Your point is important and true and needs to be repeated again and again. I lived for many years in Cape Girardeau, MO, the home of Rush Limbaugh. I never met him but did interact with members of his family and community leaders who were with rare exception very conservative Republicans. To the south is the Bootheel—cotton, soybean, and rice country of the Mississippi Delta—which has the demographics and politics of the deep South, and to the west lies the Ozarks, whose counties map pretty well onto the Democrat stereotype of the Trump supporter, many of whom drive into Cape Girardeau on weekends to shop. But at the core of the Republican Party in that region of Missouri is a solid and successful middle and upper-middle class of business people, plumbing contractors, owners of car dealerships, physicians, hospital executives, lawyers, engineers, store managers, franchise owners, bankers, and the list goes on. And, yes, among these good people I have often detected deep-seated hints of racism. But the idea of the Democratic Party that it could win over this region with social programs that lift people out of poverty and improve their economic well-being is absurd beyond words.
I went to school in Iowa and there was an old joke about Missouri. A small portion of Iowa hooks down into Missouri, like a dingleberry. The old joke is that if Iowa gave that part of the state to Missouri, the average IQ of each state would increase!
Having been to MO on a few occasions one thing that stood out to me that compared to other states, its largest metro areas, St Louis and KC, are not growing as fast and are not as economically dynamic. In fact, both areas have lost businesses over the last 20 plus years, either through mergers, buyouts, bankruptcies, relocations, etc. As a result, the population growth and diversification that we have seen in other states like GA, MN, AZ, even TX and NC is not there.
You can see it from the airports. At both St Louis and KC, the main airline is Southwest Airlines. That was not the case 25 years ago. In fact, prior to 2000, TWA, a major international airline, was HQ'd in St. Louis. This is the same for Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Omaha, Wichita, etc. This all ties in to the issues we are seeing today. Many people in these areas, regardless of education, IQ, and income level, feel left behind or being left behind. Literally, airplanes are even leaving and not coming back!
Not to try and push another news magazine here, but the Washington Monthly has been talking about the issues of industry consolidation and its impact on demographics and job growth for years.
These things all tie in to why you see smart people like the OP said who support Trump. If you have had something, and you are afraid of losing it, your reaction is very different from someone who has never had something but hopes to get it. One POV is about hope, another is based on fear.
This is a really thoughtful comment. I used to live there too. I wasn't quiet about my political views and looking back I sometimes wonder how my 5'3" self didn't get into and lose a fight (mostly joking). It was a very strange place, because so many of the communities in the area - especially on the Illinois side of the river - were Black majority or at least plurality. And it still seemed very racially backward. It seemed like there was no overcoming history in Cape.
When I was very young, I did an internship in a similar place. That year, there was a similarly young seminarian doing a service project as the children's choir director at church. One Sunday, the kids sang this song from "Up with People," popular in the 1970s with what today would be called "evangelical churches." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARykEwdBMkc The outrage among those good people of the congregation had to be seen to be believed.
Your point is important and true and needs to be repeated again and again. I lived for many years in Cape Girardeau, MO, the home of Rush Limbaugh. I never met him but did interact with members of his family and community leaders who were with rare exception very conservative Republicans. To the south is the Bootheel—cotton, soybean, and rice country of the Mississippi Delta—which has the demographics and politics of the deep South, and to the west lies the Ozarks, whose counties map pretty well onto the Democrat stereotype of the Trump supporter, many of whom drive into Cape Girardeau on weekends to shop. But at the core of the Republican Party in that region of Missouri is a solid and successful middle and upper-middle class of business people, plumbing contractors, owners of car dealerships, physicians, hospital executives, lawyers, engineers, store managers, franchise owners, bankers, and the list goes on. And, yes, among these good people I have often detected deep-seated hints of racism. But the idea of the Democratic Party that it could win over this region with social programs that lift people out of poverty and improve their economic well-being is absurd beyond words.
I went to school in Iowa and there was an old joke about Missouri. A small portion of Iowa hooks down into Missouri, like a dingleberry. The old joke is that if Iowa gave that part of the state to Missouri, the average IQ of each state would increase!
Having been to MO on a few occasions one thing that stood out to me that compared to other states, its largest metro areas, St Louis and KC, are not growing as fast and are not as economically dynamic. In fact, both areas have lost businesses over the last 20 plus years, either through mergers, buyouts, bankruptcies, relocations, etc. As a result, the population growth and diversification that we have seen in other states like GA, MN, AZ, even TX and NC is not there.
You can see it from the airports. At both St Louis and KC, the main airline is Southwest Airlines. That was not the case 25 years ago. In fact, prior to 2000, TWA, a major international airline, was HQ'd in St. Louis. This is the same for Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Omaha, Wichita, etc. This all ties in to the issues we are seeing today. Many people in these areas, regardless of education, IQ, and income level, feel left behind or being left behind. Literally, airplanes are even leaving and not coming back!
Not to try and push another news magazine here, but the Washington Monthly has been talking about the issues of industry consolidation and its impact on demographics and job growth for years.
These things all tie in to why you see smart people like the OP said who support Trump. If you have had something, and you are afraid of losing it, your reaction is very different from someone who has never had something but hopes to get it. One POV is about hope, another is based on fear.
This is a really thoughtful comment. I used to live there too. I wasn't quiet about my political views and looking back I sometimes wonder how my 5'3" self didn't get into and lose a fight (mostly joking). It was a very strange place, because so many of the communities in the area - especially on the Illinois side of the river - were Black majority or at least plurality. And it still seemed very racially backward. It seemed like there was no overcoming history in Cape.
When I was very young, I did an internship in a similar place. That year, there was a similarly young seminarian doing a service project as the children's choir director at church. One Sunday, the kids sang this song from "Up with People," popular in the 1970s with what today would be called "evangelical churches." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARykEwdBMkc The outrage among those good people of the congregation had to be seen to be believed.