MSNBC’s Monday edition of “Morning Joe” featured an author duo who railed against white rural Americans as a “threat to democracy.”
Professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Tom Schaller and journalist and opinion writer Paul Waldman joined “Morning Joe” to discuss their new book, “White Rural Rage,” while calling out the demographic for their voting patterns.
Cohost Mika Brzezinski asked the pair, “Why are white rural voters a threat to democracy at this point? You would think, looking at Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s background, that the opposite would be true.”
Schaller replied that they “lay out the fourfold interconnected threat that white rural voters pose to the country,” in their new book. “They are the most anti-gay, xenophobic in the country. QAnon support and subscribers, COVID denialism, Obama birtherism.”
The author also argued that white rural Americans continue to espouse “anti-democratic sentiments.”
“They don’t believe in an independent press, free speech. They’re most likely to say the president should be backed unilaterally without checks from the courts, and the strongest white Christian nationalists,” Schaller said. “Fourth, they’re most likely to excuse or justify violence as acceptable.”
Schaller argued that this is the case due to the “problematic education systems,” “poorer infrastructure” and “a lack of economic opportunity” in rural areas of the country.
“That kind of left them open to someone like Donald Trump who would come along and tell them something that was true, that there is a system that has not served them well,” Schaller said.
“They’re pissed off,” Waldman chimed in.
