I’m tired of hearing political pundits divide our Commonwealth into east and west, urban and rural. We are one Pennsylvania — united — and we will come together to tackle our greatest challenges.

— Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro

A brief look at a county-by-county political map of the United States reveals an odd duality: The overwhelming amount of land in the country resides in Republican districts, and yet Democrats control much of the government because most of the largest cities are liberal. For a long time now, and yet increasingly, the hyper-urban parts of the country are dictating liberal policies to country  folk that inhabit most of the geographical spaces the country owns. Look at examples like the city of Chicago, for instance, and its overwhelming influence on the remainder of the largely rural state of Illinois, or Detroit’s dominance of the massive state that is Michigan, or any number of other examples.

In my state of Pennsylvania, Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro urges us to believe that this rural/urban divide isn’t as important as our shared identity. And certainly some research does suggest that the divide looms larger psychologically than in reality; often rural and urban persons share more in common than rumor has it. But while the shared values sentiment is nice, it is nonetheless clearly true that rural voters feel increasingly disconnected from their urban counterparts. No matter how much we talk about unity, it isn’t a mirage that 11 rural Oregon counties voted to join Idaho because they don’t like liberals in Portland telling them what to do. (READ MORE from Lucian G. Conway: The Curious Case of Conservative Happiness) 

The depth of the problem is illustrated by simply imagining a hypothetical in my state of Pennsylvania: What if Philadelphia was no longer a part of the state? President Donald Trump lost Pennsylvania in 2020 by over one percentage point. Consider that without only one county — Philadelphia County — in 2020, Trump would have won the state by over six points (52 percent Trump to 46 percent Biden). That’s a larger margin than Trump won in conservative Texas. If one removes the three greater Philadelphia counties as well, Trump wins Pennsylvania by over 13 percent, and if you throw out Pittsburgh, too, Trump wins by almost 19 percent, which is a larger margin than he won in Mississippi.

This brief analysis reveals that the increasing divide between rural and urban America is quite real. But why does it exist? Many on the left claim it is because rural voters have lost touch with true American values and are a threat to the American way of life. For example, Tom Schaller, author of White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy, recently said:

First of all, [white rural voters] are the most racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-gay demographic in the country. Second, they’re the most conspiracist group: QAnon support and subscribers, election denialism, Covid denialism and scientific skepticism, Obama birtherism. Third: anti-democratic sentiments. They don’t believe in an independent press, free speech … And fourth: they’re most likely to excuse or justify violence as an acceptable alternative to peaceful public discourse.

Research does show that rural voters increasingly resent big-city liberals telling them what to do. But is it because rural voters have become racist, violent, rage-filled authoritarians? That certainly doesn’t describe the people in the rural area where I live. None of those people seem filled with rage; most of them are calm, happy, people who love their neighbors and love democracy. Indeed, a recently published book by Colby College professors tells a different tale than Schaller, one much more in line with the experience of every day rural Americans such as myself.

Containing one of the largest studies of rural America to date, the Colby book suggests not that rural voters are rage-filled authoritarians bent on overthrowing democracy, but rather that they have real concerns rooted in reality. In the words of the authors of the study: “One of the reasons it may be hard for Democrats to go into rural areas is that they’ve come to believe these are bastions of crazy Trumpers.… But what we show in this book is that there are genuine concerns that pre-date Donald Trump by decades.”

In fact, it is worth considering the division problem the other way around. Tom Schaller’s quote provides a stark contrast to Governor Josh Shapiro’s earlier statement about unity across rural and urban lines. And that highlights part of the problem: It is hard for rural voters to feel much unity when an ever-growing barrage of liberal criticism like White Rural Rage suggests rural folk are threats to democracy on par with terrorist groups. One can’t just declare unity by fiat. Perhaps at least part of the problem with the rural/urban divide is that big city liberals state false facts about rural Americans and then use rural folks’ subsequent dislike of being slandered as evidence that they are “rage-filled.” (READ MORE: Republicans Are Missing the Point of Trump — Again)

This suggests part of the solution, too. No, I’m not sure we should give Philadelphia to New Jersey. But I am sure that liberals shouldn’t describe rural voters who want to do so as hate-filled racist xenophobes.