I very much hope this is not TL/DR. 🙏 It is a fascinating and important glimpse into the minds of at least some staunch djt supporters in one rural area.
A fascinating NYT opinion (not paywalled) by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild summarizes her work on trying to gauge how djt supporters in eastern Kentucky currently see him. The bottom line is that nearly all still support him even though they know his policies will seriously hurt many of them. Many see it as a matter of taking the pain needed to make America great again. They take pride in their ability to tolerate pain, knowing it is coming from a person they greatly admire and trust. They still believe that djt has concern for their welfare.
Ms. Hochschild writes:
When I checked back in with many of the Trump supporters whose lives I describe in my most recent book, “Stolen Pride,” to see if this had changed any of their minds, the overall answer seemed to be no. Some seemed more committed to Mr. Trump than they had been before.Rob Musick, a religious studies instructor at the University of Pikeville and shrewd observer of his community, noted: “Since the inauguration, I haven’t heard any alarm bells go off” — not when Mr. Trump dressed down Ukraine’s president in the Oval Office and fired U.S.A.I.D. workers, not when ICE raided a Mexican restaurant nearby. “There has been no public response,” he said.Democrats are deeply unpopular. According to a March poll, only 27 percent of registered voters have a positive view of the Democratic Party, the lowest level since NBC News began asking the question in 1990, and my conversations with voters in the Fifth District distilled just how difficult it will be for the party to break through when Mr. Trump has so powerfully captured the bitterness and pain that has taken root in the hills of Appalachia.Rob Musick explained: “Around here, Democrats come off as against this and against that — and not for anything. They need a big positive alternative vision. And they need to understand that in rural areas like this, the deeper problem is that we’re socially hollowed out. That happy buzz of community life? That’s not here. There are fewer meetings of the Masons, the Rotary Club, the Red Hatters. Our church benches are empty. In the mountains, there’s no safe place against drugs. One elderly woman told me, ‘I don’t open my door anymore.’ I’ve heard teens say, ‘There’s nothing to do.’ A lot of kids are alone in their rooms online with Dungeons and Dragons. I think MAGA plays to a social desert.”“I think Democrats need to get behind this kind of effort and initiate a campaign of grand civic re-engagement,” Mr. Musick said. Federal funds could support the best local initiatives, he added, and help start ecology, drama and music clubs — “good local things that lack funding.”In the meantime, James Browning, the addiction counselor, offered this important warning. “If people in Pike County or elsewhere get socked with higher prices, there might come a tipping point. But what happens then would hinge on how Democrats handle it, what better ideas they have to offer, their tone of voice. If the left starts scolding, ‘You Trump supporters brought this on yourselves,’ or ‘We told you so,’ people around here will get more pissed at the snarky left than they are at the hurtful right — and Trump will march on.”
So, at least in rural eastern Kentucky, the Dems cannot put any blame on djt or themselves for djt's failure and their necessary role in putting him in power and making their lives miserable. They have to change their minds on their own. Little or nothing that Dems or djt opponents can say will change that. But probably almost anything they do say about responsibility for the mess will make things worse. Rural djt supporters simply won't take any criticism or snark from any Dem. They got their pride.
One can see the iron grip of irrationality on those minds. On the one hand they will accept the pain djt is dishing out because they know it comes from someone they trust and like. On the other they suggest Democrats need to get behind a grand social rebuilding effort, articulate positive policies, initiate a campaign of grand civic re-engagement and use federal funds to drive revitalization. They want revitalization of what is now basically economically and socially dead or close to it. They want federal funds to help them out of their plight but voted into power an extremist who promised to cut the federal funds they need.
How likely is it that businesses are going to come back to poor rural areas based on tariff pressure? Very unlikely. Apparently almost impossible. Tomorrow I'll do a post on the issue of rural revitalization and tariffs. The analysis is complicated and fascinating, but the bottom line is clear: The rural situation is extremely difficult. Tariffs ain't gonna do what djt says they will do. Even if he wanted to, which he does not, djt cannot revitalize most poor rural areas with his and MAGA's policies and tactics.