Red State Reckoning

Once upon a time, it was expected that the President of the United States would work for all the people of the United States, not just the ones who voted for him.

The Biden administration, for instance, repeatedly worked to make life better for Americans in rural, red states. Take infrastructure spending. Republicans insisted the bill was a wasteful boondoggle and wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. Biden insisted their communities actually needed it and wanted it – and he was right – and went ahead and sent them money anyway.

And of course, when it arrived, the same Republican representatives who had screamed about the bill and voted against it now showed up to take credit for the very funding they had opposed.

The same pattern played out throughout his presidency, to the point that CNN ran this remarkable story in February 2024: "Red States Are Big Winners of Biden's Landmark Laws"

Of course, none of that mattered in the presidential election. The Trump campaign played up racial animosities, transphobia, assorted culture war bullshit, and panic over egg prices to convince the very same rural red areas that benefited from Biden that he was the cause of all their problems.

When he was elected, there was a lot of excitement there. This piece cites a Twitter user who said "Finally, a president who understands rural America! Can’t wait to see these plans in action."

But over the past six months, Donald Trump's plans in action have repeatedly brought devastation to these exact same red rural areas.

For starters, the Medicaid cuts are going to impact red states significantly and likely force a lot of rural hospitals to close. It's hard to predict, but as that item notes, one study predicts at least three hundred rural hospitals will shutter as a result of these cuts. Given that many of these already stand as the only urgent care facilities within a two or three hour drive for most folks, that's going to devastate these areas.

And the cuts to NOAA and NWS and FEMA are going to make it much harder for rural areas to anticipate and respond to natural disasters. These areas will literally see more death and destruction as a result of these program cuts, and will struggle to rebuild in the wake too.

This week's slashing of money for NPR and PBS will also impact rural areas disproportionately. For many rural residents, especially the elderly, PBS stations have been a lifeline – literally, in some case, as these stations carry emergency broadcast system alerts that are (or were?) important in natural disasters.

Same with the cuts to the Department of Education, which runs a lot of programs to help rural areas. Or used to, at least.

And the NIH cuts? It's not just Harvard that's losing money. A lot of big public universities in red states will suffer huge losses as a result of the DOGE machete.

And this doesn't even touch the tariff policies and immigration crackdowns, which will wreak havoc on farming.

It's amazing how MAGA voters internalized a story about how elitist Democrats look down on them with contempt, despite evidence to the contrary, and then their own president and party moved to screw them over in every single way imaginable.

I guess Mencken was right. The people got what they wanted, good and hard.