It’s no secret that Democrats have a rural problem. The party’s share of the rural vote had been shrinking for decades even before Donald Trump arrived on the scene, deftly tapping into rural and working-class discontent and dragging levels of Democratic support to new lows in nonmetropolitan places.
On the 20th anniversary of 9/11 in September, J.D. Vance tweeted a photo of himself holding his young son amidst a table of guns. He captioned it, “Took the toddler to a gun show this morning. Saw some amazing historical weapons, some going back to the Civil War.”
Vance is, of course, the author of the best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, now running as Republican for the U.S. Senate from Ohio.
by Lisa R. Pruitt & Ezera Miller-Walfish, Class of 2022
Although the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent voting rights decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee was very bad news for rural residents (and, indeed, all voters) in terms of the precedent set, there is perhaps a silver lining to be found in the dissenting opinion, written by Justice Elena Kagan and joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. That dissent took the concept of distance–rural spatiality–more seriously than any faction of the Supreme Court has ever done.
Cruz Reynoso, former California Supreme Court Justice and my colleague at UC Davis School of Law for two decades, died a few days ago at the age of 90. Many are offering remembrances of Reynoso -- who the faculty and staff at the law school knew as just "Cruz"-- and it's interesting for me as a ruralist to see the number of references to "rural" in his life's story.
by Ann Eisenberg, Jessica A. Shoemaker and Lisa R. Pruitt
It’s no secret that rural and urban people have grown apart culturally and economically in recent years. A quick glance at the media – especially social media – confirms an ideological gap has also widened.
Rural America lags behind the rest of the nation in access to health care, broadband, quality of education and nearly every other measure of well-being. On July 28, the American Bar Association hosted an online program featuring leaders and scholars of the legal profession discussing ways to address another rural deficit: the painful shortage of lawyers.
My initial response to the publication of Hillbilly Elegy and the media hubbub that ensued was something akin to pride. I was pleased that so many readers were engaged by a tale of my people, a community so alien to the milieu in which I now live and work. Like Vance, I’m from hillbilly stock, albeit the Ozarks rather than Appalachia. Reading the early chapters, I laughed out loud—and sometimes cried—at the antics of Vance’s grandparents, not least because they reminded me of my childhood and extended, working-class family back in Arkansas.
