted, including under Democratic presidents. Policies enacted during both Republican and Democratic administrations have done little to stem the loss of wealth and opportunity in rural communities.
RECOMMENDED READINGS:
Matt Stoller, “Democrats Can’t Win Until They Recognize How Bad Obama’s Financial Policies Were”
Catherine Tumber, “Land Without Bread: How the Green New Deal Forsakes America’s Countryside”
Anthony Flaccavento, “Trickle-down’s Failures Apparent to All but Those in Charge”
Elizabeth Henderson, “Unfair Food-Pricing is Killing Family Farms and Regenerative Farming”
Clara Hendrickson, “Why Democrats Don’t Have a Plan to Save ‘Left-Behind’ Places”
Robert Reich, “Democrats Once Represented the Working Class: Not Anymore”
FOR A DEEPER LOOK, CONSIDER THESE BOOKS:
Matt Stoller, Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy, 2019, Simon and Schuster
David Korten, Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, 2009, Berrett Koehler Publishers
Nancy Isenberg, White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, 2016, Penguin Books