It's not just city liberals who need to understand the rest of America

So far I've seen the left's reaction to Trump's victory split into two camps: the first has descended into blaming the red states as being populated by racist idiots, while the second has descended into liberal guilt about how the left doesn't understand rural America. I don't think either of those are correct, but I don't think either are completely wrong either. However, I definitely agree with this guy that there is more to it.

If you don't see the struggle of minorities being discriminated against, it's hard to care about it. I don't mean that in a finger-pointing, "Bush doesn't care about black people" way, I mean you simply don't care one way or the other. It's not a thing in your life, and so it's not a factor in your decision making. For many people who voted for Clinton, this was an election of morals. But many of the moral issues are issues that simply aren't relevant for a lot of communities.

Yes, there are a significant proportion of Trump voters who are single-issue voters (such as on abortion, gay marriage, or opposition to Islam) who will vote for whatever Republican is on the ballot, but I think a lot of them just don't care one way or another about things that were considered the most polarizing topics of the election. They are not big issues for them because the problem simply doesn't manifest in their lives, so they don't understand why it matters so much to people who voted the other way. I'm not saying they are stupid for not getting it, any more than I think left-leaning voters are stupid for not getting rural America, but I do think it's a good part of why they think Clinton voters are being reactionary when they call out Trump voters for supporting discrimination.

Since this series of tweets, the author has polished them into an expanded article on the subject that I encourage you to read: http://www.rollcall.com/news/opinion/im-a-coastal-elite-from-the-midwest-the-real-bubble-is-rural-america

tl;dr: "Of course, people on the coasts could stand to meet more rural and exurban people, to understand why they are anxious about a changing world and less economic opportunity. But rural and exurban people need to see more of America. People do not understand the depths of how little rural America travels and sees other people and cultures."

This spoke to me because I grew up in a rural area in England (I now live near Washington DC), and this was my experience growing up too. I looked at a photo of my graduating class and couldn't pick out (let alone remember) anyone who wasn't white. I grew up thinking racism just wasn't a problem, not because we were denying it, but because we simply never saw it. It wasn't until moving away for college that I really began to understand just how much discrimination existed outside our community.

Today, the place where I grew up is a lot more diverse. There is definitely more discrimination as a result. But many places have not seen this change, and there's a lot more of those places on this side of the Atlantic.