Could Democrats Regain the Rural Vote?

On a recent drive from Washington, D.C. to western Michigan, I passed by a white semi-trailer in an open field, perpendicular to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Blue handpainted text along the bottom of the trailer read, "USA, God, Prolife, Guns, Coal, Oil, No Socialism," and above it all, painted in red, was "TRUMP." I wonder whether Suzanne Mettler and Trevor E. Brown passed the same sign as they were writing Rural Versus Urban over the last five years. They traveled thousands of miles across America's rural counties, analyzing and collecting data spanning roughly five decades and conducting interviews with local Democratic and Republican Party chairs and former elected officials, in order to get beyond the surface anger of improvised roadside billboards. To Mettler and Brown, rural resentment is a symptom of larger developments in the American political system rather than the cause of its latest divisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]