Summary of White Rural Rage by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman: The Threat to American Democracy

By Justin Reese

DISCLAIMER

This book does not in any capacity mean to replace the original book but to serve as a vast summary of the original book.

Summary of White Rural Rage by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman: The Threat to American Democracy

IN THIS SUMMARIZED BOOK, YOU WILL GET:

- Chapter astute outline of the main contents.
- Fast & simple understanding of the content analysis.
- Exceptionally summarized content that you may skip in the original book

White Rural Rage by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman explores why rural Whites have failed to benefit from their political power and are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions. The book argues that rural Whites are increasingly inclined to hold racist and xenophobic beliefs, conspiracy theories, accept violence as political action, and exhibit antidemocratic tendencies. This phenomenon is known as the patriot paradox of rural America, where citizens who take pride in their patriotism are the least likely to defend core American principles. Schaller and Waldman critique the structures that allow rural Whites' disproportionate influence over American governance and propose a political reimagining for a better future for rural communities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: XinXii
• Release date: Mar 6, 2024
• ISBN: 9783989835276

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Summary of

White Rural Rage

A

Summary of Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman’s book

The Threat to American Democracy

JUSTIN REESE

Summary of White Rural Rage by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman: The Threat to American Democracy

By justin reese © 2024, justin reese.

All rights reserved.

Author: justin reese

Contact: [e-mail]

Cover, illustration: justin reese

Editing, proofreading: justin reese

Other collaborators: justin reese

NOTE TO READERS

This is an unofficial summary & analysis of Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman’s White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy designed to enrich your reading experience.

DISCLAIMER

The contents of the summary are not intended to replace the original book. It is meant as a supplement to enhance the reader's understanding. The contents within can neither be stored electronically, transferred, nor kept in a database. Neither part nor full can the document be copied, scanned, faxed, or retained without the approval from the publisher or creator.

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Copyright 2024. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 9783989835276

Verlag GD Publishing Ltd. & Co KG, Berlin

E-Book Distribution: XinXii

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Table of Contents

SMALL TOWNS, BIG TROUBLE

ESSENTIAL MINORITY, EXISTENTIAL THREAT

RURAL RUIN

THE GREATEST POLITICAL HAND EVER DEALT

CULTURES AT WAR

THE UNLIKELY KING OF RURAL AMERICA

CONDITIONAL PATRIOTS

RACE AND RURALITY

DESPAIR, DISTRACTION, DISILLUSIONMENT, AND DEMOCRATIC DECLINE

NOTE

SMALL TOWNS, BIG TROUBLE

The National Republican Congressional Committee responded to the controversy over country star Aldean's song Try That in a Small Town, which featured alleged liberal urban horrors and gun confiscation. Aldean's song became his greatest success, and it was released during the intensifying hostility between rural and urban America as the country headed into a presidential election.

The book aims to illuminate the democratic attachments of rural White Americans, who have more power than any other large demographic group in America. This power has distorted the outcomes of the American political system, leaving us in an age of minority rule. The party that won fewer votes in seven of the last eight presidential elections managed to assemble an activist 6-3 supermajority on the Supreme Court, which is now working to conform to a right-wing policy vision that overwhelming majorities of the public do not share.

Rural Whites are the least committed to the American political system, and their anger is often more prevalent among them than among those living elsewhere. The devastating force of late-stage capitalism has inflicted enormous damage on rural Americans, but the political system responded by exploiting and lying to them. Their own leaders deploy a sophisticated propaganda system to ensure that every problem rural America faces will be blamed on faraway forces and people who have little if any actual influence on rural Americans' lives. This strategy aims to stoke voters' seething, telling them that the solution to their problems will always be to elect more conservative Republicans, who will continue to spend more effort in ratcheting up rural anger than in addressing the problems confronting rural communities.

The book is a warning about the growing problem that politicians and the media are reluctant to discuss: rural voters, particularly White rural voters, pose a growing threat to the world's oldest constitutional democracy. Rural discontent and grievances are hardly new, but more than at any point in modern history, the survival of the United States as a modern, stable, multi-ethnic democracy is threatened by a White rural minority that wields outsize electoral power.

The book examines the political reality of rural America today and what it portends for the rest of us. It journeys from the Electoral College to West Virginia coal country, from the Affordable Care Act to the