Bay 12 Games Forum

You're still looking at this through the lens of a coastal elite.

That's a strange thing to start off with, FJ. Not sure how I'm managing that when I'm a poor rural blighter that's lived in poverty stricken blindingly red areas all my life, hasn't watched buzzfeed any amount worth mentioning and... basically miss most or all of the points you actually mentioned in that. I've got a degree but that, not just guzzling down alt-right bullshit, and my leisure activities are about the closest I get to it, so far as any of that goes. Don't think I've lived in an area that had any unions worth note that wasn't the teacher's, either. Wasn't talking a single thing about feminism or whathaveyou, backlash or acceptance of that is bloody close to irrelevant on the ground in these areas, and I've rarely if ever actually seen dem efforts bother to try to engage much on that level of things in these areas. The initiatives out here are community and education improvement, cultural shit -- plays, music, art, preservation efforts -- helping people find work or aid or shelter when they need it. We're not out here ranting about whatever the hell's going on in the nearest college town. There's no disconnect between areas, because we're not in some other area that can be disconnected from.

My lens is I've been in and around the efforts to make these rural or crumbling hellholes better places or at least get the ones there out all my life, and the flat sodding fact is that from everything I've seen, personally and otherwise, dem policies, dem initiatives, dem backed funding, is basically the only bloody thing keeping many of these places from just straight up dying, often enough in a far more literal sense than anyone would like, and the just about the only one that been offering even the chance of bettering the community. When I talk about republicans sabotaging the country, a good chunk of what I'm talking about is all the times I've seen them specifically fuck these small towns, their funding, their infrastructure, their people's possibilities, their basically bloody everything. They give promises and then cut down everything that might have fulfilled them, more often than not and by a hell of a margin.

What I'm trying to piece together, largely because the answer is increasingly looking like it's lie, lie, and lie some more, is what we're supposed to be trying to do when in these rural areas it's democrat policy and outreach, democrat or independent politicians, and federal or state aid and initiatives that are just about the only ones actually trying to goddamn help, to bring anything back into the communities, and the reaction from them is refusing to admit or acknowledge that, and most of the time not even goddamn notice despite it being in papers, well publicized, and on, and on, and on.

What's being lashed out against in these places, at least from great heaping swathes of the ones I've been in or interacted with folks from isn't some coastal elite -- they're not friggin' here -- it's every iota and ounce of attempt to actually bring something to the community, be it education improvements, infrastructure improvements, new jobs or better access to jobs, health and so on aid, and on, and on, and goddamn on, because some goddamn how all of it's ignored even as it helps people, or blamed for failure when it's republican politics and politicians that cause that by screwing funding and all sorts of other things. How the hell do you deal with that? What, exactly, the hell more that can be done to get these folks to notice exactly who's actually been fighting for them? I'm asking why the guy in the trailer in kansas or florida or where the hell ever isn't listening to all that people have actually been trying to do something besides promise shit, because I was in one of the those trailers when I was a kid and I've been around them the rest of my life and it goddamn sure hasn't been republican or conservative assistance or aid that helped my family or anyone around it, and for all I've been here the whole sodding time I can't figure it the hell out. Bloody conservative shite also didn't bring back jobs, help the schools, help the roads, help the goddamn anything to any extent worth mention and a great deal of anti-extent that is. It was community, family, and state and federal aid that did that, and you damn sure better believe it ain't the republicans trying to make sure those latter two are still around, more often than not, or doing fuck all to make sure the former two are in at least passable shape.

Like. What I'm asking, isn't about the mismatch between coastal liberal and rural conservative. I'm not the former, and it's not reaction of the latter to the former that's causing problems for the dems in these places, from everything I've seen on the ground. I'm asking about the WTF is going on between rural conservative and rural liberal, the one whose politicians are generally speaking just kinda' fucking everything and the other who more likely than not are mostly just trying to fucking fix something, anything, about the town and people that are falling apart around them. Folks talk about dems not worrying about or connecting with rural concerns or outlooks, but the democrats and left leaning folks out here, that's what we're goddamn doing! It's what we've been doing for longer that I've been alive. We're here, we're parts of these communities, we're going to the churches (Well, I'm not personally, but just about every other person in the area that's involved with this shit? Yeah.), and when the time comes and the vote rolls and the rhetoric flows, it gets shat on.

Both from the locals and now, regularly, from the rest of the left as well, because somehow we're not here, we're not doing shit, we haven't been doing shit, there's no democratic outreach, there's no attempt by the political left to improve the lots of these places, we're not promising and doing everything we can actually accomplish or at least try to. All of that is apparently what's happening, despite us being here, doing shit, having been doing shit, making all the outreach we can, trying our damnedest to improve the lots of these places, promising and doing everything we can actually accomplish or at least try to. And you give me a spiel about the coastal elite and Xe, FJ! I don't give a shit about Xe when it comes to this stuff. Most of the democrats I've been around in my life wouldn't know xe if it tried humping their ear. I give a shit that the education grants my parent has spent spent years fighting for, and all the people she's helped do the same thing, are ignored. The community clean up efforts by other parts of my family and people they associate with that are ignored. The job outreach that the education system (constantly trying to be defunded and otherwise screwed by republican politicians) has been doing just about everything it can with what slim resources it has to work through is ignored, even as it keeps people from falling further into poverty. The efforts to bring business in via getting funding and whatnot for all sorts of shit, is ignored. Every effort people claim is what these areas want and need, every effort that people claim democrats and liberals aren't trying to do, every effort that supposed to somehow connect with the people living here and help convince them to vote for their own interests, is ignored.

What the hell do we do about that? Is there anything left besides just promising people the impossible's coming back, lie to them about their past livelihoods that are just bloody gone are coming back, and shove through their own interests down their throat in a patronizing orgy of societal deception?