General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why do Democrats do so poorly with rural voters? [View all]Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)rural areas, the south, having guns for defense in the home, believing in God.
I am from a rural area in the deep south, although we moved to "the big city" of maybe 50,000 people, nearby and still in the deep south, when I was 8. But I still remember the tiny rural town I was raised in.
Those areas are tightnit and very centered around church and school. We celebrated Halloween with a costume party...the whole town attended in the local high school gym. It was another big event when John Deere would come out and showcase their latest equipment. It was like a small fair. Food, beverages, entire families roamed around the tractors and whatnot. My grandpa even taped it, to record the big event.
Everyone had guns and knew how to use them. No one got killed. And no one tried to kill anyone else, or else they'd get shot. There were no house break-ins, either. Kids rode their bikes all around town, alone, without fear of harm. Everyone knew everyone else. When my sister and I walked to school, we'd pass by the house of one of her teachers & wave on our way. (I guess she went to work later than we walked to school.)
The north and flamboyant clothing and drugs were a world away and nonexistent in my town. It was a quiet life. It wasn't an ideal life. There were mean dads who hit their kids, wives who drank too much, etc. But it was a very different life from the wild ways of large urban areas.
People in the north and other more liberal areas don't understand the lifestyle of rural areas, and don't want to understand. They deride all southerners, and equate having a shotgun for hunting or a pistol for defense as the same thing as people mass killing school children. Some, not all but some, liberals go out of their way to deride going to church or being religious, equating it with some of the extreme evangelical beliefs that are around.