MAGA sure likes the opportunity to tell rural people that

[applegrove]

an economic boom, be it through Haitian legal immigrants or job opportunities brought to the countryside by broadband, result in increased rents and unaffordable housing. Boy they really don't want those people out of financial dire straights anytime soon. I guess they have the rural poor right where they want them, forever.

Regression analysis proves that people suffering from financial anxiety stop voting with reason and start voting with passion or feeling, and in the case of the USA, against their economic self interest and for Donald Trump and Republicans..

IMHO

[Alice B.]

1. I often wish...

... We'd do a better job of speaking directly to them -- the financially distressed, rural or otherwise.

"Regression analysis proves that people suffering from financial anxiety stop voting with reason and start voting with passion or feeling, and in the case of the USA, against their economic self interest and for Donald Trump and Republicans."

Any time our candidates talk about the gains and good things happening during the Biden administration, I want to hear that followed by an admission that progress happens unevenly, it is hard and it can be slow -- not just a recitation of facts and statistics, which feels glib and dismissive if you're not sharing in the good stuff.

I feel this because I only recently started a new job after being unemployed and searching for nearly a full year. And going back further, I have experienced enough financial distress, that but for the grace of whatever, I could be one of those voters.

[applegrove]

2. I feel so sorry for people facing economic strife. I have never really known it.

It would be someone like you who has lived it who could get through to them. So glad you got a job and things are looking up. And yes it is all about luck our various situations. But it is also who gets elected. Biden's broadband will mean someone with a talent for something (crafts, design, language, refurbishing finds from a thrift store, etc) does not have to move to a city for work. They can go into business for themselves and lift up their rural community.

I realize now that months ago someone on DU was arguing with me about how broadband would mean rent and housing prices would go up. They must have been a MAGA troll. Yuck.

[betsuni]

3. "We'd do a better job of speaking directly to them." How do Republicans do a better job at speaking

directly to them?

[mucholderthandirt]

4. They own the media. Pure and simple. We should break up the media conglomerates and bring back real news.

[betsuni]

7. Break up media conglomerates HOW? "Why didn't Democrats stop ___ ?" Always blame Democrats.

"Bring back real news." Right. Why don't Democrats change American culture. It's easy!

[Alice B.]

8. That's the emotion part, the OP talks about.

It's the fissure into which Republicans drive their wedge.

If you don't have a job and have had your phone shut off for the umpteenth time while you're trying to find one, do you really want someone to respond to that with 'but the unemployment rate now vs then?'

If things feel dire for you, the "things are dire" message is going to resonate more than other people's progress.

We may not ever get some, or even many, of those votes but I don't believe we have to totally cede them.

[Yavin4]

5. When you limit the types of housing that can be built, when you impose car dependency, when you don't have

single-payer health, and when you make advanced education expensive, you create an economy that doesn't work for most people because most jobs won't ever pay enough for people to afford these things. That's where the economic anxiety comes from.

[applegrove]

6. And when you get rid of unions. All of this in the movement

conservative plan over 50 years.