Episode 47: Rural Progressives Are Having A Moment... And A Summit

Michelle Higgs | voteformichellehiggs.com/about

I began the HoosLeft project with a Substack article¹ titled, “We Are Here. We Exist. We Belong,” wherein I invited Hoosiers from the left side of the political spectrum to come together, to remind the state and the country that Indiana is not a monolith, particularly in the rural areas and small towns. So many of us red state progressives have felt alone, ignored, abandoned by the Democratic Party, left to fend for ourselves in areas deemed irredeemably conservative. But that is beginning to change.

Rural progressives are having a moment. Vice President Kamala Harris’ selection of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate has been a revelation to the East Coast corporate centrist pundit class, who have been confused and delighted by the huntin’, fishin’,² football coachin’³, piglet-snugglin’,⁴ car-fixin’⁵, nice Midwestern dad. Like they don’t know what to do with this small-town social studies teacher and retired National Guardsman they can’t pigeonhole as a racist, redneck, or rube. It turns out, if you look beyond one diner in Ohio, there’s a lot of diversity out here.

Walz, who served a rural district in Congress for six terms before handily winning the governorship twice, demonstrates to the whole country that progressive values can win in the rural Midwest, and he has shown how to effectively message against MAGA Republicans more effectively in one month than the national Democratic machine has proved in almost a decade now.

This is a guy who, as governor, signed bills securing child tax credits and paid family leave in Minnesota. He was the first governor to codify abortion rights⁶ in their state after Dobbs. He has vocally defended⁷ trans youth, enabled undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses, and legalized recreational marijuana. Walz signed bills providing free breakfast and lunch⁸ to every public grade school student, free menstrual products⁹ in school bathrooms, and free public college tuition¹⁰ for low-income students - a progressive wishlist with a lot of checkmarks - and maintains a +16% approval rating¹¹ with Minnesotans.

What does this tell us? With the right people and the right messaging, progressive values can win in the heartland. Minnesota and Indiana are similar¹² in terms of racial demographics and urban/rural split. In 2008, Barack Obama won 45 percent¹³ of rural and 46 percent¹⁴ of white working-class votes nationwide. And he won Indiana. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won only 31 percent of the rural vote. Four years later, Joe Biden only improved on that mark by one point.

As I discussed with author David Pepper recently¹⁵, the takeover of statehouses nationwide by Republicans in 2010 - and the resulting gerrymandering - redrew political maps to such an extent that Democrats found themselves uncompetitive in countless rural districts and gave up on them, citing a waste of resources.

It is inspiring to see fewer statehouse races go uncontested this year. Jennifer McCormick’s gubernatorial campaign is focusing on rural voters. State and local candidates are still struggling with lack of help from above, but they know how much just showing up - and listening - matters. My guest today is leading a group of Democratic statehouse candidates around Southern Indiana to do just that - show up, listen, and connect with rural Hoosiers.

From her campaign website¹⁶, "Michelle Higgs is a community leader, wife, mom of three, and a Martinsville High School alumna. Her father, Larry Burkes, managed the popular Swifty gas station on Main St. in Martinsville for over 25 years. Her mother, Carol Burkes, worked with CICOA, delivering meals to the elderly and infirm throughout Morgan County. She returned to Indiana in 2016 to be closer to her family and to raise her two youngest sons “near trees and creeks and open spaces” after living and working around the world. She is Hoosier through and through and loves country roads and the smell of spring rain and fresh-cut grass. Motivated by her deep faith, she strives to build a community that honors the sacredness of all.

Rooted in Hoosier hospitality, Michelle decided to run to represent the people of House District 60 because she knows that when more of us can shape the decisions that impact our lives–whether at the Statehouse or in our workplace–we all do better. But for too long, too many of her neighbors have been left out and left behind by divisive politics as usual in our state. Because so many in our community have been unheard and feel isolated, too many issues have gone unaddressed for too long.”

Michelle headlines The Indiana Rural Summit¹⁷, in which nine Democratic State House candidates from districts representing 24% of the state across 22 counties barnstorm across Southern Indiana on a six-stop tour this August and September to connect with some of our most ignored and poorly represented voters, rallying around a unified message of hope for Hoosiers: Rural communities and small towns can have better healthcare, schools, and jobs.

I’m pulling so hard for Michelle to win. She has future party leadership written all over her and Democrats at the statehouse would benefit greatly from her presence.

Michelle, her Rural Summit partners, and other Dirt Road Democrats understand something that has eluded so many coastal liberal pundits, that Tim Walz’s introduction to the national consciousness may be showing them for the first time. Citing Erica Etelson and Anthony Flaccavento writing for The Nation¹⁸, 

“Rural America hasn’t been left behind so much as it has been worn down: by timber, coal, gas, copper, and other metals extracted until what’s left is too expensive to reach; by companies pulling out and workers left holding the bag; by hogs, cattle, chickens, and grains produced and shipped out in abundance, with farmers getting only pennies on the dollar that consumers pay; by midsize textile and furniture factories steadily upgrading equipment and worker skills, only to be undermined by trade policies that favor cheaper labor anywhere it can be found.

As rural economies imploded, Democrats and Republicans alike stood idly by. But liberals added insult to injury by looking down on the “dank backwaters” of rural America or glibly insisting that people abandon their communities and go where the jobs are.

Rural Americans are angry because we’ve spent decades at jobs making homes warmer and food cheaper for our suburban and urban neighbors, only to be economically discarded and culturally vilified as racist rubes.”

Walz showed the way to take the air out of the MAGA movement by labeling them weird. And it sticks because it’s true. The cult-like idolatry of Trump, the obsession with peoples’ genitalia, alternate-reality demons, the way JD Vance cosplays an Appalachian hillbilly (in eyeliner) when he’s really an Ivy-league educated, Silicon Valley venture capitalist whose bestselling memoir drips with disdain for working-class people in his own family. Weird. All-around.

But the irrational fear and loathing many liberals feel towards rural Americans is also extremely weird. When corporations offshore jobs and leave unemployment in their wake, when a shrinking tax base slashes funding for neighborhood schools, when grocers pull out and leave dollar stores as the only food option, when these indignities are perpetuated against a minority community, we rightly see them as exploited and hung out to dry. But, when this happens to rural folks, far too many Democrats “believe, and ultimately launder, abusive accusations against an economically disadvantaged group of people that would provoke sympathy if its members had different skin color and voting habits,” says Tyler Austin Harper in The Atlantic¹⁹. When racists call people of color lazy and stupid, we are justifiably horrified. To then turn around and label rural folks lazy and stupid should be just as horrific.

An unrestrained market has done this to us all. Only government - that is all of us together, through our representatives - can muster the resources to take on corporate power. Take that message to rural America - with an open mind, a kind heart, and maybe a hot dish - and we’ll be successful. Just don’t be weird.

---

HoosLeft on social media:

https://www.facebook.com/hoosleft

https://hoosleft.bsky.social

https://www.youtube.com/@hoosleft

https://www.tiktok.com/@hoosleft

https://www.instagram.com/scottrog78/

https://www.threads.net/@scottrog78

https://hoosier.social/@scottrog78

And once again, subscribe at

https://scottaaronrogers.substack.com/subscribe

---

Interview Citations:

Mourdock “inflict my opinion”: https://rollcall.com/2012/06/14/indiana-democrats-hit-richard-mourdock-with-first-spot/

School choice hurts rural areas: https://www.ncpecoalition.org/ruralvouchers

$1 School Law: https://indianacitizen.org/bargain-buildings-charter-school-dollar-law-may-have-new-life/

Todd Huston benefits from school privatization: https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2023/03/24/virtual-school-funding-increase-aids-house-speakers-client/

Cliff Effect: https://www.circlesusa.org/research/cliff-effect/

Evangelicals changed positions on abortion: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480

Phyllis Schlafly’s long-game: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/obituaries/phyllis-schlafly-conservative-leader-and-foe-of-era-dies-at-92.html

Institutional owners of single-family homes: https://nlihc.org/resource/gao-releases-report-institutional-investments-single-family-rental-housing

1. https://scottaaronrogers.substack.com/p/we-are-here-we-exist-we-belong

2. https://www.startribune.com/beyond-his-flannel-shirt-and-camo-hat-tim-walz-has-made-his-mark-in-the-politics-of-fish-and-game/600966573

3. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/09/us/tim-walz-coach.html

4. https://www.businessinsider.com/tim-walz-midwestern-dad-kamala-harris-2024-8

5. https://www.motor1.com/news/729257/tim-walz-ford-repair/

6. https://apnews.com/article/abortion-politics-minnesota-state-government-timothy-walz-11c3b1d5269c929e442b979ff1bac73b

7. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/07/tim-walz-minnesota-trans-refuge-bill/

8. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/03/17/gov-signs-universal-school-meals-bill-into-law

9. https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/house-passes-k-12-spending-package-that-includes-2-2-billion-education-boost/

10. https://www.ohe.state.mn.us/sPages/northstarpromise.cfm

11. https://www.kaaltv.com/news/approval-rates-for-minnesota-leaders/

12. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/state-by-state.html

13. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/elections/2008/results/president/national-exit-polls.html?mod=article_inline

14. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/13/us/politics/the-white-working-class-vote.html?ref=multimedia

15. https://scottaaronrogers.substack.com/p/episode-44-wouldnt-you-like-to-be

16. https://voteformichellehiggs.com/

17. https://linktr.ee/indianaruralsummit

18. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/rural-voters-democrats-biden/

19. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/white-rural-rage-criticism/677967/