The Rural Voter, Nicholas Jacobs
The Rural Voter, Nicholas Jacobs
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The Rural Voter
The Politics of Place and the Disuniting of America

Author: Nicholas Jacobs, Daniel M. Shea

Narrator: Stephen Bowlby

Unabridged: 16 hr 26 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/12/2023


Synopsis

The widening gulf between rural and urban America is becoming the most serious political divide of our day. Support for Democrats, up and down the ballot, has plummeted throughout the countryside, and the entire governing system is threatened by one-party dominance. After Donald Trump's surprising victories throughout rural America, pundits and journalists went searching for answers, popping into roadside diners and opining from afar. Rural Americans are supposedly bigots, culturally backward, lazy, scared of the future, and radical. But is it that simple?

This pathbreaking book pinpoints forces behind the rise of the "rural voter"—a new political identity that combines a deeply felt sense of place with an increasingly nationalized set of concerns. Nicholas F. Jacobs and Daniel M. Shea uncover how this overwhelmingly crucial voting bloc emerged and how it has roiled American politics. They show how perceptions of economic and social change, racial anxieties, and a traditional way of life under assault have converged into a belief in rural uniqueness and separateness.

This book offers a timely warning that the chasm separating urban and rural Americans cannot be papered over with policies or rhetoric. Instead, The Rural Voter demonstrates, this division strikes at the heart of enduring conflicts over American identity.

About Nicholas Jacobs

Nicholas F. Jacobs is an assistant professor of government at Colby College. He is a coauthor of What Happened to the Vital Center? Presidentialism, Populist Revolt, and the Fracturing of America.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Dustin on April 29, 2024

This book is really important. It overturns and corrects many myths about rural America and it does so using extensive recent survey data as well as hither to underutilizes historical research. The most important conclusion of the book is that rural voters view the political world through a lens of......more

Goodreads review by Jeff on November 14, 2023

Intriguing Investigation Marred by Academic Elitism. A disclosure up front: as I get into the meat of this review momentarily, know that I am literally a man with "R == R" tattooed on his arm, which reads "Real is Real" for those less familiar with mathematics and C-family programming, and -for thos......more

Goodreads review by Jamie on January 27, 2024

I don't quite know what I was expecting. It is likely insight that I was seeking. I do not get a long with rural people. I have lived in rural areas and they have vastly different priorities than I do. After 5 years in a rural neighborhood, which was known as a high income area for some reason, I bo......more

Goodreads review by Sara on January 16, 2024

I think we all want to know more about the rural voter either because we long for that lifestyle ourselves, or we want to know what the heck they are thinking when they cast their votes for someone so distant from their way of life. We need to know so hopefully we can get this country back on track.......more

Goodreads review by Michael on November 02, 2024

The Rural Voter, Nicholas F. Jacobs Daniel M. Shea [Columbia University, 2023]. Two academics’s nuanced, data-driven account of the evolution of rural American populations into a grievance-driven reactionary voting bloc. The authors suggest that the cultural gap between rural populations and the rest......more