Did you know I’m Mr. Beat? Anyway, I’m in a city, aka in an urban area
And now I’m in the country, aka in a rural area Even if you live in a small town, if that small
town is nowhere near a big city, most experts say you live in a rural area.
In the United States and throughout much of the world, people live in either urban areas
Or suburban areas. Oh yeah, now I’m in the suburbs. There’s no good definition of the
suburbs. It’s basically where a lot of people live on the edges of urban areas. Where rural
areas meet urban areas. Suburbs tend to be more residential and suburban residents usually have
to travel to the city for work and play. However, these days most suburbs feel more
and more like just another part of the city, and it often makes more sense to lump them in
with whatever urban area they’re close to. Urban areas and suburban areas make up what’s known as
metropolitan areas. In the United States, if you don’t live in a metropolitan area of at least
50,000 people, you live in a rural area, at least according to the Office of Management and Budget.
Today nearly 83% of Americans live in either an urban or suburban area.
According to my calculations that means only around 17% live in rural areas.
Anyway, I’ve noticed a pretty stark trend with American politics. If you live in a big city,
you probably lean to the left politically and vote for Democratic party candidates.
And if you live in the country or in a small town far away from big cities,
you’re probably lean to the right politically and vote for Republican party candidates.
And this trend has only become even more stark in recent years. I mean,
look at this map of the United States. It shows the results of the 2020 presidential election
by county. Red represents counties where the majority voted for the Republican candidate,
Donald Trump, and blue represents counties where the majority voted for the Democratic candidate,
Joe Biden. At first glance, you sure see a bunch of red, don’t ya? Couldn’t we assume
that Trump easily won the election and Republicans dominate the country based on all that red? Well,
no. You see, the vast majority of those red counties are RURAL counties. In other words, those
counties are more likely to look like this instead of this. The blue counties are mostly urban.
I’m in Kansas City, by the way, and I remember in 2020 driving around and seeing a bunch of
Joe Biden for President signs here. Once I got out here, to the suburbs,
I began to see a mix of both signs that supported Biden and signs that supported Trump. Out here,
it was all the Trump train, baby. Another way to look at it? Biden
won 85% of counties with a Whole Foods and just 32% of counties with a Cracker Barrel.
And it hasn’t always been this way. I mean, even as recently as 2000, the presidential
election results by county looked like this. Because of this politically, urban and rural
communities seem radically different culturally. Often, this even leads to tension between the two,
especially since often there are blue metros within red states and these Democrat-led
metros pass laws the Republican-led state legislatures disagree with.
Uh….so why is this? Why is almost everybody here voting for Democrats?
And almost everybody here voting for Republicans?
Well, according to my research, there are five main reasons:
Fear of change According to the research,
folks who live in rural areas are more resistant to change. They favor “traditional
values,” which CAN be a meaningless phrase, but really just means values passed down from
previous generations. Meanwhile, in cities there is anonymity, they can be anonymous…
and that means people can get away with going against traditional values and try new things.
This phenomenon is not new. Ever since big cities became a thing,
folks who lived in rural areas favored traditional values more than folks who lived in urban areas.
Wealth inequality Most of the new wealth
that has been created in recent decades has been in urban areas. And when I say wealth,
I mean A LOT OF IT. The gap between the richest and poorest is arguably worse now in the United
States than it ever has been, and where is almost all that wealth concentrated in? The
cities. For this reason, rural residents have felt left behind, especially as more and more
folks who were raised in rural areas moved to urban areas as adults to find better paying jobs.
For those left behind in rural areas, they often blame the so-called “elites,” or a group of people
who have most of the power. Where do these elites tend to live? The cities. And lately,
the Republican Party has done a better job of convincing rural voters that the
Democratic Party is made up of these elites, whether it’s true or not.
The Democratic Party has abandoned rural voters Over the past few decades, Democrats have focused
more on urban concerns much more than rural concerns. In particular, they have focused on
the struggles of minority groups, but there’s not a lot of minority groups out here. Democrats tend
to fight for immigrants and tend to want less strict policies for illegal immigrants. Well,
guess what, out here in rural America, they often see those illegal immigrants as competitors
for their jobs and blame them for lower wages. In both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections,
counties that struggled with economic decline tended to vote Republican, while counties that
had economic prosperity tended to vote Democrat. Yeah I know this map shows population decline,
but there is a strong correlation between population decline and economic decline,
so the counties that are red on this map were much more likely to vote for Trump in
2016 and 2020. And yep, those counties that struggled economically were rural counties.
When it comes to economics, the Democratic Party is similar to the Republican Party
Both rural and urban areas have been screwed over economically for decades for various reasons,
but the Democratic Party used to at least attempt to offer assistance to those in poverty. Since
the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s and the rise of New Democrats in the 1990s,
financial assistance to those in poverty has declined while wages have remained stagnant.
This is mostly since Democrats have compromised and worked with Republicans in shrinking welfare
programs. Now, do welfare programs actually help reduce poverty? That’s a topic for another video,
but my point is that the Democratic Party no longer has that image it once had as
the party for those in poverty. Heck, even the minimum wage hasn’t gone up since 2009.
The Culture War So since Republicans
and Democrats mostly have agreed on economics, the culture war has taken its place. Social issues are
often now just as important as economic issues to many American voters. Issues like abortion,
gun control, police brutality, and LGBT+ rights are now at the forefront,
and urban and rural residents often STRONGLY disagree on these issues. Not only that,
Republicans and Democrats have been successful at politicizing these social issues.
This urban-rural political divide is not just seen in the United States. It’s everywhere from
France to Poland to Turkey to Thailand. The urban-rural political divide is so common
in the 21st century that political scientists are now spending a lot of time studying it AND
worrying about it since it has arguably led to more polarization.
To me, the urban-rural political divide is a symptom of governments
increasingly becoming out of touch with ordinary citizens.
Here in rural America, they often feel like the Democratic Party not only neglected them,
but also played a big role in taking away what they once had. Unless this changes,
they will continue to vote red out here for a very long time. And here in urban America,
they often view rural voters as a stereotype, as if everyone who lives in the country is a racist
bigot. By the way, as someone who has lived and worked in rural areas, this is obviously
not true at all. Perhaps the hope to escape this polarization can come from suburban areas, which
seem to be the last places on earth where people at least attempt to compromise and be pragmatic.
Here, two worlds often collide, and I think that’s a good thing. Not that I like
the suburbs, but just saying.
But what do you think? Are there other explanations for the American rural/urban
divide? Let me know down below. Also, I’m conducting a poll for my viewers that I’ve
linked in the description and pinned comment. It has two questions. Do you live in a urban area,
suburban area, or rural area? And do you lean to the left or right politically?
I’ll share the results later on Instagram and Twitter. Thanks for watching!