I grew up in a rural community, began my career as an organizer in small towns, and now lead one of the largest efforts to rebuild pro-democracy, pro-worker civic capacity in rural America. So I can speak with some authority when I say that President Biden, somewhat surprisingly, has ushered in a new economic paradigm that can radically transform the lives of rural people and build a more politically and economically secure future for all Americans.

He calls his agenda “Bidenomics,” a term that will be hotly debated in the months ahead. But what does it mean? And what’s its significance for rural people?

In simplest terms, Bidenomics arguably is the most significant departure in 40 years from the “free market revolution” that rose to dominance in the 1980s — a dramatic alteration to our country’s economic trajectory.

The combination of executive and congressional action since Biden took office — from the American Rescue Plan, to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to the CHIPS Act, Inflation Reduction Act and key executive action promoting competition and protecting workers — presents greater potential for revitalizing rural communities than anything since the New Deal. These were huge steps in the right direction, and yet rural people are still struggling. The updated Rural Policy Action Report offers a continued roadmap for how to help rural communities, protect the environment and core freedoms, and renew shared prosperity across geographic divides.

  • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Do they even know that??

    Being good for a group of people is not the same as them knowing that you’ve been good for them. This is eternally where Democrats fall flat on their faces.

      • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Republicans have spent literally decades convincing these people they are the best for them. They have honed that false image and every Republican knows to fall in-line and go after these folks. They hammer that point home every chance they get.

        Democrats have a couple of campaign events here or there every couple of years, maybe a couple of articles printed, and then they go back to endlessly pandering to teeny, tiny demographic groups that couldn’t get anyone elected.

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          What drives me crazy is the purity ponies that will go after anyone and everyone (and each other) over navel-gazing bullshit like “intersectionalities” and oppression olympics and so on…

      • gullible@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        The farmer/decentralized tech enthusiast cross section is probably small. Actually, given their hurdles in jailbreaking tractors and right to repair being so important to so many, it could be higher than average. Huh.

    • PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Of course not. Their media is controlled by them. It may be worse than fox now.

      Honestly, Lemmy is probably worse than Reddit at challenging a comment like this, but it’s better than the shit my father in law turns on when he drives my child around. Challenge it.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Honestly, Lemmy is probably worse than Reddit at challenging a comment like this

        The power posters tend to be the same Reddit shills and eternal optimists that dominated the old platforms. Who the hell actually even reads The Hill on the reg, anyway? Much less feels the urge to repost it to social media as frequently as this guy? He’s been on the site for 3 months and already posted nearly 2k times, all from a handful of mainstream news outlets.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Do they even know that??

      Big number go up things get better. What else do you need to know?

      Falling literacy rates? Rising infant mortality? Declining life expectancy? Pollution? 100-degree weather stretching into the Fall? Collapsing infrastructure and rising cost-of-living? Ballooning household debt in the face of wages that continue to fall relative to the value of assets and equities?

      Stfu, idiot. You just don’t understand economics. Life in the de-industrialized midwest has never been better. Say thank you and go back into your living holes. Be grateful things aren’t worse.

  • Furbag@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Ok, good, so does that mean you’ll continue to support Democratic policies in the future? Because rural America has held urban and suburban America in a goddamn stranglehold for the last 23 years and we could really use some economic relief ourselves.

    It should be clear from the evidence thus far that conservative policies don’t benefit anybody except the ultra-wealthy.

  • thejml@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Rural American will still vote against it because it’s a put in place by a Democrat.

    • JDPoZ@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Rural America will vote against it because rural America doesn’t “feel” the things done by politicians pretty much ever anymore.

      Until the federal government does something as big and tangibly felt as FDR’s “Rural Electrification Act” - they will continue to see big cities as the sole beneficiaries of governmental legislation.

      Unfortunately for all of us, propaganda works best when those who ostensibly are “on your side” refuse to make the shaky rich allies who pay for their fundraising efforts angry in order to better convince would-be constituents to support you.

  • Omar Khayyám@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    In my experience, the bar for a godsend is very low in rural America. If you are hungry there and a McDonalds is still open, it’s a godsend. If they bring back reruns of Andy Griffith at 3 o’clock on channel 2 it’s a godsend.

    • ilikenoodlez@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      They grow your food and usually make shit you need to survive because they can be taken advantage of. This creates a culture where they don’t always have as much or access to the same things urban dwellers do. What a condescending statement to make.

      • laylawashere44@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        They really don’t grow your food most of the time. Corn and Soy are the most grown crops, and 70+ % of either are ground up to feed animals or make biofuels. Biofuels don’t even make economic or environmental sense at all, it’s only created because the government mandates its addition to gasoline and diesel, making both more expensive. That’s 40% of all corn grown literally going up in flames for absolutely no reason other than to subsidize farmers who are overproducing corn.

        American farmers also massively overproduce milk too, mostly because they can feed cows the unlimited soy and feed corn available and because the US government will literally buy up all the excess milk (and turn it to cheese and stockpile it) or pay farmers to dump it down the drain to keep the prices up.

        And it’s not just milk, soy, and corn that’s overproduced, it’s everything. The amount of agricultural subsidy is insane, and most of it is to keep farmers in business who are growing stuff nobody wants or are growing stuff in areas where the land is so poor that without massive subsidy, there would be no profit, in the first place.

        And all of this overproduction is absolutely destroying the environment. Actual cities and towns filled with people doing actually productive things are running short of water because the government insists on keep Joe farmer’s irrigation dependant farm in the goddamn desert in business producing soy beans that are then exported to feed pigs in China. Hell half the time it isn’t even Joe Farmer, it’s Joe Farmer Corp owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who realized growing that same crop in their desert was unsustainable.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If you were already a PMC with a bunch of invested cash and property, you’ll be happy to know that the 80-year-old insurance industry flak turned bagman for the Obama administration turned white savior for the liberal establishment is going to be propping those inflated asset prices up one more business cycle.

      But if you’re watching Congress go into another round of cut-backs on domestic services, privatization of education and health care, ramping up of the national security state, and war-mongering abroad while the President rubber stamps it all… well… maybe just shut up and Vote Blue No Matter Who because the alternative to the Kyrsten Sinema Senate will be even worse.

  • Poob@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I personally think the biggest driving factor in the rural/city divide that causes rural populations to skew conservative is services.

    Rural communities are criminally underserviced. It makes sense why from a logistical view. When people are gathered in small areas, they are easy to provide services to. It’s much easier to provide quality power, plumbing, roads, essential services, and prettyich everything to high density areas. It’s more effective to service cities.

    It’s hard to provide reliable services to rural areas. With everyone spread out so much, you need longer wires, longer roads, longer pipes, more people, more everything. So it makes sense to allocate less to these areas. But it’s also horrific.

    These are people. It makes perfect sense why rural communities distrust and resent government, and oppose increased spending on social services. They don’t see the benefits. They see money being spent on things they can’t use. Then manipulative politicians swoop in and tell them that these services are bad.

    The solution is to suck it up and give everyone equal access to services. Spend more money on rural communities, even if it’s less efficient. Because they are people and deserve roads and hospitals and internet equivalent to cities.

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    1 year ago

    These motherfuckers are pulling out all the gaslighting techniques. Things are only doing well for the wealthy, the poor and working class not so much

  • randon31415@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    No! We need to make all these people go bankrupt! Then banks can take the land and sell it to large corporations that has no ties to the land and staff it with immigrants on “tourist visas” which when they expire we can treat as slaves! That is the only way we can decreases the cost of a large fry at McDonald’s by 10 cents!

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I used to live in an extremely rural area, and it was probably about 3:1 Republican to Democrat. And almost all of the people were on the dole in some form or another, thanks to the Big Government that they hated so much, most especially the Republicans that I knew.

    It’s almost as if the more they were personally benefiting from services from mostly Democratic policies, the more they resented “those libruls” and voted even harder for the far right.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    In simplest terms, Bidenomics arguably is the most significant departure in 40 years from the “free market revolution” that rose to dominance in the 1980s — a dramatic alteration to our country’s economic trajectory.

    Family farmers have been driven out of business in droves by ever-growing multinational companies running massive factory farms that pollute the air and water in local communities.

    And a continual wave of tax cuts that too often benefit only the wealthiest and most powerful have placed an incredible strain on the essential infrastructure that rural people need to live and work, including schools, healthcare, internet and roads.

    They developed a policy roadmap that can rebuild local communities; elected leaders of all stripes would benefit from adopting this popular agenda that connects strongly with rural voters.

    The combination of executive and congressional action since Biden took office — from the American Rescue Plan, to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to the CHIPS Act, Inflation Reduction Act and key executive action promoting competition and protecting workers — presents greater potential for revitalizing rural communities than anything since the New Deal.

    These policies rest on the indisputable fact that everyday people — small-business owners, family farmers, workers, even unpaid caregivers — drive our economy.


    The original article contains 687 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!