The Red States are red precisely because the Democratic Party has failed them. Most of the good jobs are in big cities. Away from cities the dearth of jobs continues to hollow out small towns and communities. Corporate farms are squeezing out small farmers. Store fronts are empty because fewer people generate less commerce. Less commerce means a smaller tax base. Reduced tax dollars take a toll on infrastructure.
Rural America knows how to meet most of their needs by themselves. Some things, however, will make a great difference in American lives there. Infrastructure, Jobs, Medical Care.
Infrastructure
Infrastructure means bridges and streets and garbage pick-up among other things. It needs to be addressed everywhere but especially in Red State America.
In the age of technology infrastructure also includes the internet. There are swaths in the middle of this country where effective cell service is non-existent, larger swaths that do not have access to high-speed internet. Bad cell service and lack of high-speed internet stands in the way of creating jobs that require both in an area already plagued by unemployment.
America needs another “Interstate Highway” type project to put geostatic communications satellites in place to provide these necessary services for the interior of this country. The satellites can pay for themselves by being leased to ISP’s and cell providers.
In the post pandemic era, more and more work and communications will be online. Bringing high-speed internet and blanket cell service to middle America will create employment opportunities.
Jobs
According to USA Today, following the great recession in 2008, a vast majority of new jobs went to cities. Rural areas lag behind cities by more than 4% in creating new jobs while, statistically, maintaining a higher percentage of self-employed business proprietors. The employment disparity is noteworthy. Is it any wonder that anger, fear, frustration, and rebellion are brewing in Red America?
If you look at the table shown in “Updated employment multipliers for the U.S. Economy”, creating 100 direct jobs in any major category (i.e., durable manufacturing, utilities, etc.) will create between 134 and 957 additional new jobs.
Commerce online, following the great pandemic, will only accelerate. If the pandemic has taught us anything, there are a multitude of jobs that can be done from anywhere. So, why not reach out to the dying and dilapidated small towns across this great land and make those jobs available there? Why not build small solar and wind farms to supply electricity to lots of sparsely populated rural areas at a price they can afford?
In the next decade or so, Additive Manufacturing will produce larger and larger portions of what we consume. These plants can be built and operated anywhere, but considerably more cheaply in rural areas. How do we populate the center of the country with this technology? Business entities and corporations need to be encouraged to create outposts in smaller towns and cities by making a physical presence there and hiring local people to work for them. Office space abounds.
Creating jobs in rural America will, in turn, create even more jobs and better infrastructure. Dying towns will revive. Communities will grow. Peace will ensue.
Medical Care
The NIH has noted that people in these areas don’t live as long by more than three years and the gap is increasing. People in rural America are dying at higher rates from heart disease, cancer, lower respiratory disease, stroke, and unintentional injuries. Opioid addiction continues to rise but more significantly in rural areas. Why is that? Both the CDC and NCBI agree that access to quality, affordable health care is the cause of this situation. But how do we address this problem?
Little quality health care exists in rural America for the same reason that high-speed internet and cell service are poor: there’s no money in it! The most obvious solution to this challenge is Universal Single Payer Healthcare and a massive expansion of the VA system of hospitals and clinics across the interior of America. Americans are dying. How can we not afford to do this?
Urgency
The insurrection on January 6 failed in its attempt to overturn the presidential election. Unless the Senate convicts Trump in this second impeachment trial, January 6 will happen again. Next time the attackers will be more organized and better armed.
We find ourselves here because both Democrats and Republicans have failed us. Millions of Americans are out of work. The rates of suicide and opioid addiction are climbing. Good medical care is scarce or non-existent in a large swath of America. Thousands of small towns have more vacant buildings than occupied. The pandemic is killing 2500 Americans a day. The vaccine roll out is a disaster. Climate change is creating 100-year storms and droughts every few years. battering the entire planet making many places in America practically unlivable.
We are at a crossroads. Only with bold action now will we have the slimmest chance to redeem our democracy. Without serious headway on all these issues, the forces that would destroy our American experiment will win.
All that is America depends on taking bold action now.