Donald Trump would never have been president without rural America. One of the greatest contradictions, or some would say con jobs, in American history was pulled off as a New York City creature passed himself off as relatable and sharing the concerns of rural America.
To anyone with a discerning eye, it was clear that Trump didn’t understand or care about rural America. Even rural Americans would admit this fact on occasion, but they liked Trump because he talked about them, and he played on their mistrust of elites by selling himself as an outsider who had been inside enough to confirm their suspicions about “the swamp.”
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The myths that Trump created caused his support to grow even more with rural America by 2024, to the point that he was able to expand his margin of victory with these voters to 40 points over then-VP Kamala Harris.
Many of these people didn’t seem to know what they were voting for. Trump kept talking about tariffs and mass deportations during the campaign. Republicans even held up mass deportation signs and Republican National Convention, so these folks can’t say they weren’t warned.
There were plenty of signals about what was coming. It is their fault if they chose not to see.
With the economic pressure growing on an economically depressed population, it was only a matter of time until the dam broke, and it finally has.