How do we get the Scots irish of the appalchians and ozarks to pay attention to the left?
i think these people are ripe for a leftward swing if it was at all possible to convince them trump is full of shit
i think these people are ripe for a leftward swing if it was at all possible to convince them trump is full of shit
people will only vote according to their vibes (how they feel about a candidate) or culture war nonsense absent any material goodwill done towards them.
americans have been edged forever by this point. do literally anything for them and they'll support you. even if its just 5 extra dollars out of their paycheck. thats why sanders was such a threat, he wasn't just gonna give people tax breaks that expire in 4 years.
We've talked about this a little with Zac "the Mad Redneck" Hyden, a mechanic, organizer, and Christian Leftist from Alabama. He says that Appalachia is an internal colony inside the USA, and among other things it needs land reform to redistribute the land owned by absentee capitalists. He goes into more depth here: https://themadredneck.substack.com/p/internal-orientalism-of-the-american
Also check out Zac's podcast, Redneck Liberation Theology: https://sites.libsyn.com/477687
As a guy with some Appalachian roots, I'll be honest, I don't think there's much hope.
Firstly I would like to say I think a lot of leftists over estimate the proletariat character of rural Appalachia. Despite the hillbilly aesthetics there's actually quite a big labor aristocrat class here. Take a drive around WV and you'll see almost as many nice houses nestled in the woods as trailer parks. The cost of living is so low here it makes living a middle class lifestyle easier on a budget, you can be petite bourgeois with a salary that would be peanuts in even a cheaper US city. Even the more genuinely less well off people have some things going for them over their urban counterparts, they generally own the land they live on, they don't have to worry as much about state surveillance and pay less taxes. Overall they have a lot more independence than the urban poor and that makes them a bit less predisposed to the idea of socialism.
A lot of the real proletariat of Appalachia has left for Philly and Cincinnati, once coal jobs dried up. What you have left now is more akin to a culture of poor yoeman farmers, exploited but deeply conservative.
Doing anything for them at all? Not sure how to get there under these conditions either. The fascist hick politicians have got them all locked up. Source: born, raised, and still live in NW AR.
The Waltons are pulling off a quite stunning bourgeoise liberalization of the NWA metro area, but... that's all liberal catnip and easily spun as "woke agenda" coming to price you out of your neighborhood so an MBA from San Francisco can move in. They won't blame capitalism. Any leftist movement here is playing on hard mode. When the US eventually breaks apart I suspect these powerful liberal merchant classes will maintain local control.
Speaking of... I wish I knew of a leftist anything here. I'm sure I'm partially to blame for not looking hard enough, but damn...
Im not born and raised, but a lot of my family came from a scots irish enclave. Pea Ridge Benton county AR,
You familair?
Yeah I'm familiar. There's a good chance our families may have known each other. Depends on when yours was there. No need to get more specific than that right now, perhaps!
Get a strong blue collar looking white guy with a wife, 2 kids and a white picket fence to say trump is shit without being labeled a commie or a [removed]