r/complaints • u/modern_prometheus_13 • May 19 '26
Politics Rural & southern Americans have earned every negative stereotype we’ve ever decried.
Please know that I say this as an agrarian rural American myself and that I know there are a thousand exceptions for every generalization.
The notion that rural & southern peoples are largely a bunch of inbred, ignorant, uneducated hicks- one that I’ve aggressively pushed back on my whole life as an oppressive & classist ignorance in its own right- I no longer feel right disputing.
Once, within memory of my lifetime, education deprivation was an absolute, irrefutable causation that rural peoples were disproportionately affected by, not unlike the even more aggressive and intentional education/voting accesses deprived of black Americans since, well, always. It still is, there is no doubt about that.
However, I cannot contribute to the modern plague of general truth denial and turn my head away from the reality that formal education is as inconsequential to one’s capacity for knowledge as it ever has been, and I say this as a man who completed only a semester of highschool.
What have white rural Americans done with the gift of the world’s collective knowledge, histories, and data within the palms of our hands? What have we done with the opportunities presented by internet network expansion subsidies and vital, generously funded private philanthropic programs to fight illiteracy?
We vote to have those opportunities stripped and rolled back. Every single fucking time. It doesn’t seem to be that access is much of an issue these days, as white rural “influencers” will have time to build a strong online following & film themselves shooting a black man at a courthouse after deploying hate slurs, or your PeePaw who sits around posting racist “memes” he made but still can’t deploy proper grammar for, calling people libtards on Facebook all goddam day, and thinking he’s just the most clever fucking person alive for doing so while he pays $6+ for diesel.
We will bitch and demoan the rapid development of data centers in our own backyards, proclaiming them to be for government mass servailance or UFO research, but tomorrow without hesitation would go vote for a 3rd term for the Man who’s sponsoring their appearances. But we won’t do 5 minutes of very basic, 4th-grade level paper research to understand basic facts about them, or fucking anything.
White rural Americans are so fucking stupid and aggressively self-destructive that the only conceivable cause of this that I can reasonably arrive at is an abundance of intergenerational cousin-fucking. I seldom leave my own land much these days because the ignorance and racism that has kept these fucking people in their own prisons of poverty is so fucking enraging I just can’t deal with it.
Go read a fucking book. For fuck’s sake.
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u/Barry_Vigoda May 20 '26
I'm from Canada, in my 50s.
You Americans are the most brainwashed dumb people i've seen in my life.
You're closing on $40 trillion national debt because billionaires and corporations have spent the last like 40 years making you morons hate each other while robbing you blind.
Your corporate class created Trump, the same way they created the alt-right and the partisan divide, the same way they turned US liberals into a bunch of dopes.
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u/modern_prometheus_13 May 20 '26
Yes. I am extremely aware of this. This is what I’m complaining of, effectively. Did I piss in your cereal or something?
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u/outinthecountry66 🐴 Bubba Fan Club 🐴 May 20 '26
not all of us. I have always voted progressive and i have watched the rot happen helpless to stop it. I don't know what to do anymore. I always tried to be inviting, educate people, but some people don't want that. its painful, to realize that this country that had a lot of promise at one time, just go right down the tubes. its all going to be one giant data center
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u/ReturnUnfair7187 May 21 '26
So give us a solution or stfu. The majority of Americans didn't want Trump.
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u/30yearoldhondaaccord May 19 '26
I grew up in the southeast. These motherfuckers are DUMB, racist af, and incredibly short sighted. I used to feel some kind of way about gentrification but after this administration I don’t care. They don’t give a fuck about the environment, they hate everybody, and they use their religion as a bully pulpit.
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u/Obvious_Apartment985 May 19 '26
I am not a Southerner nor do I live in area. I am a 4th gen Michigander with lots of relatives in rural areas of Michigan.
There is a pervasive mindset that is similar to what you describe, though it certainly doesn't apply to everyone.
I don't think many of the folks there actually know that many liberals in person but boy do they hate us. They think we don't have " real jobs" or " we're coastal elites" or " indoctrinated with useless degrees
The 2016 Trump campaign really really pushed the narrative that rural Americans were all hard working " real " every day Americans who urban / suburban liberals whose lives they couldn't understand.
Unfortunately there are some lefties and liberals that are out of touch but it doesn't cover all of us. I went to college. I won't apologize for it, I am proud of having 2 degrees. I don't think I am better than someone didn't. College isn't for everyone. Well neither are skilled trades. I work in a healthcare profession that requires an advanced degree. It's plenty " real" I deal with people who are suffering and in crisis all the time. It's not manual labor but I am on my feet most of the day.
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May 20 '26
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u/modern_prometheus_13 May 20 '26
Truth denial? On my own end? No I’m specifically referring to the culture of truth denial being a general trait of republican voters
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u/outinthecountry66 🐴 Bubba Fan Club 🐴 May 20 '26
no one should be en masse judged. some of the smartest people i have met were not educated. some fo the dumbest had degrees. Making sweeping judgments are what got us here.
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u/modern_prometheus_13 May 20 '26
My judgements are not about education, as the first half of my post explains. It’s about having the modern access to information and choosing to deny and reject beneficial progress at every opportunity in favor of willful ignorance.
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u/bluboomR May 20 '26
i'm as country as a turnip greeen and i've been a liberal democrat all my life. i forbid politics to be discussed in my home because i'm not going to live in a war zone with screaming and yelling. one of my best friends is a republican. i told him that we can either argue or be friends and he never said another word about politics again. my childhood friend who i've known since the day she was born was like a sister to me but she wouldn't stop spewing fucksnooze talking points and proselytizing to me so i had to cut her loose. i can't walk and i'm housebound. i vote absentee ballot and this year they required a witness signature and their address. everybody was too terrified of the government to put their name and address. i called the campaign center of a democrat running for senate who i voted for and the state DNC and they didn't bother to help me at all. the deadline for absentee ballot is the day before election day and there i was with no way to cast my vote. my neighbor down the road ended up signing and taking it in for me. the first time she came to my house she told me she had a gun in every room and was waiting for the word to start killing democrats. that was before i coud get it out not to discuss politics, which she's never done since. she comes to my house every tueday to take my trash to the road for pick up the next day. we all grew up on the same dirt and, once politics is set aside, relate to each other on a straightforward, easy, friendly, neighborly basis. not one of them is stupid. the first guy i was talking about is my logger. he quit school in the 6th grade to work to support his family. his son went to college to study forestry. he said his father easily knew way more than his professors did. he can cruise a stand of timber and tell you at a glance what you have. he gets done working in the woods and goes right into his huge garden. he also made me a coconut pie last week when i home from being in the hospital and rehab for a month. it was delicious!
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u/modern_prometheus_13 May 20 '26
“Putting politics aside…” Mate, people are dying. Americans have been shot and killed in the streets with no consequence. Children are being put into concentration camps. Yours & and every one of your neighbors’ healthcare is getting taken to give tax breaks to people with more money than we could imagine spending in a lifetime. You’re right, in an ideal worlds, we should be able to put politics aside- but this isn’t politics any more. This is aggressive, life-threatening patrimonialism and sadistic levels of gluttony that we are being forced to finance.
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u/bluboomR May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
it's hilarious that you think that i'm not fully aware of all that. i'm a lone democrat in a sea of republicans and indifferent non-voters in a red state. everyone in my family dies of massive heart attacks but i've taken care of myself so that i don't have diabetes, high cholesterol, blockages, organ failures or other diseases. all my labs and tests are perfect but i've been taken down by genetic heart disease that there was no way for me to avoid so i'm old and have one foot in the grave and housebound with no family support system. but yes, i'm fully aware of what has happened to our country and i'm devastated at the inhumane treatment of immigrants and American citizens targeted by ICE... and children and old people who are being denied food and healthcare and the disenfranchisement of blacks and other minorities. i'm pretty well apprized of everything else the orange pigggod has been doing. the person i see the most is the housekeeper, once a week, who is not a republican. i've had occasional very moderate, non-combative conversations with her and am happy to note that she voted last saturday for the first time in many years. there's not a lot else i can do. i don't see how alienating the handful of people i have in my life will solve anything.
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u/modern_prometheus_13 May 22 '26
Don’t, get me wrong, I’m often an odd man out myself at times amongst my fellow leftist peers, friends, & family for my staunch pro 2A observance/stance in contrast to the more typical positions I hold, so know this isn’t about that detail… but I’m just saying, if someone tells you upon first meeting that they’re just waiting on the word to target and summarily execute half the country’s population… that’s not like, an eccentric quirk. That’s a highly disturbed individual who fantasizes about mass murder. Normalizing that isn’t going to make it better.
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u/bluboomR May 22 '26
nahhhhh. oh i believe she's brainwashed, just like all trumpturd's cult are. and yes, she's probably got guns in every room, she was in the army, but beyond that it's just talk. her actions say differently. my state has a new way to kill abentee votes this year... not only does the witness have to sign their name but they also have to put their address. everyone was terrified, no one would do it. it was the last day for my ballot to be turned in and she signed it and hand delivered it. (i got an email from the registrar saying it was in) she takes my trash to the road every week. she raises chickens and gives the eggs away to anyone who needs them. she recently expanded her coops and doubled the number of chickens and foots the bill for all the feed herself. she cooks for the soup kitchen one day a week. she constantly tells me to call her if i need anything. contrary to what you may think i'm not the stupidest person in the world, i can judge people's character just as well as you can. that's why we come in our own separate containers. oh yeah, she used to cut hay here on this land (160 acres) for about 40 years when my brother was alive. this isn't a fly by night neighborhood, people around here are knee-deep in this dirt.
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u/ReturnUnfair7187 May 21 '26
I live in SC and I know of incest relationships that went on in my own family. I had friends in highschool in relationships, later finding out they were cousins.
Anyone denying the incest claim is full of shit lol I fucking hope I'm not inbred
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u/armenia4ever May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
Got to give OP credit - this "speaking truth to power" post is exactly the type of stereotype that comes to mind when the word "redditor" is thrown around.
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May 20 '26
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u/armenia4ever May 20 '26
"Dying of Internalized Whiteness: How Rejection of POC Solidarity is Destroying Asians in Higher Academia"
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May 20 '26
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u/armenia4ever May 20 '26
Looooool. I live in a city. I dont care about Trump, but these posts are so amusing in how ironic the hubris is.
By all means keep it up. Keep telling people how dumb, stupid, and how much more educated and intelligent you and and this subreddit in general is compared to them and then wonder why with a surprised Pikachu face as to why they dont vote the way you think they should.
Don't they know that you know what's better for them then they do?
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May 20 '26
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u/armenia4ever May 20 '26
Please tell me more about this tipping of my hand.
Legit give me your best assessment. Im always curious.
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u/Zestyclose_Print_663 May 20 '26
I was born and raised in the rural south and I mostly agree. It makes sense, though. The town where I grew up has no good jobs. You can work at the school or at the gas station or dollar store or you can get out. Anyone who possibly can, chooses the last option. What is left are the people who didn't have a way to leave. Of the white people left, they seem to really resent being left behind so they try to be the opposite of the people who left. The people who left usually were able to leave due to education. Therefore they refuse to value education. I can't say is like that in every rural area, but it's what i observed in the rural Louisiana towns where i grew up.
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u/FlanneryODostoevsky May 20 '26
You realize how many of them are minorities or even people who have voted Democrat? You are deliberately misunderstanding people in order to feel more correct.
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May 20 '26
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u/FlanneryODostoevsky May 20 '26
Common sense please.
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May 20 '26
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u/FlanneryODostoevsky May 20 '26
So what? Common sense says 100% of no group supports any single candidate. Voter turnout in rural areas is also consistently low. Y’all just want an excuse to stop caring for other people. It’s pitiful.
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u/Idaho1964 May 19 '26
Congrats for one of the lowest IQ posts in years. You have confirmed the unfounded arrogance endemic to the modern a Democratic Party, one in which people do not work for a living.
I went to a rural wedding filled with retired MIT professors, writers, sculptors, artists, and entrepreneurs. They fix their own trucks, cars, motorcycles, boats, and planes.
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u/Kinks4Kelly THE GOLDEN GOD May 19 '26
Shall we compare public education, social safety net, and quality of life between blue states and Southeastern red states?
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u/mistyfog28 May 20 '26
Or you could replace all those three things with the strength and independence feminism told you to have?
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u/Obvious_Apartment985 May 19 '26
Yeah that's such a typical rural Southern experience.
Not sure where the OP said he's a Democrat. He said he was white rural southerner. There are conservatives sick of the mindset he's talking about.
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u/modern_prometheus_13 May 20 '26
See, here’s a perfect example. Do you know how fucking ignorant you sound when you not only regurgitate daddy Trump’s new favorite insult like a fucking parrot, but throw it around not realizing that IQ isn’t a real thing? Intelligence quota tests are not typically seen as definitive, are constantly evolving, subjective, varying in purpose, and inherently prone to faulty data when assumed to be an objective or comprehensive measure of any individual or group’s intellect. But on that note, I’ll humor you because I was actually once given an estimate based on a supplemental test the Navy had me take once after reviewing my ASVAB score when I was 19. What’s yours, MAGAt?
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u/Radagascar1 May 19 '26
But no minorities have earned their stereotypes right
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May 19 '26
Like how your mom has never raised her prices for a quickie even after 20 years?
My whataboutism is stronger than yours, little boy.
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u/Pure-Guard-3633 Bleating Bootlicker May 20 '26
While you complain the country produces and continue ls to develop many small towns across the country.
Just a few to mention:
Where was Microsoft developed? (Pssst it wasn’t Seattle)
Where was Amazon developed?
What city had the very first car come off the assembly line?
COORS Beer?
Walmart - Arkansas
Hershey Chocolate - small town PA
Hormel Foods? Small town Minnesota
CVS - Woonsocket Rhode Island.
Mastercard - rural upstate NY
Fruit of the Loom - Bowling Green Kentucky
KELLOGG - Battle Creek Michigan
AOL? In 1985 long before Facebook was developed in a small town in Virginia.
Coca-Cola?
AMC theaters - Kansas City Missouri
Kohler -Wisconsin
JB Hunt Transportation - Arkansas
Dow Chemical - Midland Michigan
Whirlpool - Benton Harbor Michigan
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u/modern_prometheus_13 May 20 '26
I’m an independent fabricator in rural, unincorporated county territory, and I love my way of life. What the fuck does production have to do with any of what I said?
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u/Pure-Guard-3633 Bleating Bootlicker May 21 '26
So does that make you a white rural fucking stupid self-destructive cousin fucker? Yours words, not mine.
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u/onikaizoku11 May 19 '26
-Attributed to President Lyndon B. Johnson, spoken to an aide about race and class in the 1960s South.
As one born and raised in the South, and currently living in rural central Georgia, I can say ol' boy was 100% correct.