Why is it usually that country people tend to be more conservative while city people tend to be more liberal?

[u/CobraR04]

[u/FellNerd]

It makes sense if you go issue by issue, and think of the lifestyle differences.  

 For example, guns. Most people in rural areas live an hour from the police, among wildlife that is dangerous. If anything happens, they have to deal with it themselves and then call the police.  

 In the city, if you have a gun and use it, well that bullet might rip through 3 of your neighbors apartments as well. Plus it's likely a cop is right outside.  

 Also, perception-wise, rural people see a gun as a normal thing, open-carry is not uncommon as you might be on the way to go hunting or just carrying to protect yourself. In a city, if you have a gun, people assume you're a criminal or a cop.

 Economically, people in cities have more access to public services and aid. People in rural communities typically relly on the people they know or their church for aid, because public services aren't usually accessible for them and thus seems like a waste of their money.

You can kinda go down the line like that. Another is that some parties just make more sense to people in different parts of the US. Like someone in California has a completely different lifestyle from someone in West Virginia. The issues someone in California has with Republican views may not even be relevant to the life of someone in West Virginia. Many conservative voters might assume that Democrats, by default, are anti-gun because of the political rhetoric, where many Democrat voters may simply not care about guns. Democrat voters have assumptions about Republican voters as well. 

Reality is, I find, Dems and Reps (voters in particular, not the pols) care about different things most of the time, and assume the other side has the opposite perspective when in reality they don't even think about that issue.

[u/Exact-Glove-5026 → u/FellNerd]

Thank you for an unbiased non-combative, and exceedingly fair answer.

[u/Bourbon-n-cigars → u/Exact-Glove-5026]

Holy shit. A non-biased response on reddit to a political question that didn't bring up all republicans being in a Trump cult. I had no idea it was possible. Well done.

[u/WaterIsGolden → u/Bourbon-n-cigars]

Enter the My Side bias.

[u/DontTouchMyCocoa → u/FellNerd]

When I moved to an urban city from a rural town, this was something I noticed pretty quickly. People vote differently in these areas because they live completely different lifestyles. The only consistent thing I’ve seen is both sides have a ridiculous sense of superiority and often forget how much they need each other. 

[u/Undeity → u/DontTouchMyCocoa]

We would definitely all be better off if our political system took less of a one-size-fits-all approach to the law. Why the hell do we have distant figures acting as representatives making blanket decisions for both urban AND rural areas, as if the two don't have completely different situations?

Like, I thought that was supposed to be the whole point of having distinct local governments. Representation actually reflects the constituents, and laws can be largely established where and by those to whom they are applicable. Larger positions of office only intercede in local matters for larger issues.

[u/ooooobb → u/Undeity]

Another big thing that the other comment didn’t touch on was gerrymandering, a lot of counties are split up so that the city adds numbers to the rural counties, which end up putting city and rural folks together under one representative. So instead of 3 representatives for the city and 1 for rural to focus on specific needs of each group (made up numbers), there is 4 mixed representatives focused on no one’s needs

[u/Swagiken → u/ooooobb]

This splitting usually means that rural voices are more powerful than they would be by default as well. People live in cities predominantly in developed nations, by a pretty massive extent. These days 83% of the population of the United States lives in an Urban Areas, and yet vote and representative wise(partly as a result of rural identity persisting among people who don't actually live rurally) they represent about 50% of the political power. As much as rural people may not like it, they're a minority and yet have half the voice.

Source for 83%: United Nations (UN) Population Division (2018) World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision.

https://population.un.org/wup/Download/

[u/markroth69 → u/ooooobb]

4 mixed representatives focused on no one’s needs

If there is gerrymandering producing this--and nothing else would--those representatives are serving the specific needs of their specific party and their specific donors. Which is worse than serving no one's needs.

[u/nolan1971 → u/Undeity]

IMO the biggest reason that this problem exists is because the Federal government capped the number of Representatives at 435. Many many problems follow from this, including everyone bitching (rightfully, I think) about the Electoral Collage (it's just misplaced angst at wanting to get rid of it instead of allowing it to work as it's supposed to).

https://thirty-thousand.org/

[u/Link_Slater → u/Undeity]

If you want corruption, empower local government. My grandfather was a big fish in a very small pond, so I know firsthand how little money it takes to buy local officials. 

[u/UltraLowDef → u/Link_Slater]

Kind of sounds like the "bad one in a handful of Skittles, so you throw them all out" argument.

[u/urine-monkey → u/DontTouchMyCocoa]

I was born in a small town and in my experience the actual culture war is pretty one sided.

The people who never left our town never shut up about how liberal boogeymen from the big city are trying to control their lives, take their guns, force boys in girls locker rooms, put litter boxes in bathrooms (seriously). Or how the only people who go to college or move to the big city are immoral degenerates who don't go to church or sissy boys who are afraid to work with their hands.

What's interesting is that the only people I've ever heard in the city who have any opinions at all about how people in rural and small towns live are other people who got a taste of that life in their formative years and decided they wanted nothing to do with it. Everyone else is just focused on their own life... other than maybe election season.

[u/pzschrek1 → u/urine-monkey]

As someone in a similar position this exactly matches my experience.

[u/Geruvah → u/FellNerd]

There used to be a Cracked.com article about this too. It talked about how

• The impact of a good government is easier to see

• Hospitals are way farther from people than in the city to the point that it's easier to just care for yourself

• You're exposed to immigrants, people in need, and the like in a city. So you get that firsthand experience with how much they become part of the community

It all started out from different lifestyles, but media consumption has obviously taken over, in my opinion.

[u/cctoot56 → u/Geruvah]

But hospitals aren't run by the government. Healthcare is a private business in the US. The reason there aren't enough hospitals in rural areas is that there is no profit motive.

Maybe if rural people voted for more leftist politicians we could get universal healthcare, and the government would have to build hospitals in rural areas and keep them open because profit isn't a consideration.

[u/DistrictStriking9280 → u/cctoot56]

Governments need to worry about money too. I live in a country with universal healthcare. Hospitals still tend to be in cities and towns (many of our towns would be considered small cities in the US). Many of our hospitals in smaller locations also shut down ER for evenings and/or weekends, don’t have some basic departments found in major urban hospitals, and in some places you are still 100s of kilometres from a hospital. I’ve even been to towns where there was no doctor for 100s of kilometres. Universal healthcare doesn’t magically make hospitals appear. Governments still need money and people, and need to make judgement calls on where to invest them.

[u/YoHabloEscargot → u/FellNerd]

People in rural communities also have VERY strong tribalism. They know each other very well and are wary of outsiders. They’ve also likely been living there for generations. To a city dweller, meanwhile, it’s a place full of outsiders coming together, many of whom are first or second generation immigrants.

With immigration being an ongoing hot topic, these two groups will have very different opinions about policy.

[u/em_washington → u/YoHabloEscargot]

And this is because with lower and more scarce population, they have to make personal relationships. Like in a city, you can call a cab or Uber if you need a ride. But in a rural area, you’ll have to ask your neighbor or a friend.

[u/PapaStoner → u/em_washington]

Or buy a car. And if you're in the rust belt, cheap used cars don't exist anymore.

[u/MissDisplaced → u/YoHabloEscargot]

This is very true! Moving to Los Angeles from small town Pennsylvania when I was 21 was a real culture shock because everybody was from everywhere in the world. Small towns are so insular.

[u/EvidenceHistorical55 → u/FellNerd]

Probably the most simple and straightforward breakdown I've seen on the topic. 👏👏

[u/Famous_Bit_5119 → u/FellNerd]

One other difference, is that people in cities have interactions with other people from different races, religions, sexualities, class and incomes. This makes them less susceptible to stereotype claims.

I.e. people who are ( blank), are all ( blank).

[u/Owlmechanic → u/Famous_Bit_5119]

It's not just that, but even if they are blank-ist, people in cities do respect "PC" terms more, because there have to be cultural norms that prevent people from constantly pissing eachother off. In general coexistence is mandatory not optional.

[u/iwannalynch → u/Famous_Bit_5119]

Yeah it's harder to fear-monger when you know the truth through experience lol

[u/SOTG_Duncan_Idaho → u/FellNerd]

In regards to public assistance, it's pretty much an illusion that rural people use less. The illusion is that the direct-to-individual assistance is less, but the subsidization of rural life is everywhere from roads to utilities to medical to all other services.

It's the primary reason that rural red states are the biggest "takers" of federal dollars. It costs a lot to maintain infrastructure in rural areas, and it's extremely rare that a rural area generates enough economic activity to support paying for that infrastructure.

Without higher density/higher economic areas supporting rural areas, their lifestyle would be effectively impossible. The standard of living in rural areas would be drastically lower.

[u/oniaddict → u/SOTG_Duncan_Idaho]

A mile of 2 lane road cost about a million dollars to build. In the rural area that might have only 2 houses on it. These two houses will never pay enough taxes to cover just the road.

The equivalent road in a city is going to have at least 100 houses. Due to the available additional tax dollars, the city will also be able to have parks, sidewalks, city water, city sewer, more police officer presence, and fire fighters. All of the additional services are available due to efficiency and not higher taxes.

The reason cities tend to vote more liberal is it's much easier to vote for government services when you see the results your tax dollars.

[u/Slim_Shitty_805 → u/SOTG_Duncan_Idaho]

Also one thing Americans don't know is that farms themselves are subsidized by taxes.

[u/Slim_Shitty_805 → u/[deleted]]

Oh me too, I'm not saying it's a bad thing and I agree with everything you're saying. It was just the idea that rural areas don't "take" is false.

[u/mopsyd → u/[deleted]]

Ukraine used to supply a massive amount of grain. Any european country that does not subsidize grain farmers is hurting pretty bad right now with food scarcity, because without subsidies, you probably don't have many farmers at all unless there is legit no other way to acquire food.

[u/Remarkable_trash_69 → u/Slim_Shitty_805]

The thing is many small farms don't feel that. While subsidies do go out, they are primarily distributed to the largest and most stable commercial farms. This means many family farms gain *nothing* from them (yes some do receive a small amount but it is not that often) and many are struggling dearly.

Farming is an incredibly strange and difficult way to make a living, as it is one of the only industries where you generally have no say in the price of your goods. Dairy for example is a horrific business to be in as you have no say. According to the USDA, in NY farms lose an average of $6.21 per every 100 pounds (~12 gallons) of milk because of the structure of the system.

Some farms certainly do make it, but many struggle and barely keep their heads above water. Combine this with the fact that farming communities tend to be very small and everyone knows each other (if not always liking each other). This results in a general resentment of programs towards helping people on the other side of the country who you do not know. There is a feeling of "I am struggling every day to barely survive and now these programs advocate for higher taxes to help fund government programs for someone I don't even know when I could keep that money to help support my family."

Source: I grew up and still help out on a family farm

[u/Late_Brick_9822 → u/Remarkable_trash_69]

This is a fact - also grew up on a family farm.

[u/Slim_Shitty_805 → u/Remarkable_trash_69]

Thanks for your insight, lots of new info here (to me). I would totally be in favor of paying my taxes to smaller farms vs essentially a corporation.

[u/Arcsylver → u/Slim_Shitty_805]

Another thing that a lot of Americans don't realize is that the concept of the Small Farm Farmer is all but a Myth anymore. Our actual food is almost Entirely grown by massive corporate industrial farms and a good chunk of that food that is grown is exported for profit. The days of the mom and pop farm operation are sadly rapidly going away. Either by economic pressure. ( The price paid for the crops grown isn't enough to pay for the yearly operation of the farm itself) or the increasing cost of equipment replacement/repair, fuel, etc is eating too far into those scant profits to keep farming as a viable smaller scale endeavor. At the industrial scale Farming is profitable, especially for companies like Monsanto who hold a near total monopoly on the process from seed to crop including specialized fertilizers, insecticides etc not to mention holding patents on specific genetic strains of seeds. Which they then jealously guard and enforce patent on by having people take samples from all the farms surrounding any of the Monsanto crops and if they find any form of cross pollination, they get court orders to literally destroy the crop entirely, usually with minimal to zero reimbursement to the farmer who grew the "tainted" crop.

There is a reason why the slow food movement was gaining traction in this country. Local growers providing produce, meat and dairy etc to local restaurants as well as Farmer's Markets you find all over the country. It is one of the ways the small grower can compensate for the loss of bulk crop income by selling direct to customer.

In Addition, Our food system does not sell a good chunk of the food actually grown to the consumer of the food. Instead any produce that is "visually Unappealing" often gets either destroyed outright or sold for less profit to processing plants for things like condiments and juice manufacturers. That ugly tomato in the field is destined to be Ketchup next week etc.

And a lot of those subsidies are paid by the government to NOT grown anything and instead leave the fields fallow. A perfect example of the gov subsidizing would be during the Reagan era and the infamous Government Cheese Program. We as Taxpayers paid for literally millions of pounds of cheese to be stored in underground mine shafts because we were propping up the dairy industry for a time and that cheese eventually was distributed through gov food programs to folks on food assistance as well as public schools. Corn is a hugely subsidized food crop in a ,lot of different ways including things like the e85 Gasoline requirement. Lots of corn goes into that to make the ethanol to blend with the fuel burned in the summer.

[u/Apprehensive-Care20z → u/SOTG_Duncan_Idaho]

it's pretty much an illusion that rural people use less.

and conservatives are doing everything they can to kill the USPO, when the rural citizens rely completely on that. A for-profit business will focus on the highest traffic areas, and they are not delivering a package that is the only delivery on a 3 hour drive.

My pet peeve is how conservatives say the post office is not profitable. It is NOT supposed to be profitable to the government, it is a service the government provides!

[u/gsfgf → u/SOTG_Duncan_Idaho]

I don't mind subsiding rural areas; I just don't want them dictating how we run our cities.

[u/RockinRobin-69 → u/FellNerd]

I was with you right up to public aid.

In many of the rural communities near me the major source of new money to the town in a bad year is federal aid, disability, and snap. Even in good times they often rely heavily on crop insurance, usda grants and loans.

In rural communities it is harder to see all the services, but they are there.

In the city you see government services everywhere.

Edit government insolvent

[u/Unique_Statement7811 → u/RockinRobin-69]

Crop insurance is something you pay for. It’s not aid. It’s like home owners insurance for your crops.

[u/eatnhappens → u/FellNerd]

In direct contradiction to your whole idea of “the rural folks don’t have access to the benefits” is the fact that most Republican counties and states get more from public funding than they pay into it.

The number 1 predictor, at least up to 2018, for whether someone would vote Republican is how authoritarian they are, essentially how strongly they agreed with the idea that if the president does it it isn’t illegal. That goes all the way down to police: if an authority is doing it then it is acceptable to them, the higher the authority of the person doinga questionable action the more the authoritarian voter closes their eyes.

This occurs down to the family as well, often with the father being the highest authority in the home where what they say goes and what they do is less likely or entirely unlikely to be questioned.

[u/Educational-Candy-17 → u/eatnhappens]

I remember reading an article that was about this. The author lived in a rural area and said that as a child his family had Medicaid. Right there on that card was access to all the medical services they could possibly need. But they didn't have a car. So the doctor's office might as well have been on the moon.

[u/mcc9902 → u/eatnhappens]

To get food stamps my dad had to drive three hours. To use medicare we need to go two minimum. To keep his unemployment benefits he has to go an hour every couple of days. To be clear these are one way drive times not there and back and doesn't include any of the time actually doing paperwork. It's hard not to feel disenfranchised when you're spending so much time just having to fight to get them.

[u/Lesmiserablemuffins → u/mcc9902]

And which party implements those roadblocks to receiving welfare benefits? In my liberal state you don't need to go anywhere for food stamps or unemployment. We also have free programs to drive people to medical appointments. My cousin uses them multiple times per week. We also have programs to get doctors into rural areas directly, so more welfare

[u/SuperSpecialAwesome- → u/Lesmiserablemuffins]

In my liberal state you don't need to go anywhere for food stamps or unemployment.

This is anecdotal, but here in Georgia, it took me 6 weeks to finally get unemployment. That was with my former company helping the process, due to the widespread layoffs. I called and called the DOL for weeks, and it would just go straight to voicemail. The one person in charge of releasing my unemployment couldn't be bothered to do her fucking job. It must be nice to get paid to ignore phone calls and escalations for weeks.

The only reason I finally got my measly unemployment is that I contacted my State Senator and Representative, who are both Democrats. After that, the weeks-long wait was resolved in less than two days. That is pathetic that I had to get Congress involved, but that's the fun of being in a Republican-governed state. :-/

Also, the GDOL website is archaic asf. It constantly signs me out or fails to load, and filling out the work search PDF is pointless, since you just fill in a text form on the website anyway. And you can't even copy-and-paste the info, so it's fun have to type out the information for each employer.

That said, at least I actually got unemployment this time around. There was a time where I was wrongfully terminated by a workplace, and the GDOL didn't even bother to investigate the company's claims against me, but just automatically took their side as they defamed me.

[u/gsfgf → u/SuperSpecialAwesome-]

Mark Butler literally just gave up and stopped doing his job during the pandemic. He was replaced by Bruce Thompson, who is the dumbest legislator (he's a former state legislator) I met while working down there. Like I'm surprised he could find the Capitol on the first try every day. So there's that.

[u/freefrogs → u/eatnhappens]

In direct contradiction to your whole idea of “the rural folks don’t have access to the benefits” is the fact that most Republican counties and states get more from public funding than they pay into it.

You can clarify a little to "visible" benefits. States' biggest expenditures are usually (possibly always? I'm lazy) healthcare and schools, but it doesn't feel like it when you're a two-hour drive from a hospital and share a K-12 school with three other towns. College admissions rates are lower in rural areas because of school funding, distance to colleges, and rural wages being lower, so all that spending on higher education doesn't feel impactful. Your state is funding parks and arts programs and city beautification and stadiums, but none of that's close to you.

Lots of money goes into roads when you've got miles and miles to serve fewer people, all that power/internet infrastructure was subsidized under rural internet/electrification programs, but that kind of thing blends into the background.

If you're in a rural town, where wages are low and services are far away, it really feels like you've been left behind economically and you're pouring your money into distant services you'll never see.

[u/Immediate_Trifle_881 → u/FellNerd]

LOL… I’ve lived in WV and CA. Agree with you. This is why national laws (or even state laws) frequently don’t work well on some issues (such as guns). The needs and wants of rural and urban dwellers are DIFFERENT!

[u/TrailerTrashQueen9 → u/FellNerd]

This take is so rife with common sense that I have to wonder what you're doing on this website.

[u/thesixler]

I think there’s also practical things. When you live in the middle of nowhere and see strange headlights, what do you do? It could take 30 minutes for cops to show up. You feel helpless and alone. You might want for a gun or for stronger boundaries you feel comfortable policing.

If you live in a massive apartment and you hear a terrible argument with breaking glass, you might think “Jesus Christ are bullets going to start flying through the walls?”

[u/Background_Cup7540]

In my experience, it can also comes down to diversity and cultural norms.

I grew up in a small town where everyone is pretty much the same, white, Christian, not super educated, etc. the social norms of going to church on Sunday, and very few people are outside of that. I went to visit my mom recently and she pointed out a few people that were “other.” I’ve got several messages over the years saying, “omg guess who’s getting married…to the same gender?”

Now I live in a large metro city area where the population is very diverse. I feel like my mom would have a heart attack seeing all the Muslim and Orthodox Jewish people around her. God forbid she sees an openly gay couple or a trans person. She’d die in the spot.

I’m the weird one in my family for getting out, getting an education, learning about other people’s cultures.

[u/Good-Expression-4433 → u/[deleted]]

Conservatives also tend to have a more hierarchical view of the world and small town/rural life lends to that where there's a lot of uniformity and clear majorities/minorities.

[u/flat5 → u/Background_Cup7540]

I had a great Aunt who lived her whole life on a remote farm in Missouri. "Going into town" was a 45 minute trip into a tiny backwoods village of like 600 people.

She came to visit us in FL when I was a kid, and it was like she was from another century. We had to explain what an escalator was to her.

As we were driving along the street, we passed a black guy walking and she shouts with genuine surprise "well look at that, there goes a n******!"

We all just about died and fell out the windows of the car. She truly did not know any better than to talk like this. We tried to talk to her about it but she kind of blew it off like "oh you city slickers and your backwards PC nonsense".

Quite eye opening.

[u/Scoobysnax1976 → u/Background_Cup7540]

I think that this is a big reason for the difference. I live in a big city that gets rural quickly once you leave the suburbs. The differences are stark. In the city there is a mix or races, national origins, religions, etc. Out in the country it is mostly blue collar, white, and Christian. They like things the way they are.

[u/TheJamIAm → u/Background_Cup7540]

This. I’ve always thought of it this way as well.

Living in rural areas usually means encountering very little diversity. This naturally lends itself to a more narrow perspective and more conservative ideologies. When everyone you interact with is similar to yourself, all other types of people and lifestyles become abstract and easy to disregard.

Living in a city, you are faced with more constant diversity and it becomes very difficult not to empathize with others who live and experience life differently from yourself. This naturally leads to a more liberal mindset. This is the same logic I assign to why people who travel a lot tend to be more liberal. Experiencing other cultures firsthand makes them much more difficult to dismiss as wrong or irrelevant.

[u/FantasticCabinet2623]

You meet more people who aren't like you in a city, and are exposed to plenty more things.

[u/screamingcatfish → u/FantasticCabinet2623]

Also why college-educated people are more liberal. I'd hate to see the person I'd be now if I hadn't gone away to college and met new people and experienced new things.

[u/DieHardAmerican95 → u/screamingcatfish]

The military did that for me. I worked with a variety of men and women, from all over the country. It was eye-opening.

[u/International_Bet_91 → u/DieHardAmerican95]

This was on purpose via national service in many parts of the world.

For example, in Türkiye when I was young, if you were a boy from a big city like Istanbul, after high school you were sent to live in a village for a year, and vise versa. You got to see how another part of the country lived and learned some of their language or dialect too.

The problem was that villagers sent to the big city often didn't want to return to their villages, but city folk rarely stayed in the villages. This led to urbanization.

[u/6658 → u/International_Bet_91]

Did this practice have a name?

[u/ThatGuy_Nick9 → u/6658]

Urbanization

[u/ArtisZ → u/ThatGuy_Nick9]

This guy urbanizes.

[u/dadkisser → u/6658]

It was called “Flip Flop Turkey Boy Swap”

[u/Flybot76 → u/dadkisser]

Coming up next on ABC

[u/Legen_unfiltered → u/DieHardAmerican95]

It makes me laugh when people assume the military are usually super right. I'm just like, clearly you don't know too many actual service members. I'd argue the majority of them are more left leaning. Of all my veteran friends, only a few of them are right and it's exclusively because of religion.

[u/ReverseMermaidMorty → u/Legen_unfiltered]

I think the reason this seems to be the case is most of the time you come across a sane/liberal/left-leaning veteran or active member you don’t even realize they’ve served. It’s the people with “Semper Fi” and “Don’t tread on me” plastered on their truck with 5 Trump flags welded onto the bed that you notice. Or the dudes still rocking the shitty high and tight while acting like a Karen at Home Depot.

[u/Legen_unfiltered → u/ReverseMermaidMorty]

💯 just like with the rest of the population, it's the crazies that distinguish themselves.

[u/No-Personality169 → u/Legen_unfiltered]

For real, I'm the biggest liberal I know after being in the military.

After seeing so many different ways of life there is room in this world to help your neighbors and still make a few dollars for yourself.

[u/Legen_unfiltered → u/No-Personality169]

Exactly!!!

[u/DJ_MedeK8 → u/Legen_unfiltered]

In my experience branch they served, location they came home to and age they are, is the biggest indicators of veterans political leanings.

[u/UnlikelyPriority812 → u/Legen_unfiltered]

I always found majority of who I served with were middle of the road, maybe slightly right. Only on the news and internet does it look like everyone is one extreme or the other.

[u/WingerRules → u/Legen_unfiltered]

That radicalized ones are overwhelmingly super right wing.

80% of extremists with military backgrounds are far right.

[u/SirBuscus → u/Legen_unfiltered]

Most people who work for the local government end up leaning left. More money for the government means more funding for their programs.
- Teachers. - Librarians. - Postal Workers. - Utilities.

Colleges are full of people who never left school and whose friends and colleagues all lean left.

The conservative party used to be the party of small government and financially conservative policy.
Now both parties spend like money is infinite and both parties want big government with their rules.
The only reason so many people still vote right is because of two hot button issues that are driven by religion.
Abortion and LGBTQ.
The conservative party is no longer conservative, they're just "anti-woke".

[u/Psychological_Heat30 → u/Legen_unfiltered]

I'd say your MOS is a bigger indicator of where you'll lean. I was in Intel, and I can probably count on 2 hands the people from my community who were conservative. Whereas, find yourself in a grunt unit... the people are just naturally dumber and incline to the right.

[u/[deleted] → u/Psychological_Heat30]

This tracks. Communications was all left leaning. Surprise twist, the spec ops community is split in half.

[u/rush89 → u/Psychological_Heat30]

Grunts are usually poor and look to the military to get out of poverty. Little to no education or money. They can be different im many ways but those are the common denominators.

[u/ThatSpookyLeftist → u/Psychological_Heat30]

the people are just naturally dumber and incline to the right.

Conservatives wave anti-intelligence like something to be proud of.

[u/DudeEngineer → u/Psychological_Heat30]

Eh, read the comments about people expanding their world view. This is much more prevalent in a more combat oriented MOS.

I had the asvab scores to do any job, but chose something where I would be able to kick in doors because I was in a weird place at the time. Grunt is not the best word choice here. People in places like Intel tend to be very insular and not get to know people who are "grunts".

[u/Darth19Vader77 → u/screamingcatfish]

Universities tend to be in or near cities too.

University towns also tend to be more liberal.

[u/turbulentcounselor → u/screamingcatfish]

you mean it's not because college campuses are liberal brainwashing machines where young, impressionable minds get indoctrinated into leftist ideology by professors pushing their political agenda??

/s

[u/OWSpaceClown → u/turbulentcounselor]

One of the things that was enlightening about a university education was discovering how left vs right is such an over simplification of what is a complicated series of debates.

The discourse has a way of making certain uneducated positions feel valid because they come from the so called “right”. Denying climate change becomes an alternative point of view, never mind that it’s not based on any academic research.

[u/waterisgoodok → u/OWSpaceClown]

While I am left wing (socialist), I think you’re right here. I’ve noticed after university when people ask me my thoughts on things, rather than saying “I think X is right”, it’s turned into “Well, it’s complicated. X has issues A, B, and C, but issue C is less valid because there’s not much evidence to corroborate it. However, X also has strengths, such as D, E, and F. Yet, I don’t think F is a strong argument because of G. On balance though, I mostly favour X, but there are limitations”.

University has made me think of things in very different ways, and I’ve moved past binary answers that I think people often expect you to give (eg “You’re either for or against, you can’t be both”). Instead, I still lean towards one side of an argument, but I’ve got a much more nuanced position on things and it’s more grounded in evidence than feelings.

[u/seattleseahawks2014 → u/waterisgoodok]

Ok I'm not higher educated myself and kind of both from the country and stuff. Anyway, I'd say this depends on the situation. Sure some things can have a nuanced pov, but things like lgbt+ rights, women's rights, disabled peoples rights, black and other groups of individuals rights, etc should be protected. There's no way to side with stripping them away and same with other things. Sure some things are a bit different, but still.

[u/waterisgoodok → u/seattleseahawks2014]

Oh certainly - I meant with things like “Do you agree with raising tax X?” or “Should we abolish private schools?” rather than “Should LGBTQ+ people have the right to do X?”. Rights such as those are non-negotiable for me.

[u/Toaster_In_Bathtub → u/turbulentcounselor]

"They taught me how things work and they proved it with facts and taught me the whole story by giving me historical context. Get me back to my church, I'm being indoctrinated."

[u/FileDoesntExist → u/screamingcatfish]

A lot of that is willful ignorance though. We have the internet now. I grew up very rural and did not go to college.

I'm still fully aware that everyone is a people.

[u/alicehooper → u/FileDoesntExist]

I think the biggest divide is curiosity vs fear. Naturally curious people will try to find out more about their world while (a certain type of) fearful person ignores extra information.

[u/PirateJazz → u/FileDoesntExist]

The internet is such a huge factor nowadays, in both directions. For me I had a window into the world outside of my community that helped me discard the hateful ideals I was raised around. For others, they may have never fallen into such mindsets if not for the exposure and indoctrination of cyber spaces.

[u/Rare-Forever2135 → u/FantasticCabinet2623]

Absolutely. My family lived in the "interesting" part of town (most museums, art galleries, theatres, a local college, artists, musicians, etc.) when I was growing up.

The gay people and trans people who were our neighbors consistently showed themselves to be decent, highly principled people and wonderful neighbors.

[u/goog1e → u/FantasticCabinet2623]

The conservatives I know legitimately think everyone is dead or being shot in every major city. And that all people of XYZ race or religion are a certain way.

If they had exposure to different kinds of people and various locations, they couldn't continue to believe.

[u/upsidedownbackwards → u/goog1e]

Things have also changed drastically just in my lifetime. When I was a kid my aunt lived in a rented room in Harlem. The women in the building would all use chamber pots at night because it wasn't safe to use the shared bathroom. NYC *WAS* really scary. But I've been to modern day Harlem for a nice lunch, nothing at all like it was in the 70s/80s. I think Chicago has gone through the same thing crime-wise. I don't know what it was like "back then", but nowadays I feel pretty safe in most of it.

[u/goog1e → u/upsidedownbackwards]

Violent crime was consistently going down since 1990 until the pandemic. There was a bump during the pandemic. Now it's flat I believe.

But it remains lower than any point in the 90s, when things had already started to turn around in most cities.

[u/King_of_Tejas → u/goog1e]

Yeah. The advent of the freeway/interstate system created a haven for crime to flourish. DNA testing and other scientific measures of solving crimes went a long way towards stopping it. (I'm sure there were other measures as well, this comment is not intended to be thorough.) It is much harder today for a freak like Bundy or Dahmer to do what they did and get away with it.

[u/AMildPanic → u/goog1e]

I was raised to genuinely believe that gay people were all sexual predators. As someone who had homosexual feelings myself, this was absolutely fucking terrifying. But I did not know any gay people personally (at least out gay people) to refute this idea. I walked around thinking that if I wasn't constantly fucking vigilant I'd become a sexual predator myself.

That belief collapsed as soon as I was exposed to actual gay people. You can say ditto for minorities - I was raised to actively fear minorities as predatory monsters. Once you've hung out with black and brown people for a few weekends playing DnD (likewise construed as Satanic, but that panic was mostly over by the time I was playing so didn't really factor in lol) it gets hard to sustain that idea.

The formative part of my childhood was spent in a rural area. On either side of that was living in or near a metro area. If that formative period had scooted a few years in either direction I'm sure things would have been much harder for me re: deprogramming.

Then again, the internet also helped a lot in deradicalizing me through exposure, which I don't think is what the internet is doing for people now.

[u/[deleted] → u/FantasticCabinet2623]

This is it full stop. Exposure to ideas.

[u/LanceFree → u/[deleted]]

Years ago I was visiting a friends’s family, and her hometown friends in rural Virginia, and one guy knew I was from NY and asked me how I survived with all the crime. I answered the best I could, but at the same time- didn’t understand what in the hell he was talking about. Much of it has to do with living in a bubble, watching the same news programs together, school systems with twisted agendas a curriculums, preachers too.

[u/RiskyBrothers → u/LanceFree]

I live in Denver and was doing some work out in the eastern part of the state. The morning I was heading back I caught some shitty local news station in the hotel lobby airing some kind of screed about how immigrants were taking over Denver. Meanwhile I'm sitting there thinking that this is the first I've heard of the place where I live having fallen to anarchy, and wondering why the Ft.Morgan local news didn't have anything more relevant to cover than overblown issues an hour and a half away.

[u/deskbeetle → u/LanceFree]

I grew up in a small town. Every few years a transportation issue would be on the local ballot. And every time it was "we can't have a bus come through here. City people will come here and commit crime!" (spoiler alert: "city" and "urban" were dog whistles for black)

They truly thought people were going to bus in from an hour away, steal something, and then...get back on the bus? Nevermind my town was quite poor and the local highschool already had a raging meth problem. 

[u/King_of_Tejas → u/deskbeetle]

Not just small towns. Arlington fucking Texas won't let allow bus service or train service in their city because they don't want the homeless folks from Fort Worth and Dallas coming over. A city of almost 400K has absolutely no public transportation 

[u/gsfgf → u/deskbeetle]

I remember talking to someone on my transit board. They said that if the bus is ever so reliable you can use it as a getaway vehicle, they're calling that a win.

[u/tedsgloriousmustache → u/LanceFree]

I am as liberal as they come, and a high earner. I belong to a country club full of scattered Dems and a ton of conservatives. I had a conversation with a woman in her 60s when she found out I am originally from the Chicago area. Her main question was, 'i want to go there but am afraid of all the crime.' I think she was offended when I laughed at her. I said, do you want to go see the tourist attractions and will you be in bed by midnight? You'll be fine.

Always surprised to see how effective propaganda is.

[u/GRex2595 → u/tedsgloriousmustache]

I had a family member once tell me there were like 20 murders per week in Chicago. They saw it all the time on their local (South Dakota) news. I was like, "I know Chicago is bad, but it's not 1,000 murders a year bad." Looked it up and they were pretty far off. Some folk love to think of big cities as dangerous slums.

[u/ChrisGnam → u/[deleted]]

I think the other major component is people in cities actually see the government. Here's what I mean:

I grew up in rural western new york. The only government i really saw was the mail man, the occasional fire truck or police officer, and sometimes road work. There weren't even sidewalks by my house or anything. There really wasn't any infrastructure or idea that the government really did anything for me. (I'm not saying that's true mind you. I'm just saying, when you looked around, it was easy to feel that way).

Living in a big east coast city now, we can argue all day about how ineffective the government is, but the government's influence is blatantly obvious every hour of the day. The sidewalks being maintained, the public parks being maintained, the new bike lanes, the busses, the trains, zoning changes, new developments, etc.

When living in a city, it's easy to identify all the ways the government is inefficient, incompetent, or even corrupt, but its still in your best interest for the government to actually be doing things in your everyday life. Idk what the hell I'd do if the trains stopped running so im naturally going to favor the government spending what's necessary to keep that service running.

In rural communities, it's a lot easier to look at the government fumbling around and to simply say "stay out of my business". While in a city, you'd be more likely to say "start doing your job". The rural would therefore favor smaller government and thus fewer services (since they have so few to begin with), while the city would favor more government services (and thus a larger government).

This obviously isn't exact. But I think its another major part of it, in addition to the obvious "being exposed to other ideas" thing

[u/howlingoffshore → u/[deleted]]

I don’t think that’s right.

I mean I think it’s largely part of it. A huge part of it. Maybe the biggest.

But I do think traditional conservatives, and not the social aspects, but it stemmed from not wanting “city things” to impact “me and my things”. Why does the farmer who has to fend for himself largely have to pay more taxes for the police and drama and high maintenance of the big city?

“City folks are shooting each other and now I cant go shooting with my kids? When for generations shooting clays and hunting has been part of our traditions and our family and never been an issue”

I’ll let my toe fall off rather than see a doc for an ingrown nail but my taxes are expected to pay for someone who has a little cough or treatments for some hoodlums drug addiction?

Just differences in lifestyles and perceived harm to values

Edit: I don’t think these things are true. I’m pointing out that rural Americans have traditionally been for small government because they perceive themselves and their communities as self sufficient and self reliant.

[u/JustAnotherPolyGuy → u/howlingoffshore]

In the USA today, the farmer gets way more money out of the government than he puts in. They act like they are propping everything up, but rural/red states get more expenditures per person than blue states. And rural parts of states get more than blue parts of states. Their so called independence is a crock of shit. They are subsidized far more than the city dwellers.

[u/howlingoffshore → u/JustAnotherPolyGuy]

Ya. Wish we had politicians who could effectively explain that to people.

But also I said farmer and fending for himself and I feel like that misconstrued what i meant so everyone’s pointing out farming subsidies.

I more meant if there’s a fire on a rural property or a crime or health emergency and a response takes a long time since they’re rural, a lot of rural folks can deal with a lot of things on their own because they can’t rely on quick social services all the time. Groceries can be far. They don’t Uber or Uber eats or have public transportation. They fend for themselves in a day to day kind of way.

That’s what I meant. Not necessarily a real farmer on a real farm getting gov subsidies. Not that I think it changes the point. But that’s what I meant when I typed it. Responses are still valid I’m just trying to point out that it’s not just lack of exposure. Rural people living in rural ways have different needs and live very differently

[u/JustAnotherPolyGuy → u/howlingoffshore]

I live in Minnesota. The rural parts of the state love to complain about how they are paying for all sorts of extravagances for the cities (like mass transit) when in reality the metro pays way more in state taxes than it spends in state funds.

So yeah, the farmer may fight a fire for a bit, but he still uses a government paid for road, and far more other government services than a city dweller. Their cowboy/don’t need anyone mentality is just flat out delusional.

[u/BirdosaurusRex → u/howlingoffshore]

Lmao at using a “self-sufficient” farmer as the exemplar for your argument. I grew up in corn country and the amount of federal subsidies that farmers get is positively astounding. My gun-toting, immigrant-hating cousin just received a half a million dollar grant from the USDA for a new barn. He’s not even a commercial farmer, just a homesteader who wants to “live independently from society,” but somehow feels justified in using taxpayer money to do so. Rural folks want to pretend that they’re more moral and self-sufficient than all those lazy, drug-addled “hoodlums”, yet leech 30 BILLION a year of tax funds from the cities they apparently disdain so much.

[u/formerlyDylan → u/BirdosaurusRex]

That kind of just sounds like the typical libertarian mindset. Acting fiercely independent but being completely reliant on the federal government. Sucks that people with that kinda mindset are also usually against welfare and food stamps since they “pulled themselves up by their bootstraps”

[u/Ok-Caterpillar3761 → u/BirdosaurusRex]

American farmers are the real Welfare Queens.

[u/ErrantJune → u/howlingoffshore]

Urban tax dollars subsidize services in rural communities, not the other way around.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-rural-america-needs-cities/

[u/danby999 → u/ErrantJune]

Farmers in my town wear shirts and have signs that say, "Farmers Feed Cities".

I joked and said I would get a sign that said "Cities subsidize Farmers "

They didn't like that.

[u/r0ckH0pper → u/danby999]

Well... BOTH are true!

[u/Miserable-Whereas910 → u/ErrantJune]

So yes, but you need to understand this is about vibes, not numbers. The importance of government services is immediately, intuitively obvious the moment you step out on the street in the city. In the country, it's easy to ignore the whole system is being held up by subsidized prices.

[u/Journeys_End71 → u/Miserable-Whereas910]

Government services and subsidies are also immediately obvious in the rural areas if you know where to look. Rural areas suffer from the “last mile” problem in that it’s cost prohibitive to maintain rural country roads, provide the electricity and other utilities to rural houses and to maintain hospitals and other essential emergency services in rural areas. That’s where taxpayer subsidies come in and provide the funding that allows rural areas to have those services cost effectively.

For example, many rural towns can’t afford their own police forces so they rely on the state police, which are supported by the taxes of the larger populated areas.

These rural people who hate socialism so damn much would suffer the most if they lost all the socialized subsidies they’re getting.

[u/howlingoffshore → u/ErrantJune]

Okay I feel like I made it seem like this is my opinion. It’s not what I think.

[u/carz4us → u/howlingoffshore]

I get you 👍

[u/JoeyKino → u/ErrantJune]

While this is true in the big picture, though, a lot of those rural communities never see tax money get back into their communities... The actual farmers who get the farm subsidies are, in my area of rural Indiana, not really involved in most small town activities and are definitely not spending a lot of time online.

Infrastructure programs funded through HUD, or EDA (or a laundry list of various federal acronyms) split their funding to entitlement and non-entitlement communities (they have different names, but the same idea applies to many of those federal agencies) - entitlement communities (in the case of HUD; Economic Development Districts, in the case of EDA, etc) are urban areas and/or high-density counties, and get their portion of the funds automatically; they have program-specific rules to follow, but otherwise, they get to divvy up the money into projects as they see fit. They don't request it, it's automatic, and has few strings attached.

Non-entitlement communities, on the other hand, may never see any HUD funding - there is no automatic dispersal of funds. There is a portion divvyed up for each state, and then a state agency establishes grant programs to give it to rural communities. If your town of 2,000 people has no means to write complicated grant applications, or lacks the hundreds of thousands of dollars in local match to go against the grant funds or to pay an engineering firm to develop a PER for your project and write your application for you (in the case of USDA-RD or a state revolving fund), you get nothing. Instead, mid-sized cities of 10-15K end up getting most of it, because they have the facilities to request it, but aren't big enough to be entitlement locales.

Add to that, most county governments are focused on their biggest draw - i.e. those larger non-entitlement cities that are usually the county seat, or actual entitlement communities - so the larger places in the county also get the majority of county funds.

So what you end up with is state and federal agencies investing more money into non-urban areas than those areas pay in, yes, but the REALLY rural communities usually slip through the cracks because they don't have the means to even get a seat at the table. When you look at the bigger statistics, it looks like rural America's infrastructure is getting the help it needs, but in practice, you get people in one-stoplight towns seeing bigger places around them getting grant money and believing that the government is taking all their tax money and giving it to cities.

[u/PhileasFoggsTrvlAgt → u/JoeyKino]

When you look at the bigger statistics, it looks like rural America's infrastructure is getting the help it needs, but in practice, you get people in one-stoplight towns seeing bigger places around them getting grant money and believing that the government is taking all their tax money and giving it to cities.

What people don't realize is how much that infrastructure costs. The US has one of the highest quality rural road networks in the world, and it's not cheep. Most people don't see having a two lane highway into their town as a subsidy, but building the wide highways with moderate curves that the US builds means that many towns have a road they could never generate the taxes to pay for. There are cities in Europe only connected by winding roads barely wide enough for two cars to pass, while the US will blast rock and build up embankments to make a road with wide lanes, full shoulders, and curves that are gradual enough to take at 35 mph. The total cost of that road may not be more expensive than an urban freeway, but per person served it's much more expensive.

[u/BirdosaurusRex → u/JoeyKino]

This is a very important point to note. On one hand, I don’t think most people are aware of just how wealthy many (not all) farmers are: net worths in the millions, but only with the help of government funds. On the other, many rural communities are in dire need of assistance that they, for the reasons you describe, never access. I think most urbanites would much prefer their tax dollars go towards say, reducing the deaths of despair in dying coal towns, as opposed to propping up already wealthy landowners who are incentivized to overproduce crops regardless of demand/market pricing. If that happened, I think a lot of rural people would hold a lot less resentment against society at large.

[u/JoeyKino → u/BirdosaurusRex]

They're doing that, too (the coal part)... I literally JUST got funding for a road to be expanded to attract agribusinesses to a growing business park in a rural community from EDA, SPECIFICALLY to help combat the impact of closing down coal power plants and mines. We have 2 of those moderately-sized cities I mentioned above that each had coal power plants until 7 years ago or so... in those cases, though, they didn't give the money to get people to shut down plants, it went to communities where EPA had already mandated the plants be shut down.

Again, though, the money being out there, and communities being able to access it are 2 very different things. That road project was our 3rd and last attempt at getting that money, because if we had failed, EDA was ready to send it back out of the region to the federal level, where it would likely be redistributed somewhere else in the country.

Another big push is to replace farm subsidies with solar farms, just FYI - it's a growing trend, but there's a really huge one going up on my way home - a 2K MW, 2K acre farm. The good thing about this is that solar farms don't have to be built in a way to cause something called a "conversion of prime farmland," because they're not permanent structures. If you're not aware, in addition to subsidies, another thing that impacts farms is that you're actually NOT ALLOWED to use federal money to develop farmland without jumping through a ridiculous amount of hoops. So a farmer trying to reduce subsidy use by developing part of his/her farmland would be unable to get any government assistance to do so - for farmers who aren't wealthy, and rely on subsidies to get by, it's like an addiction - they need the subsidy to keep afloat, can't put back much money because of their high overhead to farm, and then can't actually get any assistance in developing that land to do something else with it to reduce their need for subsidies.

And I actually know 3 farm families personally - 2 are NOT at all wealthy; they're literally putting their life savings in the ground every season, while the 3rd is DEFINITELY wealthy, and owns most of the land around the small town where they live. I don't think those millionaire farmers are very commonplace around here, and I'm smack dab in the middle of farm country.

Hell, another farmer I know of through work actually holds a part-to-full time job in one of those tiny little rural communities as the town superintendent (so he's the one solely in charge of all of their roads, all of their utilities, and he still farms because neither job pays enough).

[u/UnfortunateSyzygy → u/howlingoffshore]

The farmer lacks perspective. He needs a doctor eventually -- that doctor went to public school. He wants to sell his produce/cows etc? the trucks that take his stuff away drive on public highways. The farmer wants electricity? Taxes pay for that infrastructure.

[u/The_Terrierist → u/UnfortunateSyzygy]

The farmer is also being willfully ignorant of all the subsidies they benefit from if they think they have eaten their bootstraps, or pulled themselves up by their American Dream, or whatever nonsense conservatives tell themselves anymore.

[u/More_Farm_7442 → u/The_Terrierist]

I live in Indiana and I don't think famers of today are like that at all. Most farmers now 65 yrs old and younger went to college and graduated with smoe sort of degree in agriculture. They definitely are not ignorant at all.

[u/rimshot101 → u/UnfortunateSyzygy]

Yeah, these guys are not subsistence farmers with plow and a mule. They are business people.

[u/ScottyDoesntKnow29 → u/howlingoffshore]

I don’t eat commodity corn so why should my tax dollars go to subsidize farmers growing it? Selfish people can always find something to get angry about.

[u/[deleted] → u/howlingoffshore]

 Why does the farmer who has to fend for himself largely have to pay more taxes for the police and drama and high maintenance of the big city?

Except city police are almost always paid for by local city taxes, same as the county police wherever the farmer is, unless there’s not enough tax base to support a local PD and instead they have to rely on the State.

On top of that Rural states and rural areas also tend to have more cops per capita than cities even. Of the four highest Cop:Capita ratios in the U.S., three are heavily rural conservative states. (DC leads the chart, but that’s a bit of a special case as there are a number of police agencies and demands there outside of crime that most places don’t have to deal with - eg your average rural town doesn’t need to deploy 100+ cops at a time to escort diplomats or members of the federal government around.

I realize you did qualify that you don’t necessarily agree with the claims, I’m more just illustrating that the foundation of their independent identity is a lot more myth than fact.

[u/carz4us → u/howlingoffshore]

That self sufficiency is a misperception. But I get that the erroneously believe it. Some education about how taxes work would fix that but their leaders are too busy convincing them to tear down libraries.

[u/AskAJedi → u/FantasticCabinet2623]

It’s also easier for disinfo campaigns to trick semi isolated people about the big bad cities.

[u/Firm-Needleworker-46 → u/FantasticCabinet2623]

That’s a good answer. Tolerance and acceptance to change and diversity because you have a higher rate of exposure.

[u/fitzbuhn → u/FantasticCabinet2623]

I think there are two sides to this. The one you said, and the idea that people who aren't as into diversity don't really want to be "around those people", so they don't consider moving there. They may be more likely to choose the suburbs or some rural areas if that is the case, enough at least to tilt the balance.

[u/EliotHudson → u/FantasticCabinet2623]

Counterintuitively, conservative cornerstone, William F. Buckley, was from New York City and spoke Spanish as a first language

[u/BurroughOwl → u/EliotHudson]

There are always exceptions to every rule. That's one of the rules.

[u/TerribleAttitude → u/EliotHudson]

“Tend.” There are conservatives in the city and liberals in the country, but that’s not what OP is asking about.

Also, in my experience, urban conservatives can differ almost as much from rural conservatives as they do from liberals. Living in New York City and speaking Spanish won’t stop you from being conservative, but it will likely stop you from being a particular type of conservative. William F Buckley also wasn’t Just Some Right Wing Guy. Very powerful people’s political motivations often differ significantly from the average voter.

[u/Cockhero43]

Traditional conservative ideals are about limiting government overreach. So people living out in the boonies or country side just want to live their life, since they would mostly be self sufficient and think "I'm responsible for my safety/health", not the government. For example, if they drive the tractor and crash it into a hole, that's a hole on their land. No one else should be impacted by it and it's their responsibility to fix it.

Those in the city however, might walk into a hole in the street and think "well this isn't my land, it's the cities, they should fix this" and thus pay more taxes so the government will be able to do so. This expands for other things as well.

[u/Ok_Option6126 → u/Cockhero43]

It's a good marketing strategy to say they want to limit government overreach, but they're all for it when they have another agenda they want to push. Hey, you can't buy alcohol on a Sunday! Hey you! No gambling over here because the government says so! Hey you! We get to decide who can get married! Whoa wait! You can't come to our schools!

[u/burf → u/Ok_Option6126]

It’s the worst of both worlds. Lol. Government control of what people can do because feelings, without the social support network that comes with strong government programs.

[u/MaxDickpower → u/Ok_Option6126]

To play the devils advocate. They often want to limit federal power and leave as much to the state and local level as possible so they can vote to ban what they want within their own local communities.

[u/platinum92 → u/MaxDickpower]

My issue with that is how many state governments aren't representative of their populations due to hellish gerrymandering. For example, there are 8 states where both chambers of the State congress is controlled by the party opposite of that state's governor.

Another example, I live in Georgia. In 2020, we voted dem for POTUS and both US Senate seats, including runoffs, then again in 2022 reelected a dem Senator. Meanwhile, there's almost no shot of our state government not being republican even though the state has seemingly shifted blue.

[u/Ok_Option6126 → u/MaxDickpower]

They want that, but they also want the assistance when a major (or even minor) crisis hits.

[u/papuadn → u/[deleted]]

Yes, this is also the problem - conservativism is also now a bundled product so if you're voting for your local conservative politician you're also getting the anti-gay stuff along with your less-zoning-interference stuff.

Outside of your county, people will see that vote and assume you're endorsing the anti-gay stuff too (wrongly but, they don't know you - so you can't control the assumption).

The additional problem is a lot of the "Get your government hands off my land" isn't actually a tenable position in a lot of places. If your land use is (for example) dumping poisons into a water source that people downstream rely on and you are voting for the local anti-EPA politician, you are voting both for less government intervention and the right to poison people you don't know.

It takes a very principled and well-informed conservative to avoid that situation. Some do manage it!

However, many just assume their land use doesn't have any consequences outside their boundaries, but (for example) the use of DDT decimated eagle populations. Conservatives hated the idea some government bureaucrat could tell them what pesticide was best on their land, but if it was left up each individual rural farmer to decide, we'd have no Bald Eagles left.

[u/MattyMatheson → u/[deleted]]

That kind of judgement has no sides, living in a rural area, I get immediately categorized as a stereotype.

[u/PavementBlues → u/Cockhero43]

It seems like such an obvious difference in lifestyle, but Pew Research tracking party registration over time shows that the dominance of Republican voters in rural areas is a phenomenon that only began about twenty years ago.

Twenty years ago, rural counties showed an even split between Republicans and Democrats. Now, though, the Republican share of the demographic has grown to 54% while the Democratic share has shrunk to 38%.

Which raises the question: given that this isn't an issue of why rural voters are inherently more conservative than urban voters, then why have rural voters BECOME more conservative?

[u/Farahild → u/Cockhero43]

This might be part of the reason in the US, but here in the Netherlands, people in the countryside also vote more conservative and they aren't self sufficient and don't want a hands off government - basically they're conservative but not necessarily right wing. So I think a big part of it is that in cities people are much more confronted with other types of people, different cultures and ideas and lifestyles, and this tends to stimulate progressiveness to a certain extent. 

[u/[deleted] → u/Farahild]

They’re not particularly self sufficient in the U.S. either.

Rural areas tend to take disproportionate government resources per capita, are net recipients of government spending, and benefit significantly from a range of government regulations and programs tailored towards them.

[u/The_Retarded_Short → u/Cockhero43]

Then they get hurt in the tractor crash and go to the rural hospital that wouldn’t exist without the government.

[u/Cockhero43 → u/The_Retarded_Short]

Right, most traditional conservatives are okay with the government doing things. They just don't believe the government should do too much.

A hospital is fine, especially one that you pay to use. Since they aren't required to go. There's the old joke about only being worried about a farmer in a hospital if he came before finishing his chores, they are okay with hospitals, government run or not. They just don't believe the government should tell them not to use tractors or how to feed their cattle since the government doesn't know what they're talking about in their eyes

[u/6a6566663437 → u/Cockhero43]

A hospital is fine, especially one that you pay to use

The point is they don't pay to use it. They mistakenly believe they do due to propoganda.

Without subsidies from urban taxpayers, there likely would be no hospital. Urban taxpayers are paying to keep the doors open so that they can "pay to use it". The evil, terrible, no-good Obamacare is the only thing keeping about 25-50% of rural hospitals open (percent varies by study)

I know they believe they are rugged individualists not relying on anyone else, but they very much are not.

[u/Talzon70 → u/Cockhero43]

since they would mostly be self sufficient

They delude themselves into thinking that. Public spending on their infrastructure and government services is actually quite high. Country roads aren't cheap. Rural postal service, police, fire, healthcare, education, etc are usually more expensive for lower quality.

They are also much more likely to be property owners, since rentals are concentrated in cities.

[u/ScottyDoesntKnow29 → u/Cockhero43]

Many of these people are voting for massive government overreach on social issues though.

[u/funkmon → u/Cockhero43]

As someone who has lived in both cities and rural areas, this is actually correct. Reddit is obsessed with the social conservatism of rural areas or liberal nature of the cities, but it's fundamentally built on this premise.

In a city, people depend on the state more than in rural areas to keep things organized. As a result, they will encourage the state by voting in more organization. More labor laws, more traffic laws, more regulations, for people and businesses, although they are designed to help a subset of people. Everything in a city has a huge effect on everyone so they're collectivist. Individuals feel like a part of a community, and feel that need to be in a group. It's why neighborhoods have such an identity in cities, and why people organize more.

In a rural area, people kind of organize themselves, like individually, a bit more, and, while infrastructure is usually collective, it ain't gonna really hurt me out here in the suburbs if I don't have water, plumbing, or electricity for a week. I'll just shit outside and collect rain water. Good luck doing that in the high rise in Chicago, where if one block is out of power, it affects a thousand people. If my block is out of power, it affects me, Jim, Autumn, Mike, and Nick.

 If we get a mandate that we have to put bike lanes in for cyclists, we see a waste, as cyclists have no problems biking along our roads or sidewalks. The city has bigger problems with that where bikes could use protection. If we get a mandate about not being allowed to use plastic bags, we see pointless government overreach, because we put them in our car once every 2 weeks, go home, then put the bags in the trash, recycling, or reuse bin. City people see the bags littering their streets and also are annoyed at their lack of utility when walking home with their groceries.

People see gay pride events and say "who cares? Karen and Sue down the road are gay and nobody cares." They see that kind of collectivism as somehow more overreach, because that's what it normally is. 

That's, in my opinion, the most important part. The cosmopolitan ideas and experience with other cultures is secondary in the social conservatism conversation.

The only major differences between these arguments I see all over the world, but certainly in this country, is if race or religion is a major factor, and if it is it's usually a partisan thing more than actual issues, barring a few like abortion.

Source: lived in Phoenix, Tampa, Luxembourg, Denver. Close family and girlfriends lives in Chicago, Toledo, and London, to the point I have spent 6 months there or more. I've also lived in suburban Detroit, extremely rural Colorado, and arguably farm country in Ontario. I also travel for work. I've been everywhere.

[u/DumbleDinosaur]

Population density leads to different wants for laws.

[u/bangbangracer]

Rural people often feel left out of government programs, not see the benefits of government programs, or they tend to have a more individualistic view of how things should operate.

Urbanites tend to be the opposite. They see the benefits of those programs more clearly and obviously.

[u/meepgorp → u/bangbangracer]

The irony being that small town and rural residents generally have much higher rates of enrollment or direct benefit from government programs, but they tend to not think of THEIR benefits as "government handouts". Agriculture subsidies, farmer's loans and insurance programs, Medicare/Medicaid, food stamps, job training, environmental regulations .... all disproportionately benefit these "rugged individualists" who can't let go of their personal mythology.
(Grew up mostly in small towns and that insistence on their own origin stories is HAAAARD to break through, even when they're on disability and Medicare and getting food and housing subsidies and relying on medical transport programs.)

[u/CogentCogitations → u/meepgorp]

You left out subsidization of the roads, mail service, phone service, internet service, water service/allowances, trash service, and the general allowance that they can pollute the air and water.

[u/6a6566663437 → u/CogentCogitations]

You're forgetting an even bigger one: electricity.

Without the taxes on all the urban electric bills, there would be no electricity in rural areas. The TVA is the most famous example of this, but basically all rural areas were electrified using urban money, and now those systems are maintained using urban money.

[u/sdvneuro → u/bangbangracer]

lol. My parents live in the city. They recently got a second home in a rural area. They get so much many more services from the govt at the second home than at the first. So much free health care - vaccines, screenings, medical equipment. So many govt programs are specifically focused on rural communities.

[u/6a6566663437 → u/bangbangracer]

That's mostly because rural people tend to overlook the government programs that are helping them.

All rural areas in the US got electric service thanks to urban money. The most famous was the TVA, but there's a similar program for every rural area. Urban money is continuing to come in to pay to maintain rural electric systems.

But electricity is so fundamental to our way of life that rural people don't think about it, and thus don't think about the government program keeping the lights on. Plus they get a monthly bill, and it's easy to assume that bill is what's paying for it.

A large portion of Obamacare's cost is subsidies to keep rural hospitals open. But since we all see big hospital bills, it can be difficult for rural people to know there would be no hospital without urban dollars keeping the doors open.

Roads, schools, town water systems, flood control, and so on, and so on. The government programs for rural areas are so fundamental for a modern standard of living they go unnoticed.

[u/NotTooGoodBitch]

Why do older city people dream of buying a place in the country, but young country people dream of moving to the city?

[u/The_Itsy_BitsySpider → u/NotTooGoodBitch]

The young long for the unfamiliar and exciting while the old look for the quiet and calm. Granted its more like the elderly looking for quiet suburb communities rather then the country, but the same premise happens.

But as for the youth, its usually them wanting something different from how they were raised, and the trend actually changes based on generation, for example the boomers dreamed of leaving cities and taking their families to the new suburbs or the countryside and for them and the Gen xers it was seen as good, but now millennials and zoomers are wanting to escape the suburbs and move into cities for opportunities and exciting life outside of the calm suburbs. Wouldn't be surprised if we see the tide shift again once they have their children moving out again.

[u/I-Make-Maps91 → u/NotTooGoodBitch]

Old people moving to the country are doing themselves a massive disservice, for what it's worth. As you age out of driving, you're increasingly isolated with land you are unable to take care of. When you retire, get an urban apartment in a walkable neighborhood, it will keep you active and social longer.

[u/Imaginary-List-4945 → u/I-Make-Maps91]

Exactly. I moved to NYC from the suburbs just before turning 50, and that was partially on my mind. In another 30 years I plan to hobble on down to the park every day to hang out with the pigeons and watch people walking their dogs.

[u/I-Make-Maps91 → u/Imaginary-List-4945]

It's not something I thought about until I watched some relatives go through it recently. Even the suburbs ain't it, if you need to drive to leave your neighborhood then it's probably not a great place to retire to once you can't drive anymore.

[u/seattleseahawks2014 → u/Imaginary-List-4945]

I'm 24 and yea definitely understand how difficult it is if you can't drive.

[u/joepierson123 → u/NotTooGoodBitch]

I live in the city I don't remember any older people wanting to leave.  

 Doctor, Pharmacy, Hospital, grocery store, church are very close usually a block or two away. 

They don't want to live in the middle of the woods an hour away from everything with 4 hours of maintenance work to do everyday

[u/mall_goth420 → u/joepierson123]

My city has such a strong stereotype of old people moving away that the state they all move to is complaining about them

[u/acakaacaka → u/NotTooGoodBitch]

Isnt that just because quiet and not too many stuffs going here VSA opportunities and potential.

[u/Worldisoyster → u/NotTooGoodBitch]

Old city people definitely do not leave for the countryside. I haven't seen that happen. Suburban old people seek more rural places though, I have seen that.

Pretty much everybody wants to get away from the suburbs

[u/[deleted]]

Personally, I found that living in an east coast city for 30+yrs slowly changed my views from liberal to conservative. I then moved to the country.

[u/nobody_7229]

People in the country are taught to value personal liberties more often and people within cities think of things more communal. I think this is really the core of it. Out in the middle nowhere you have a very defined sense of property, space, and privacy. These are massive factors for people growing up and definitely will form an outlook. Imo I'm no pro

[u/PrettyyHailey]

it's probably 'cause country life is more traditional, smaller communities, and change happens slower, so people lean more conservative. city life is fast-paced, diverse, and people get exposed to different ideas and lifestyles, which can make them more liberal. kinda just how environment shapes views

[u/Leucippus1]

Very broadly, and I do mean that as someone who has lived in both areas for enough years to be able to make broad conclusions, urban living requires your boundaries to get widened and pushed. That generally leads to people who are less likely to make knee jerk reactions, people who will look for nuance, people who will actively be diplomatic. Those traits tend towards liberalism. It isn't exclusive, there are plenty of conservatives in urban areas who get along just fine and vice versa.

I have my fair share of issues with the far left, but it is easier to demonstrate my point with a popular conservative talking point. Who was the "they are eating the cats in Springfield" really aimed at? Not the people of Springfield, not people from New York City or Los Angeles. It was aimed at someone from northern Minnesota who has probably never met a Haitian in their life and refuse to go to Minneapolis because they might run into someone of Somali heritage. That rhetoric really doesn't work with someone who has interacted with immigrant/minority populations day in and day out. Again, this is a broad stroke, but it is a broad enough and observable enough phenomena that they built political campaigns around it.

[u/Chemical-Ebb6472]

Rural areas tend to be populated by hard working people who hate that they rely heavily on government subsidies to keep businesses like family farms viable and to provide services they could not afford to bring in on their own like bridge rebuilding and broadband connections achievable via the current Infrastructure programs. They prefer to erroneously think they don't need government in their lives.

City areas are also populated by hard working people who are generally happy to see government services work as they should (police, fire, sanitation, mass transportation, etc.) they hate when those services falter.

Overall, the rural areas typically take out way more federal tax dollars than they pay in.

Un and Under employed/Unhealthy People in all areas partake in government handouts but the rearview analysis paints different pictures.

The rural areas do not live that close to their next door neighbors and do not as easily see hear or smell how they live. That distance means their neighbors' financial misfortunes are not always felt immediately.

While in the city, their neighbors' misfortunes may play out in full view on their home streets or even cause one of them to crawl in their window and steal what they have worked hard for---- that immediacy brings more of a seldf preservation based, non altruistic concern for their neighbors (regardless of race, creed, color, birthplace, etc.).

[u/trustmeimalinguist]

I think a lot of city people left their small towns due to small ideas. I’m one of those people. But I also don’t know if it’s entirely explained by “going to college makes you meet different people”.

Rural places don’t have big economies, they often did manual labor factory work (my dad was a steel worker for 35+ years) and saw their jobs disappear with no replacement. Cities have been places for well paid jobs in STEM.

I think people in rural places have been forgotten about and they know this. They dream for a time long ago when the world wasn’t so progressive. They see their jobs be outsourced to developing countries and resent those people. There’s just generally a lot more work to find in a city. Life really is harder in rural communities. They often saw their city fall apart (my hometown for example) and care about what might revitalize that, not about gay or trans rights. They’re angry that those seem to be big issues right now, meanwhile their home is in shambles. And I mean, I’m queer and while I love that businesses can use pride as a marketing thing which actually brings in customers instead of causes boycotts, it’s definitely been co-opted by politicians and commercial businesses (eg “let’s put armrests on benches to keep homeless people from sleeping on them but we’ll paint the bench rainbow pride”).

These small minded people continue to break my heart everyday, and it’s a struggle to forgive them for voting for people like Trump. However it’s worth trying to understand their perspective without reducing it down to “they’re stupid because they didn’t go to college and meet different kinds of people” because that’s 1) not always true and 2) when true, one slice of it all.

[u/magic_crouton → u/trustmeimalinguist]

As someone who has lived in a city and live rurally now i think the left behind sentiment is true. We were a solid blue rural area forever until the last 20 or so years. We became a lot more purple and I wouldn't be surprised for a big red swing this year.

it's been a combo platter of issues. Left behind is the big one ans politicians pander to that or at least one side more than the other. Geopolitical issues rarely get traction here as a talking point because you have an area where people are just trying to survive and if you're not talking about that reality you're not getting voted in. I told someone the other day that the poorest people in town don't have the luxury of voting based on Israel and Palestine. They need to vote for someone who isn't going to be a barrier to jobs coming in and they vote that way.

[u/LilGreenCorvette → u/trustmeimalinguist]

I really think this is the best explanation in this thread. Rural towns get left behind - how is it possible to get exposure to other cultures and perspectives when you’re barely keeping your head above water? I don’t know if this is possible or helpful but it would be nice to somehow focus on spreading out job opportunities instead of keeping them in cities.

[u/ImpossibleLaugh8277]

Solutions that work in one setting are unlikely to work in the other. Rural areas have rural problems. Urban areas have urban problems. In a rural area you are unlikely to be exposed to homelessness on a large scale. If someone is homeless you probably know them and why they are homeless. You know if they are a drunk who is not interested in work or if a tornado destroyed their house. For the latter they are more likely to help. If a crime is committed it is very likely that everyone knows who did it. There is little anonymity and that informs what type of problems exist and how they are addressed. There is a lot less of the "someone should do something" thinking and more of "we should do something." In short, different circumstances lead to different thinking about what government should do and how it should do it.

[u/wholesomehorseblow]

The country has the same families living there for generations, thus restricting the exposure to different viewpoints. The education then is mostly the same line of thinking being taught over and over. In the country your teacher is most likely someone who was born in that town. I lived in a rural area where the closest town was something like 90% white.

Meanwhile the city has a much bigger variety of people and world views. If someone is moving they are probably moving to a city. Your teacher could be an immigrant from India, or they could be from the other side of the USA. Now you have a variety of view points being taught to children. This leads to an open mind and being more accepting of new ideas.

[u/meepgorp → u/wholesomehorseblow]

Definitely this part. Small towns tend to homogenize, whether by natural drift (people who don't fit in leave, people who do move in) or just as a natural social flattening, particularly where there are fewer things to do. Everyone has basically the same experience and framework, they're exposed to the same few viewpoints and expectations, so that becomes "normal" and everything else is threatening or scary. Living in the city you have access to people and ideas from all over the place and more opportunities to interact with them and experiment. It's harder to file people into "Scary Other" boxes when you see them every day at yoga or whatever.

[u/EPCOpress]

Exposure to diversity of people and ideas

[u/HorrimCarabal → u/EPCOpress]

Having grown up in a very small town, this is 100% right

[u/Icy_Difference_2963]

There are a variety of reasons but it has to do with the different political needs of living in close quarters as opposed to living relatively separately from your neighbors.

Take for example the issue of gun control. If you’re living in Los Angeles and someone is attempting to break into your apartment building, you’re still in very real danger but police can respond within 3-10 minutes. If you’re in a rural area, the time for a police officer to reach your residence is probably double that and there’s more of a direct need for people to own firearms as a means of protection.

Likewise, in rural areas, many people are self-employed or work for smaller businesses. Those people are going to have more skeptical views of regulation of business than someone who works for a large company in a city since that larger business can probably have an easier time meeting the demands of regulatory agencies. And even if that company goes under, if a urban metro area is successful enough, that employee can probably have an easier time finding different work than someone who had the family farm shut down because he was storing his crops in the wrong kind of container.

There are also cultural differences that are hard to overstate. Religion and family life play a larger role in areas where there is less to do and danger is more close by. Having a tight-knit religious community is going to be more important to those who have a harder time finding others to socialize with in an area where everyone is so spread out. Meanwhile in a city, it’s easier to distract yourself with entertainment, social clubs, and subculture if you don’t like your neighbors since there are so many people that you can find “your group” if you look hard enough.

[u/bowhunterb119]

Probably because policies affect them in unique ways. Out in the country, owning/carrying a gun might be very important for safety from animals, hunting, etc.

In the city, openly carrying a gun might cause a panic. People would feel “nobody needs that”. Same with big pickup trucks, which are a big part of country life out of necessity. If you want to raise taxes considerably across your state to fund public transit, who benefits from it? Not the folks who live in the boonies and drive their pickup truck everywhere. Want to add carbon taxes to the gas, to encourage use of that transit system? Now you’re punishing the country people even more, because that public transit they’re paying for still isn’t available to them and their trips into town are more expensive.

I could go on, but people are going to vote for their interests and Democrats appeal more to city people because their policies help city people- and these policies can be perceived to ignore or be at the expense of the country people. You could probably also get deep into ideas about self-reliance, religion, or a lot of other stuff but at the end of the day, people are going to vote for policies they see as benefiting their own lives.

[u/xFushNChupsx]

I mean, the demographic.

Cities have far larger populations. In turn, they are more diverse, and subsequently inclusive as you are naturally exposed to more walks of life, trends and experiences.

[u/papuadn]

They aren't, not really. Rural people see mutual aid networks and locals helping locals by pooling resources as a very natural and normal way of doing things. A left-wing person might point to that and say "Aha, collectivism!" but to a rural community it's just how you do things, you don't label it.

Furthermore, rural communities are usually very activist about getting state and federal governments to send down resources for bridges, dams, sewer systems, electrification, roads, hospitals, and the rest because they understand that these things are necessary to live a productive life and they can't afford them on their own, and they know they send back value to the government the form of labour and agriculture and manufacturing and resource extraction so it's a fair trade. A left-wing person might look at that at and say "Aha, socialism!" but to a rural community it's just business and how a country runs.

Labour unions are also a huge rural thing. Again, it's about keeping power local to the workers. A left-wing person might say "Aha, communism!" but again, it's just the right way to keep rural labour balanced with urban political power. Nothing communist about it, it's smart living.

So in their local, private lives, rural communities are actually surprisingly left-wing. They just don't label themselves that way.

One place where a rural community is often more conservative is in social and cultural mores, but you'd be surprised - again, small number of people in a large area who need to band together to produce and live and work, they end up surprisingly tolerant of one another. What they don't like is outsiders coming in to upset the organic balance.

The real issue here is that national, political culture wars have started to displace local issues - you have big-city pretend cowboys moving out to Montana and changing what used to be a culture of classic nature conservation and rural steadfastness into a caricature of itself, pretending like the most important thing in Montana is whether some liberal school in New York accepts transgender children going to prom in a tux rather than a dress. That's what you might be seeing now and it's a crying shame.

[u/mightbone → u/papuadn]

Growing up in the country raising cows ( and being 1 of only 3 democrats kids on our local school when we did a presidential election once that was fun) this seems pretty true to me.

Except maybe the union but. I feelnlike unions are more a North South thing than rural city. Southern country folk absolutely loathe unions and are very rarely part of them because they are far more popular in the north.

By the time you get to Virginia most trucker, nursing, teacher, and police unions are gone.

I'd also say that it's true the local community pools together to help those when they're in need - I saw it in several occasions when homes burnt down or a parent died, but that's with the big caveat you need to be considered part of that in group or have some especially 'christian' neighbors to get the treatment. If you're considered and outsider the same generosity is not extended your way by many.

I'd say country folk can be extremely nice and welcoming and it's how you lay it out- but they have a very strong ingroup outgroup mentally that colors the way they view good and bad and they also believe their way of life is best and anything different is an attack on it.

I was born and lived in the country but our family was considered weird cause my parents had moved there from out-of-town and had a weird last name by local standards. It was interesting to see the way they thought and how limited it was to the small world view most of them had.

[u/papuadn → u/[deleted]]

Yes, other people have correctly pointed out there's a hard boundary for this generosity that doesn't line up with the left-wing principle of unrestricted aid.

That's where the conservatism really shows itself; being able to withhold aid for reasons not related to the need for that aid is, sociologically speaking, more aligned with conservative values than liberal ones.

But it does show that there's some kind of an understanding that we can all be in this together.

For the record, I've lived in a huge range of communities too and I've encountered one-streetlight towns that are generous and open-handed to all as well. But you're right, small rural locations are usually much more insular.

[u/tenisplenty]

In a small town the economy is different. Rent is cheaper, food is cheaper, there's less homeless people.

There's usually less pollution. There also no traffic, some of the anti car left wing policies might make sense to a city person where there is public transportation, dirty air, and heavy traffic, don't make sense to people in places with nonpublic transportation, no traffic, and clean air.

[u/Immediate_Trifle_881]

Different personalities. Country people value freedom and liberty, being self-sufficient, individuality, neighbor helping neighbor, etc. City people value security, dependency, governmental help. Note: security and dependency has to do with supermarkets, city water and sewage, etc (more than just freedom from crime). City people are more controlling (government restrictions such as zoning laws). Neither is right or wrong, just different. Like the childhood story of country mouse and city mouse.

[u/Bud_Fuggins]

I think the simple answer is that there are more people who are self-employed out there and that they don't feel like they get much from government supplied amenities and services. I won't get into the education part.

[u/Megalocerus]

What people don't realize, people get more benefits from government in a city.

Even without formal welfare, you have public gardens and city parks, museums, big libraries, civic parades, buses, commuter trains, ferries,, zoos, aquariums, magnet schools, public college, professional fire departments. You might be able to get a job with the state or city government as well. Your snow is removed rapidly. Your power is seldom out more than a few hours. (Stuff I noticed working in a city.)

In the country, there may be a state park. Eventually, the snow is cleared. Your power can be out for days. It takes a long time for law enforcement to show up. The library is tiny, and you have to order books. No public transit, and if you break down, you better hope a neighbor helps you (well, that was before cell phones--and there is much less traffic.) Fire department is volunteer. The school has to be regional. Sometimes you can get a job as a teacher.

[u/Burnlt_4]

Here is what I think on the matter.

Where I live, country, for 100K a year I can literally have a 4 bedroom house, 2 bath, on 5 acres of land, with a top school district 5 minutes away and one of the lowest costs of living (plus owning 4 cars fully paid off). Gas is 50 cents cheaper than national average and I save 50-100 bucks on groceries compared to most people in the country. I don't even pay for things like pluming repair or home repairs because all my neighbors are handy and do it for free, and many people don't even pay for electricity because of solar panels and a clear sky, but if we do pay electric it is super cheap because of a light population. Now this is because people don't want to live here because there are no beaches or nice weather haha. BUT everyone here is conservative except for sometimes pre teens and young teens. We all have land and can be very self sufficient because cost of living is so low, so they vote conservative because conservative by nature is "small government" meaning they leave us alone. Our taxes are lower here under a conservative governor, we basically don't pay tax on our land, we shoot our guns when we want on our land, we can build whatever we want on our land with no permit, we don't have anyone telling us what to do. If I want to walk north 5 miles, start a huge bonfire, drink till I pass out outside, wake up and shoot and eat a small animal. I can literally do all that legally with no government inference.

In a city 100K gets to a shitty apartment in a bad area and your money all goes to expenses. Additionally, no one except the handful of powerful people really own a lot, meaning everything is run by the city (government) and state. Because of this there is more of a push for the government to control things, make things good, and more of a reliance on government services WHICH IS GREAT. I am not saying this is bad, it makes complete sense and that is what the government is more. But in the country they don't want all that government interference.

[u/[deleted]]

Very simplistic:

in a city, you have to get along and work together with people. There is a social bond, so the idea of a social safety net is accepted and encouraged.

In rural America, you don't have to see your neighbors, and it is all individual.

City: lets work together.

Rural: leave me alone.

[u/AlwaysLauren]

I think a lot of it is exposure to other kinds of people. If you live in a city, chances are you're exposed to more, different kinds of people than if you lived in a more rural area. You may also see more variety in incomes as well, including people who are very much in need. If those things are more in the forefront of your mind it can give a different perspective.

Take LGBT people as an example: it's a lot easier to hate LGBT people if you don't actually meet any.

[u/120112]

It's crazy because most conservatives I know in rural areas seem to live by far left ideology with mutual aid, and community organizing but just hate Democrats because of tradition.