New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has declared, “white rural rage is arguably the single greatest threat facing American democracy” in an op-ed where he also admits that “at some level, I still don’t get the politics” of white rural Americans.
Krugman made the remarks in a review of White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy, a screed by left-wing journalist Paul Waldman, an MSNBC columnist, and left-wing academic Thomas Schaller, previously featured by the likes of The Colbert Report.
Seemingly attempting to be charitable, Krugman admits “progress isn’t painless” and that the consequences of the changes wrought on rural America in recent years have been “devastating economically and socially.” He blames “technology” as the principal cause, reluctantly admitting “imports” from places like China have also played some role.
Krugman goes on to argue, however, that “metropolitan areas with large numbers of highly educated workers” have been subsidizing their benighted rural countrymen through “Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and more.”
He then mocks those same rural Americans as dupes of “Donald Trump, a huckster from Queens who offers little other than validation for their resentment,” lamenting the fact their “white rural rage” will likely be “misdirected” against Joe Biden in November.
“[S]mall-town America is supposed to be filled with hard-working people who adhere to traditional values, not like those degenerate urbanites on welfare, but the economic and social reality doesn’t match this self-image,” he claims, adding defensively that he expects to be accused of sneering for his op-ed: “Draw attention to some of these realities, and you’ll be accused of being a snooty urban elitist. I’m sure responses to this column will be … interesting.”
Krugman also praises New York City as “relatively safe.”
He concludes he “still [finds it] hard to understand” why white rural voters support Trump.
