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.
