Alan Harrelson – Rural America is vital to the survival of this nation. It matters not only for the food and natural resources it produces, but as a source of inspiration, and indeed the best hope for the recovery of our constitutional republic.
The 2020 presidential election results map clearly shows that a conservative stronghold exists in most rural parts of the country, especially in the South, Midwest, and many Rocky Mountain states. Rural America is not the hinterland of New York City or coastal California. And yet mainstream media have largely ignored the vision and insights of rural communities for decades.
How the Founders envisioned the future of America still matters. Many of the leading Founders believed in a rooted lifestyle based on land ownership and saw the republic as a mosaic of individual families pursuing happiness as moral, capable, and independent-minded citizens. Owning land was once a dream that most Americans sought to achieve, and the driving force behind it was the need to be independent from the control of others.
Jefferson, Washington, Adams, and Madison, farmers all, and all currently vilified, would have been appalled at the degree to which Americans have now forsaken the cardinal lesson of rural life: the need to be self-sufficient. From the voices of Big Tech, large corporations, wayward governments, and the modern consumer culture, Americans are told what to think, buy, and believe.
But it wasn’t always this way. What happened?
In short, the 20th century happened. Until the early 1900s, the majority of Americans lived relatively quiet lives in the countryside, raising crops and livestock both for their families and for market. Prior to FDR’s New Deal, Americans had little to no relationship with the federal government, save the Postal Service. Arguably, FDR did more to erode the independence of individual American families than any president before or since.
The 20th century also witnessed the rise of the modern consumer culture and salesmanship: the idea that one should work to pay for a good or service that he could very well live without. The Southern Agrarians, a group of Southern conservative writers whom most current conservatives have nearly forgotten about, believed that the development of modern salesmanship was dangerous and costly, a threat to self-sufficiency and independence. As the Southern Agrarian writer Andrew Lytle wrote in 1930, a farm is not a place to grow wealthy; it’s a place to grow corn.
But the historical reasons why the country is now predominantly urban are not what matters to most readers. What matters is the current cultural and political divide between rural and urban communities. Urban places are the source of this godless woke ideology that now plagues the nation.
This is a fact: one is far, far less likely to find rural families who are sympathetic to pride month, government overreach, the attempt to redefine truth, and the attempt to erase American history. You seek patriotism? Don’t look for it among the majority of cities. Jefferson was right: cities are to democracy what sores are to the body.
But let’s get more real and more to the point. The Senate of the United States is holding hearings about what it means to be a man or a woman. During a time when the very survival of the 1787 Constitution is in jeopardy, are we really wasting our time on this nonsense? Of course we are. It’s a part of the plan to destroy the Constitution. Twenty twenty-three America is far removed from the America that existed during the founding.
The difference between 1787 and 2023, if you have a historical understanding, is mind-boggling. We currently live in a country of flighty and demonic leaders, and they are to a dangerous degree deluding and manipulating the American public.
From what I can tell, the largest group of Americans who remain committed to the Constitution and a Scalia-style originalist interpretation are those who live in small towns and rural counties. So why is the perspective of these people neglected? Is rural America simply made up of families who are backwards, are unintelligent, and somehow can’t keep up with the times? It would be asinine to answer in the affirmative, and yet the mainstream media would have us believe exactly this.
Why? Because Trump won in 2016. Trump garnered massive support from rural Americans in the 2016 election. Regardless of the historical development of urban America, elites now hate rural communities because they voted for Trump. No doubt about it.
What’s the solution? The solution is not a back to the land movement, nor does it require everyone to study the history of rural America. What’s required is an ability to simply listen to the wisdom and insights of patriots in the small towns and rural counties who are fed up with the Feds.
Country folks know stuff, and if this nation is to survive as a constitutional republic, we had better listen to what the farmers, ranchers, and small-town families have to say about the utter nonsense that is currently challenging the vision of the Founders.
The restoration of our republic will never happen if left to the cities and careerist politicians. What is needed is a newfound respect and admiration for the life experience of rural and small-town Americans, who see the current mess for what it is: a shameful rant of childlike figures who never learned how to become responsible citizens.
SF Source American Thinker Jul 2023