When Rural and Urban Become “Us” versus “Them”: How a Growing Divide is Reshaping American Politics

Trevor Brown; Suzanne Mettler; Samantha Puzzi

doi:10.1515/for-2021-2029

Article

When Rural and Urban Become “Us” versus “Them”: How a Growing Divide is Reshaping American Politics

Trevor Brown
Trevor Brown is a PhD student in the Government Department at Cornell, where he studies political economy, American political development, and economic and racial inequality.
, Suzanne Mettler
Suzanne Mettler is the John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions in the Government Department at Cornell University. Her research and teaching interests include American political development, inequality, public policy, political behavior, and democracy. Mettler has written six books, most recently Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy (St. Martin’s Press, 2020), co-authored with Robert C. Lieberman. She is co-editor (with Lieberman and Kenneth M. Roberts) of a new edited volume, Democratic Resilience: Can the United States Withstand Rising Polarization? (Cambridge University Press, 2021). She is a founding member of the American Democracy Collaborative, and serves on the boards of the Scholars Strategy Network and the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Mettler has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and awarded Guggenheim and Radcliffe fellowships.
and Samantha Puzzi
Samantha Puzzi is a senior at Cornell University double-majoring in Government and Philosophy and minoring in Crime, Prisons, Education, and Justice. She is originally from Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania. She hopes to pursue a career in academia and has research interests within contemporary political theory such as urban theory, space and territoriality, and democratic theory.

Published/Copyright: November 29, 2021

Published by

Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Author Information Explore this Subject

From the journal The Forum Volume 19 Issue 3

Abstract

The United States’ long-standing broad “catch-all” political parties have historically combined voters from distinct regions of the country, each including both rural and urban dwellers. Since the late 1990s, however, rural Americans nationwide have increasingly supported the Republican Party, while urbanites have persisted in their allegiance to the Democratic Party. The growing rural-urban divide has become mapped onto American polarization in ways that are fostering tribalism. This place-based cleavage is now contributing to the transformation of the nation’s politics and that of many states. It also threatens to have deleterious effects on democracy.

Keywords: rural-urban divide; tribalism; racism; partisanship; Republican Party; geographic polarization

Corresponding author: Suzanne Mettler, John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA, E-mail: suzanne.mettler@cornell.edu

About the authors

Trevor Brown

Trevor Brown is a PhD student in the Government Department at Cornell, where he studies political economy, American political development, and economic and racial inequality.

Suzanne Mettler

Suzanne Mettler is the John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions in the Government Department at Cornell University. Her research and teaching interests include American political development, inequality, public policy, political behavior, and democracy. Mettler has written six books, most recently Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy (St. Martin’s Press, 2020), co-authored with Robert C. Lieberman. She is co-editor (with Lieberman and Kenneth M. Roberts) of a new edited volume, Democratic Resilience: Can the United States Withstand Rising Polarization? (Cambridge University Press, 2021). She is a founding member of the American Democracy Collaborative, and serves on the boards of the Scholars Strategy Network and the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Mettler has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and awarded Guggenheim and Radcliffe fellowships.

Samantha Puzzi

Samantha Puzzi is a senior at Cornell University double-majoring in Government and Philosophy and minoring in Crime, Prisons, Education, and Justice. She is originally from Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania. She hopes to pursue a career in academia and has research interests within contemporary political theory such as urban theory, space and territoriality, and democratic theory.

Acknowledgments

We thank Ashley Jardina and Tali Mendelberg for their helpful comments on this paper. We are also grateful to participants of the American Politics Workshop at Cornell University, the American Politics Workshop at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and those at a convening of the American Democracy Collaborative for suggestions on work we presented previously that led to the development of this paper. The research was funded by a New Frontier Grant from the Dean's Office of the College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University.

References

Abramowitz, A. I. 2018. The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of Donald Trump. New Haven: Yale University Press.10.2307/j.ctvhrczh3Search in Google Scholar

Acemoglu, D., D. Autor, D. Dorn, G. H. Hanson, and B. Price. 2016. “Import Competition and the Great US Employment Sag of the 2000s.” Journal of Labor Economics 34 (1): S141–98, https://doi.org/10.1086/682384.Search in Google Scholar

American National Election Studies. 2020. 2020 Time Series Study. Available at https://electionstudies.org/data-center/2020-time-series-study/.Search in Google Scholar

Arora, M. 2020. “Immigrant Opposition in a Changing National Demographic.” Political Research Quarterly 73: 340–51, https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912919827107.Search in Google Scholar

Autor, D. H. 2013. “The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States.” American Economic Review 103 (6): 2121–68, https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.103.6.2121.Search in Google Scholar

Autor, D., D. Dorn, G. Hanson, and K. Majlesi. 2020. “Importing Political Polarization? The Electoral Consequences of Rising Trade Exposure.” American Economic Review 110 (10): 3139–83, https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20170011.Search in Google Scholar

Autor, D. H., D. Dorn, and G. H. Hanson. 2013. “The Geography of Trade and Technology Shocks in the United States.” American Economic Review 103 (3): 220–5, https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.103.3.220.Search in Google Scholar

Baccini, L., and S. Weymouth. 2021. “Gone for Good: Deindustrialization, White Voter Backlash, and US Presidential Voting.” American Political Science Review 115 (2): 550–67, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055421000022.Search in Google Scholar

Bishop, B. 2008. The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart. New York: Mariner.Search in Google Scholar

Branton, R. P., and B. S. Jones. 2005. “Reexamining Racial Attitudes: The Conditional Relationship Between Diversity and Socioeconomic Environment.” American Journal of Political Science 49: 359–72, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0092-5853.2005.00128.x.Search in Google Scholar

Brown, T., and S. Mettler. 2021. “The Political Economy of the Rural-Urban Divide: Probing How Place Matters.” Paper Prepared for the First Annual Conference on American Political Economy.Search in Google Scholar

Brown, T., S. Mettler, and S. Puzzi. 2021. “The Political Economy of the Growing Rural-Urban Divide, 2000–2020.” Paper Prepared for Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association Conference.Search in Google Scholar

Bureau of Economic Analysis. 2020. Various Economic, Industrial, Employment, and Personal Income Data, by County. U.S.: Department of Commerce, Regional Data Tables. Available at https://www.bea.gov/data/by-place-county-metro-local.Search in Google Scholar

Choi, J., I. Kuziemko, E. Washington, and G. Wright. 2021. “Local Economic and Political Effects of Trade Deals: Evidence from NAFTA.” Unpublished paper.10.3386/w29525Search in Google Scholar

Cramer, K. J. 2016. The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226349251.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Florida, R., and K. King. 2019. America’s Urban-Rural Divide: Myths and Realities. Ontario: University of Toronto. Available at http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/mpi/content/americas-urban-rural-divide/.Search in Google Scholar

Frymer, P., and J. M. Grumbach. 2020. “Labor Unions and White Racial Politics.” American Journal of Political Science 65 (1): 225–40, https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12537.Search in Google Scholar

Galvin, D. 2020. “Party Domination and Base Mobilization: Donald Trump and Republican Party Building in a Polarized Era.” The Forum 18: 135–68, https://doi.org/10.1515/for-2020-2003.Search in Google Scholar

Gilliam, F. D.Jr., N. A. Valentino, and M. N. Beckmann. 2002. “Where You Live and What You Watch: The Impact of Racial Proximity and Local Television News on Attitudes about Race and Crime.” Political Research Quarterly 55: 755–80, https://doi.org/10.1177/106591290205500402.Search in Google Scholar

Gimpel, J. G., L. Nathan, M. Bryant, and A. Reeves. 2020. “The Urban-Rural Gulf in American Political Behavior.” Political Behavior 42: 1343–68, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-020-09601-w.Search in Google Scholar

Greenberg, J. 2021. “GOP Tweet Misfires in Linking Crime Trends to Democratic Policies.” PolitiFact, https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jul/09/republican-national-committee-republican/gop-tweet-misfires-linking-crime-trends-democratic/.Search in Google Scholar

Hill, S. J., D. J. Hopkins, and G. A. Huber. 2019. “Local Demographic Changes and US Presidential Voting, 2012 and 2016.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116: 25023–8, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1909202116.Search in Google Scholar

Hinton, E. 2017. From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.10.4159/9780674969223Search in Google Scholar

Hopkins, D. A. 2017. Red Fighting Blue: How Geography and Electoral Rules Polarize American Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781108123594Search in Google Scholar

Hopkins, D. J. 2010. “Politicized Places: Explaining Where and When Immigrants Provoke Local Opposition.” American Political Science Review 104: 40–60, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055409990360.Search in Google Scholar

Jardina, A. 2019. White Identity Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781108645157Search in Google Scholar

Johnson, K. M., and J. S. Dante. 2021. “The Rural-Urban Continuum of Polarization: Understanding the Geography of the 2018 Midterms.” The Forum 18 (4): 607–26, https://doi.org/10.1515/for-2020-2102.Search in Google Scholar

Johnson, R., D. Manley, K. Jones, and R. Rohla. 2018. “The Geographical Polarization of the American Electorate: A Country of Increasing Electoral Landslides?” GeoJournal 85: 187–204.10.1007/s10708-018-9955-3Search in Google Scholar

Kitschelt, H. P., and R. Philipp. 2019. “Secular Partisan Realignment in the United States: The Socioeconomic Reconfiguration of White Partisan Support Since the New Deal Era.” Politics & Society 47: 425–79, https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329219861215.Search in Google Scholar

Koussser, J. M. 1974. The Shaping of Southern Politics Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880–1910. New Haven: Yale University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Lacombe, M. 2021. “Weaponized Group Identities and the Health of Democracy: How Groups can be Good at Democracy but Bad for it.” In Democratic Resilience: Can US Democracy Withstand Rising Polarization? edited by R. C. Lieberman, S. Mettler, and K. M. Roberts, 246–65. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781108999601.010Search in Google Scholar

Lee, F. E. 2019. “Populism and the American Party System: Opportunities and Constraints.” Perspectives on Politics 18 (2): 370–88, https://doi.org/10.1017/s1537592719002664.Search in Google Scholar

Leips, D. 2020. Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. “County Returns, 1972–2020”. Available at https://uselectionatlas.org/.Search in Google Scholar

Levendusky, M. 2009. The Partisan Sort: How Liberals Became Democrats and Conservatives Became Republicans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226473673.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Lichter, D. T. 2012. “Immigration and the New Racial Diversity in Rural America.” Rural Sociology 77 (1): 3–35, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1549-0831.2012.00070.x.Search in Google Scholar

Lichter, D. T., D. Parisi, M. C. Taquino, and S. Michael Grice. 2010. “Residential Segregation in New Hispanic Destinations: Cities, Suburbs, and Rural Communities Compared.” Social Science Research 39: 215–30, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2009.08.006.Search in Google Scholar

Lipset, S. M. 1959. “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy.” American Political Science Review 53 (1): 69–105, https://doi.org/10.2307/1951731.Search in Google Scholar

Lipset, S. M., and S. Rokkan. 1967. Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. New York: Free Press.Search in Google Scholar

Mason, L. 2018. Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226524689.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Mayda, A. M., G. Peri, and W. Steingress. 2018. “The Political Impact of Immigration: Evidence from the United States.” NBER Working Paper Series, #24510.10.3386/w24510Search in Google Scholar

McCoy, J., and M. Somer. 2019. “Toward a Theory of Pernicious Polarization and How it Harms Democracies: Comparative Evidence and Possible Remedies.” ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 681: 234–71, https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716218818782.Search in Google Scholar

McKee, S. C. 2008. “Rural Voters and the Polarization of American Presidential Elections.” PS: Political Science and Politics 41 (1): 101–8, https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096508080165.Search in Google Scholar

Mendelberg, T. 2001. The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality. Princeton: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9781400889181Search in Google Scholar

Mettler, S., and T. Brown. Forthcoming. “The Growing Rural-Urban Political Divide and Democratic Vulnerability.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences.10.1177/00027162211070061Search in Google Scholar

Mettler, S., and R. C. Lieberman. 2020. Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy. New York: St. Martin’s Press.Search in Google Scholar

Moretti, E. 2012. The New Geography of Jobs. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.Search in Google Scholar

Muro, M., E. B. Duke, Y. You, and R. Maxim. 2020. “Biden-Voting Counties Equal 70% of America’s Economy. What does this Mean for the Nation’s Political-Economic Divide?” The Brookings Institution. Available at https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/11/09/biden-voting-counties-equal-70-of-americas-economy-what-does-this-mean-for-the-nations-political-economic-divide/.Search in Google Scholar

Muro, M., and S. Liu. 2016. “Another Clinton-Trump Divide: High-Output America versus Low-Output America.” The Brookings Institute. Available at https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2016/11/29/another-clinton-trump-divide-high-output-america-vs-low-output-america/.Search in Google Scholar

Newman, B. J., S. Shah, and L. Collingwood. 2018. “Race, Place, and Building a Base: Latino Population Growth and the Nascent Trump Campaign for President.” Public Opinion Quarterly 82: 122–34, https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfx039.Search in Google Scholar

Oliver, J. E. 2010. The Paradoxes of Integration: Race, Neighborhood, and Civic Life in Multiethnic America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226626642.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Oliver, J. E., and T. Mendelberg. 2000. “Reconsidering the Environmental Determinants of White Racial Attitudes.” American Journal of Political Science 44: 547–89, https://doi.org/10.2307/2669265.Search in Google Scholar

Parker, C. S., and M. A. Barreto. 2021. “The Great White Hope: Threat and Racial Resilience in the Age of Trump.” In Democratic Resilience: Can the United States Withstand Rising Polarization? edited by R. Lieberman, S. Mettler, and K. M. Roberts, 195–225. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781108999601.008Search in Google Scholar

Reny, T. T., L. Collingwood, and A. A. Valenzuela. 2019. “Vote Switching in the 2016 Election: How Racial and Immigration Issues, Not Economics, Explains Shifts in White Voting.” Public Opinion Quarterly 83: 91–113, https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfz011.Search in Google Scholar

Rodden, J. A. 2019. Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide. New York: Basic Books.Search in Google Scholar

Rueschemeyer, D., E. H. Stephens, and J. D. Stephens. 1992. Capitalist Development and Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar

Sanders, E. 1999. Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers, and the American State, 1877–1917. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar

Scala, D. J., and K. M. Johnson. 2017. “Political Polarization Along the Rural-Urban Continuum? The Geography of the Presidential Vote, 2000–2016.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 672: 162–84, https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716217712696.Search in Google Scholar

Sears, D., J. Sidanius, and L. Bobo. 2010. Racialized Politics: The Debate about Racism in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar

Stepan, A., and J. Linz. 2011. “Comparative Perspectives on Inequality and the Quality of Democracy in the United States.” Perspective on Politics 9 (4): 841–56.10.1017/S1537592711003756Search in Google Scholar

Sugrue, T. 1996. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Tesler, M. 2016. Post-Racial or Most-Racial? Race and Politics in the Obama Era. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226353159.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Theide, B., J. Butler, D. Brown, and L. Jensen. 2020. “Income Inequality across the Rural‐Urban Continuum in the United States, 1970–2016.” Rural Sociology 85 (4): 899–937.10.1111/ruso.12354Search in Google Scholar

Trounstine, J. 2018. Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781108555722Search in Google Scholar

US Census Bureau. 2019. American Community Survey, 2015–2019 Five Year Averages. Available at https://data.census.gov/cedsci/.Search in Google Scholar

US Department of Agriculture. 2003. Economic Research Service, 2003 Rural-Urban Continuum Codes. Available at https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/rural-urban-continuum-codes/documentation/.Search in Google Scholar

US Department of Agriculture. 2018. Rural America at a Glance. Available at https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/90556/eib-200.pdf.Search in Google Scholar

US Department of Agriculture. 2020a. Economic Research Service, 2013 Rural-Urban Continuum Codes. Available at https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/rural-urban-continuum-codes/documentation/.Search in Google Scholar

United States Department of Agriculture. 2020b. Rural Poverty & Well-Being. Available at https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-population/rural-poverty-well-being/#geography.Search in Google Scholar

Weaver, V. 2007. “Frontlash: Race and the Development of Punitive Crime Policy.” Studies in American Political Development 21: 230–65, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0898588x07000211.Search in Google Scholar

Wright, G. 2020. Voting Rights, Deindustrialization, and Republican Ascendancy in the South. New York: Working Paper, Institute for New Economic Thinking.10.36687/inetwp135Search in Google Scholar

Wuthnow, R. 2018. The Left Behind: Decline and Rage in Rural America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.10.23943/9781400889501Search in Google Scholar

Zoorob, M. 2019. “Blue Endorsements Matter: How the Fraternal Order of Police Contributed to Donald Trump’s Victory.” PS: Political Science & Politics 52 (2): 243–50, https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096518001841.Search in Google Scholar

Zoorob, M., and T. Skocpol. 2020. “The Overlooked Organizational Basis of Trump’s 2016 Victory.” In Upending American Politics: Polarizing Parties, Ideological Elites, and Citizen Activists from the Tea Party to the Anti-Trump Resistance, edited by T. Skocpol, and C. Tervo, 79–100. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780190083526.003.0004Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2021-11-29

You are currently not able to access this content.

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/for-2021-2029

Keywords for this article

rural-urban divide; tribalism; racism; partisanship; Republican Party; geographic polarization