You close by saying, basically: yes, rural voters might respond to a message about rebuilding what’s been lost, but we shouldn’t give it to them, because that would be “pandering.” That’s not universalism. That’s liberal parochialism. You want to talk about solidarity, but only on your terms. And if people don’t share your assumptions about cities, education, and globalization? Well then, they don’t count.
This is badly mischaracterizing what I said (or at least what I meant). I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that it's because I explained my point poorly.
Never once have I said that we shouldn't give rural communities "a message about rebuilding what’s been lost." What I have said is that the message we give can't be that what we're going to rebuild is going to look like what was lost. Because it would be a lie to say otherwise. Telling people that coal jobs will come back is a lie. Telling people that we are going to manufacture Iphones entirely in America - or that doing so would create lots of wonderful manufacturing jobs - is a lie. Telling people that we can build an economy in today's world where we have both cheap goods and high-paying manufacturing jobs is a lie. Those are the lies that have won the hearts and minds of rural voters for the last two decades. There is and should be a path forward for rural America. But it will not look like 1950s America. That is not "liberal parochialism" speaking. That is reality. The challenge is to craft a message that gives rural voters a vision of the future that doesn't look like the past - and to have them choose that over the lies they will get from the other side that they
can have a future that looks like the past. And what I definitely do not think Democrats should do is run on a message that essentially promises to benefit rural Americans - who are, of course, a small minority of the people who live in this country - at the expense of everyone else. That is what I'm saying: Democrats' message to the nation cannot be
focused on rural Americans. It has to be a vision that appeals to everyone. I'm hopeful that such a message can win some number of "persuadable" rural Americans, even if that isn't a very large number of people. But if there is a choice to be made about whether to tailor that message most precisely to rural Americans versus the urban and suburban working class, then the choice has to be the latter, every time , because there are simply way more of the latter, and a huge percentage of the former who are not going to respond well to any message about "universalism" or "solidarity" no matter how it is crafted. Again, reality.
Nor have I said that people "don't count." I will happily advocate for policies that benefit working-class rural Americans, even if it's at my personal expense. I think my share of the tax burden should go up while their share should go down. I want them to be able to go to college (not just four-year universities, but community colleges and trade schools and whatever kind of other school they want to go to) for free or reduced cost, without taking on debt or with the potential for such debt to be forgiven. I want them to have thriving, functioning rural hospitals where they can get health care for free or close to it whenever they need it. I want robust public works projects that put people to work and benefit everyone. (In case this isn't clear, I'd be
ecstatic about a modern version of the TVA to revitalize America's aging infrastructure; my point is not that we shouldn't advocate for such things, but instead that rural Americans won't vote for them.) I want regulations and policies that allow their local businesses a fighting chance to compete against corporate behemoths.
I'm not asking for everyone to make the same assumptions as me; what I want is for everyone (including rural Americans) to
stop relying on assumptions that are largely unfounded when it comes to people who live different lives in different places than they do. Something that I happen to think rural Americans are as guilty of as - or likely more guilty of than - anyone else, based on my personal experience. My position is not that rural people don't count; it's that they shouldn't count for more than everyone else, which (politically, at least) is the current situation we have, and is the vision that the right has sold to them and that they've voted for. Democrats
should craft messaging that communicates to rural voters that they're as good and important as any city dweller or liberal arts college graduate. But Republicans haven't won by telling them they're as good as any city dweller or college graduate; they have told rural voters that they're
better than those people. That's what they have voted for. That's what, in my opinion, Dems can't and shouldn't tell them.