Not everything is going to hell far too quickly and right before your eyes.
Democrats in rural places tend to keep the brand at arm’s length. The Washington Times last week spotlighted Democrats who despite that reflex are running as Democrats. Being the Washington Times, the paper frames advocacy for Medicare-for-All and living wages as “policies that historically tend to turn off rural communities.” But a reminder: Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary in what is now Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s rural North Carolina district. Sanders also won West Virginia by 15 points and most of the Great Plains states.
There is a reason (unmentioned) that the Washington Times interviewed my friend Anderson Clayton, 23, chair of the Democratic Party in Person County, North Carolina.
I spoke by phone with Clayton in August. She a high-energy fast-talker. I came away convinced I could charge my Tesla off her. If I had a Tesla. Since then she raised money to support several high school interns and for get-out-the-vote operations. Clayton was also elected president of the state’s Association of Democratic County Chairs.
Rural Person County (population 39,000) sits on the Virginia border north of Durham. Clayton returned home to Roxboro (IIRC) after organizing last year in Iowa and Wisconsin for Elizabeth Warren and in Kentucky for Amy McGrath. Person County voted for Donald Trump last November by 60%, three points higher than 2016. City of Roxboro precincts narrowly voted for Joe Biden by 2 points.
Last week, Clayton helped Roxboro elect its first-ever majority-minority city council, including its first two Black women. She told the Washington Times that she’s accepting of “anyone and everyone that’s willing to meet with me and who will hear out my message … new jobs, economic opportunity, new job training.” When she finds them, regardless of party, she said, “I go after [them.]”
The woman is not shy.
Part of the reason Democrats fail to get traction in rural America is failure to be loud and proud about what they stand for. Another is that many Democratic committees have all the institutional vigor of a mid-20th-century men’s fraternal organization. What’s needed is not just more younger activists, but more “legacy Democrats” willing to stand aside and let them take the reins.
That “You can’t believe in something you’ve never seen” is one reason Democratic rural counties underperform. They don’t know what they don’t know, and it’s not their fault. The big campaigns don’t set up out there. There are no role models for vigorous organizing, too few like Clayton to bring those big-campaign skills to them. And no one teaches it. Almost no one.