The Politics of Resentment Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker (Audible Audio Edition) Katherine J Cramer Coleen Marlo Post Hypnotic Press Inc Books
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Since the election of Scott Walker, Wisconsin has been seen as ground zero for debates about the appropriate role of government in the wake of the Great Recession. In a time of rising inequality, Walker not only survived a bitterly contested recall that brought thousands of protesters to Capitol Square, he was subsequently reelected. How could this happen? How is it that the very people who stand to benefit from strong government services not only vote against the candidates who support those services but are vehemently against the very idea of big government?
With The Politics of Resentment, Katherine J. Cramer uncovers an oft-overlooked piece of the puzzle rural political consciousness and the resentment of the "liberal elite". Rural voters are distrustful that politicians will respect the distinct values of their communities and allocate a fair share of resources. What can look like disagreements about basic political principles are therefore actually rooted in something even more fundamental who we are as people and how closely a candidate's social identity matches our own. Using Scott Walker and Wisconsin's prominent and protracted debate about the appropriate role of government, Cramer illuminates the contours of rural consciousness, showing how place-based identities profoundly influence how people understand politics, regardless of whether urban politicians and their supporters really do shortchange or look down on those living in the country. The Politics of Resentment shows that rural resentment - no less than partisanship, race, or class - plays a major role in dividing America against itself.
The Politics of Resentment Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker (Audible Audio Edition) Katherine J Cramer Coleen Marlo Post Hypnotic Press Inc Books
The Politics of Resentment Book ReviewMs. Kramer, a University of Wisconsin—Madison Political Science Professor, explored a recent political paradox, “We live in a time of increasing economic inequality, and yet voters continue to elect politicians whose policies respond very disproportionately to the preferences of affluent people.” She examined the origins of this paradox in her home state of Wisconsin, for which rural voters recently tipped the balance from a blue to a red state, seemingly against their own interests. To better understand the opinions of these voters as reported by the usual technique of polling, she personally and repeatedly participated in multiple informal discussions of thirty-nine groups scattered throughout Wisconsin for six years {2007-2012}.
The study identified a very rural identity with “us versus them” characteristics leading to resentment of urban and political elites, public employees, and diverse urban populations. A “rural consciousness” was identified that included “three major components…a perception that rural areas do not receive their fair share of decision-making power, that they are distinct from urban (and suburban) areas in their culture and lifestyle (and these differences are not respected), and that rural areas do not receive their fair share of public resources.” In addition, they believed they worked much harder for lower wages than less deserving urbanites, public employees, and recipients of public assistance and that their culture and communities were dying as a result of these discrepancies.
Reports are reviewed for previous examinations of these perceived discrepancies by the usual political science statistical techniques. At a superficial level, those reports show that rural residents are right about receiving considerably lower wages but wrong about not getting their fair share of public funds. In 2011, per capita median income was in excess of $70,000 for the richest suburbs, about $55,000 for urban counties (without considering the urban poor), and about $40,000 for completely rural counties. Per capita combined state and federal tax revenues were greater than $10,000 for the richest suburbs, over $6,000 for urban counties, and about $4,000 for rural counties. Per capita percentage returned from taxes paid was about 65% state and 150% federal for urban counties and about 100% state and over 400% federal for rural counties (both state and federal graphs skewed by outliers).
However, Ms. Kramer found that the answers from this political science approach didn’t really match the concerns of rural citizens on several important points. The revenues returned to rural regions were often in the form of programs imposed upon then by urban and political elites and staffed by public employees who lived among them. Rural citizens perceived the politicians to be tone deaf to their real needs and the programs to be contrary to their real interests. They perceived the local public employees to be outsiders (them rather than us) with much easier work, better salaries, and enormously better benefits than they had. They perceived their hard-earned tax dollars to be wasted on these programs, public employees, and transfers to what they saw as undeserving urban minorities.
This perspective suggests that voters’ preference for limited government was not rooted in libertarian political principles or identification as Republicans but in a strong rural identity with the perception that services were not benefiting deserving, hard-working people like themselves. Politicians, such as Scott Walker, skillfully directed these rural resentments away from Republican policies that favor affluent people and redirected them toward government, the people who work for it, and urban areas that are home to liberals and people of color. This rural identity with these strong resentments was already firmly established as the result of long-standing difficult rural circumstances and generations of community members teaching these ideas to one another in the context of the national political debate. Scott Walker merely reaped the harvest of a field already prepared for him (how’s that for a rural metaphor?).
So what are the lessons from these findings? First, as on the national level, citizens tend to vote according to personal identities rather than specific policy preferences, with attitudes toward social groups doing the work of ideology. Ms. Kramer examined the rural identity and its resentments in her state. Nationally, numerous additional divisive identities have been experienced, including those involving race, gender, Northerners versus Southerners, and so on. Second, in Wisconsin, it is necessary to reassess what is going on in rural places and reconsider the policy responses. 1) It is possible that resources rural communities are receiving are not effectively addressing the needs of rural communities. 2) It is likely that some of the resources rural communities are receiving are invisible to the people who live there so they are unaware of the programs they use. 3) The manner in which policy is created and delivered is important. If rural residents feel they have been listened to and respected, they may feel different about the programs that result.
My comments about the book:
My main criticism of the book is that the “Where Does Rural Consciousness Come From?” section is inadequate. Radio was dismissed as a source with the comment that public radio transcripts were unavailable but that state and local newspapers were a reliable indicator of the local news environment. Has the author never heard of talk radio? Is she unaware of the enormous audience of Rush Limbaugh? As for local newspapers, her study of papers from 2007 to 2011 doesn’t begin to cover the period necessary for “generations of community members teaching these ideas to each other”. In my view, her approach likely missed a substantial contribution from several decades of the extensive Koch political network propaganda machine firmly embedding these ideas in rural and other identities.
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The Politics of Resentment Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker (Audible Audio Edition) Katherine J Cramer Coleen Marlo Post Hypnotic Press Inc Books Reviews
Katherine Cramer spent a couple years traveling to small-town Wisconsin to listen to people about politics. She’s a great listener, and this book is the result. It’s a bit repetitive in places, and too much of the account reflects a relatively small share of her groups. Still, it’s a great window into the collective minds of the small-town Midwest.
Her core argument concerns how rural resentment of urban people and their governments shapes both rural identity and their politics. It’s obviously a timely book in light of Trump’s ability to tap that resentment in a few key states such as Wisconsin. That said, there are some elements of Cramer’s findings that raised questions in my mind, questions that she leaves hanging. Without those answers, it’s hard to know how American politics should move forward.
One striking element of the conversations was that public employees in each community were grouped with state government. Someone raised in their town who taught at the local high school for thirty years was, in their worldview, resented as an agent of Madison. The people they grew up with have become villains in their eyes because they teach school. That’s not only sad, but it reflects a disconnection with reality. The high school math teacher who grew up in town is part of the community by any definition.
Another villain in rural Wisconsin is the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which manages things like hunting and fishing, regulates pollution. Some of Cramer’s people talk about being afraid of the DNR catching them poaching deer or overfishing, both of which are illegal of course. In the same breadth, these people will say, “and the DNR rules don’t even work! The fishing is terrible these days, and there aren’t any more deer.” Apparently it does not cross their minds that their community of poachers might be responsible for the decline of deer and fish. These communities seem blind to a basic fact about how game management works.
That’s a nice illustration of how much cow manure came through in these conversations. Rural Wisconsin believes that they pay more taxes than the cities (they don’t), and that they get less state spending (they don’t). Cramer gently documents other things that just aren’t so, but she always says that it’s important for the rest of us to listen to these voices. I agree that we need to listen to these voices, some of whom are my neighbors too. I think it’s also important to think about where these voices are coming from – where are they getting these falsehoods? I have some thoughts, but I won’t share them here.
Having been heard, I think it’s important that the people rural Wisconsin do some listening of their own. For people who claim to believe in personal responsibility, they don’t take much responsibility themselves. If they believe that people can succeed through hard work, and if they really work as hard as they claim, why aren’t they succeeding? If, as they recognize, you need an education for the good jobs, why don’t they get an education? If there are no jobs in their community, why don’t they move where the jobs are? If gas is so expensive, why don’t they move into town? I’ve had my own conversations with people in these towns where they complain about their lazy, no-good relatives who won’t get off their behinds and get a job. Cramer didn’t seem to find many of these kinds of people in her samples.
Because of her research strategy, Cramer missed the rural Wisconsinites who moved to town and got a good job. Instead, she talked to the older generation, which tends to complain about their children and grandchildren having left these small towns for small cities like Eau Claire or Wausau. The old folks of rural Wisconsin might listen to their own grandkids.
The Politics of Resentment Book Review
Ms. Kramer, a University of Wisconsin—Madison Political Science Professor, explored a recent political paradox, “We live in a time of increasing economic inequality, and yet voters continue to elect politicians whose policies respond very disproportionately to the preferences of affluent people.” She examined the origins of this paradox in her home state of Wisconsin, for which rural voters recently tipped the balance from a blue to a red state, seemingly against their own interests. To better understand the opinions of these voters as reported by the usual technique of polling, she personally and repeatedly participated in multiple informal discussions of thirty-nine groups scattered throughout Wisconsin for six years {2007-2012}.
The study identified a very rural identity with “us versus them” characteristics leading to resentment of urban and political elites, public employees, and diverse urban populations. A “rural consciousness” was identified that included “three major components…a perception that rural areas do not receive their fair share of decision-making power, that they are distinct from urban (and suburban) areas in their culture and lifestyle (and these differences are not respected), and that rural areas do not receive their fair share of public resources.” In addition, they believed they worked much harder for lower wages than less deserving urbanites, public employees, and recipients of public assistance and that their culture and communities were dying as a result of these discrepancies.
Reports are reviewed for previous examinations of these perceived discrepancies by the usual political science statistical techniques. At a superficial level, those reports show that rural residents are right about receiving considerably lower wages but wrong about not getting their fair share of public funds. In 2011, per capita median income was in excess of $70,000 for the richest suburbs, about $55,000 for urban counties (without considering the urban poor), and about $40,000 for completely rural counties. Per capita combined state and federal tax revenues were greater than $10,000 for the richest suburbs, over $6,000 for urban counties, and about $4,000 for rural counties. Per capita percentage returned from taxes paid was about 65% state and 150% federal for urban counties and about 100% state and over 400% federal for rural counties (both state and federal graphs skewed by outliers).
However, Ms. Kramer found that the answers from this political science approach didn’t really match the concerns of rural citizens on several important points. The revenues returned to rural regions were often in the form of programs imposed upon then by urban and political elites and staffed by public employees who lived among them. Rural citizens perceived the politicians to be tone deaf to their real needs and the programs to be contrary to their real interests. They perceived the local public employees to be outsiders (them rather than us) with much easier work, better salaries, and enormously better benefits than they had. They perceived their hard-earned tax dollars to be wasted on these programs, public employees, and transfers to what they saw as undeserving urban minorities.
This perspective suggests that voters’ preference for limited government was not rooted in libertarian political principles or identification as Republicans but in a strong rural identity with the perception that services were not benefiting deserving, hard-working people like themselves. Politicians, such as Scott Walker, skillfully directed these rural resentments away from Republican policies that favor affluent people and redirected them toward government, the people who work for it, and urban areas that are home to liberals and people of color. This rural identity with these strong resentments was already firmly established as the result of long-standing difficult rural circumstances and generations of community members teaching these ideas to one another in the context of the national political debate. Scott Walker merely reaped the harvest of a field already prepared for him (how’s that for a rural metaphor?).
So what are the lessons from these findings? First, as on the national level, citizens tend to vote according to personal identities rather than specific policy preferences, with attitudes toward social groups doing the work of ideology. Ms. Kramer examined the rural identity and its resentments in her state. Nationally, numerous additional divisive identities have been experienced, including those involving race, gender, Northerners versus Southerners, and so on. Second, in Wisconsin, it is necessary to reassess what is going on in rural places and reconsider the policy responses. 1) It is possible that resources rural communities are receiving are not effectively addressing the needs of rural communities. 2) It is likely that some of the resources rural communities are receiving are invisible to the people who live there so they are unaware of the programs they use. 3) The manner in which policy is created and delivered is important. If rural residents feel they have been listened to and respected, they may feel different about the programs that result.
My comments about the book
My main criticism of the book is that the “Where Does Rural Consciousness Come From?” section is inadequate. Radio was dismissed as a source with the comment that public radio transcripts were unavailable but that state and local newspapers were a reliable indicator of the local news environment. Has the author never heard of talk radio? Is she unaware of the enormous audience of Rush Limbaugh? As for local newspapers, her study of papers from 2007 to 2011 doesn’t begin to cover the period necessary for “generations of community members teaching these ideas to each other”. In my view, her approach likely missed a substantial contribution from several decades of the extensive Koch political network propaganda machine firmly embedding these ideas in rural and other identities.
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