NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A searing portrait and damning takedown of America’s proudest
citizens—who are also the least likely to defend its core principles This is an important book
that ought to be read by anyone who wants to understand politics in the perilous Age of
Trump.”—David Corn New York Times bestselling author of American Psychosis White rural voters
hold the greatest electoral sway of any demographic group in the United States yet rural
communities suffer from poor healthcare access failing infrastructure and severe
manufacturing and farming job losses. Rural voters believe our nation has betrayed them and to
some degree they’re right. In White Rural Rage Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman explore why
rural Whites have failed to reap the benefits from their outsize political power and why as a
result they are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions. Their
rage—stoked daily by Republican politicians and the conservative media—now poses an existential
threat to the United States. Schaller and Waldman show how vulnerable U.S. democracy has become
to rural Whites who despite legitimate grievances are increasingly inclined to hold racist
and xenophobic beliefs to believe in conspiracy theories to accept violence as a legitimate
course of political action and to exhibit antidemocratic tendencies. Rural White Americans’
attitude might best be described as I love my country but not our country ” Schaller and
Waldman argue. This phenomenon is the patriot paradox of rural America: The citizens who take
such pride in their patriotism are also the least likely to defend core American principles.
And by stoking rural Whites’ anger rather than addressing the hard problems they face
conservative politicians and talking heads create a feedback loop of resentments that are
undermining American democracy. Schaller and Waldman provocatively critique both the structures
that permit rural Whites’ disproportionate influence over American governance and the prospects
for creating a pluralist inclusive democracy that delivers policy solutions that benefit rural
communities. They conclude with a political reimagining that offers a better future for both
rural people and the rest of America.
