First, Dominic is correct when he says, “Blaming a caricature of poor and resentful rural people for lashing out and causing political problems isn’t very productive.” But there’s good reason for hopelessness in rural America, even if, as Dominic notes, there are some positive material statistics coming out of the bayous, hollers, and backwoods. Whatever economic abstractions we cite cannot rebuild congregational churches, repair family structures, or undo chemical dependencies that are a visual reality for millions of our countrymen.

Let’s look at Alabama, one of the most rural states in the country, and see what reasons Americans out in the country might have for thinking that things aren’t hunky-dory.

Family disruption and death, combined with failing institutions, have made the countryside — where everybody knows everybody’s business — an echo chamber of misery. Maybe some things are improved on paper, but the men and women down at the last non-chain diner aren’t talking about an 8.9 percent increase in real earnings for the white collars — they’re talking about who was found rotting in his trailer with his body picked over by his “friends” or the shuttering of the VFW.

Sometimes the best we can say from whatever height publication affords us is, “I’m sorry, that sucks, what you’re going through.” There’s a time to offer the happy news of incremental economic renewal, just as there’s a time for unqualified consolation.