Across the Divide: Rural rage hurts our communities—the answer lies within
OPINION
Penn Live Patriot-News
By Becky Bennett
March 6, 2023
A recent New York Times column by Paul Krugman posed the question, Can Anything Be Done to Assuage Rural Rage? The consensus among the thousands of online responders was a resounding “no”—rural people won’t give up their anger and resentment toward Democrats, “elites” and urban-suburban residents.
Krugman argues as well that rural rage is strongly entrenched, despite the fact that many rural communities receive far more help from the detested government (particularly through Democratic programs) than their residents pay in taxes.
Also, he says the complaint that rural people are disrespected by urbanites and Democrats is overblown. Krugman pointed out a double standard in which Democratic politicians are called out when they disparage rural people, but it’s common for rurals and their Republican representatives to denigrate cities.
There’s truth in this observation. As a recent example, consider Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano’s Jan. 24 retweet of this post: Every major city in this country run by Democrats is a filthy, stinky, dangerous, crime-ridden ----hole. Which Mastriano prefaced with one word: Philly.
There’s also truth in some Democrats’ belief that rural resentment has perhaps become intractable, that there’s nothing Democrats can do to change hearts and minds let alone win rural votes.
This isn’t good for rural people, nor for the country as a whole: The level of ambient anger blinds many rural people to both remedies for their problems and allies. It deprives the U.S. of the economic and social value of full rural participation.
Even more concerning, anger on both the right and left (but especially the right) contributes to a state of stochastic terrorism. Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explains that the current combination of free-floating fear and anger makes it “highly predictable” that someone, although you can’t predict who or where, will act violently against the perceived cause of their anger. Kleinfeld says support in the U.S. for partisan violence is comparable to the levels reported in Northern Ireland at the peak of the “troubles.”
However, the antidote to rural rage and resentment can’t come from outside our communities—it lies within. To get respect, we must give respect (in the same way, rage begets more rage).
A tool for potentially helping to turn down the heat, The Dignity Index, has been developed by the national nonprofit UNITE and tested in Utah during the midterm elections. To encourage civility among politicians, the index rates their public comments on a contempt/dignity scale of 1 to 8. Level 8 comments reflect a belief that everyone has inherent worth and should be treated with dignity; level 1 comments risk escalation from violent words to violent actions.
To apply the index, selected comments are judged by a team and reviewed by a diverse group to help flag biases. The results are then published in the hope that politicians will be encouraged toward the upper end of the scale and ashamed of attacking others’ dignity or potentially inciting violence.
In the test run during a congressional debate in Utah, neither candidate scored an 8 or a 1. The exercise generated wide discussion plus some nasty backlash and threats. Obviously, a single event can’t change years of escalating vitriol and polarization around political campaigns.
Interestingly, though, the people doing the scoring reported that working with The Dignity Index changed their own thinking, including the types of comments they made on social media, liked or forwarded to friends.
While the peak vitriol around the 2020 presidential election has subsided a bit, it undoubtedly will escalate again—unless we do something different, starting in rural America where lately we’ve allowed our rage to define us.
Any of us can use The Dignity Index as a check on our own impulses as well as a lens for viewing our party’s candidates, perhaps with new clarity. We’d do well to assess our pastors and other community leaders too.
Short of that, we could simply ask ourselves two questions before giving in to the pull of rage: How does it benefit me, and how does it benefit the source/speaker if I buy into the invitation to get enraged? The source may profit, but respect will remain a long way off.
The stakes in our current political environment are enormous, stretching up to and including violence. A refusal to respect anyone we disagree with consigns us to living a small, resentful life. Collectively, we risk creating constrained, resentful communities that our young people will flee and with good reason.
You have to give respect to get respect.