The Current - Breaking stereotypes about rural middle America

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

Sarah Smarsh grew up on a wheat farm in Kansas, and in her new essay collection Bone of the Bone: Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class, she tackles the narrative that people from the heartland are just “backwards, bigoted, terrible folks.” 

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current Podcast. When people talk about the American heartland or flyover country, they're talking about Sarah Smarsh's home. And when they generalize about the people who live there or what their politics are, they're talking about Sarah Smarsh's home. And when they generalize about the people who live there or what their politics are, they're talking about her family and her neighbors. Sarah Smarsh is a journalist and bestselling author who lives in rural Kansas. She grew up poor, the daughter of farmers and a fifth generation born on the same patch of Kansas land. She spent

her career writing about the people and places she knows intimately, all in an attempt to puncture some of the stereotypes about rural America and paint a more nuanced picture of the people and their politics. Her latest book is a collection of essays called Bone of the Bone, Essays on America by a daughter of the working class. Sarah Smarsh joins me this morning from Kansas. Good morning. Good morning, Susan. You dedicate your book to the unseen in America.

Who are you talking about? I do, and that's a big term, of course, and it might encapsulate all sorts of folks, but for me, very specifically, it means rural people, maybe specifically poor rural people, having grown up in an economically struggling rural landscape that during my 1980s childhood received very little, if any, attention or concern in culture and politics. There was a sense of coming of age in a place that was not receiving due attention. And that stuck with me. And it has informed my career, to be sure. We're going to talk about if that's changed in a few moments, but I want to dig in a bit.

What bothers you about this term flyover states? We hear it flyover provinces in Canada as well or the American heartland and the politics of the people who live there. Well, you know, we rightly are addressing all sorts of isms in these times, racism, sexism and so on, which are all still problems for sure. But I don't think we talk about something that we might call placism. And there is certainly a power structure and continuum about some locations here in the United States, they tend to be urban and coastal, that have more cultural and societal power than the places in the middle. Now, of course, there are disenfranchised and impoverished people in those very urban coastal places. But generally speaking, if you're in the middle of the country, you're

further away from opportunity, you're further away from power in some really salient ways. And our language reflects that, and sometimes very casually and without realization that an insult is embedded into a term like flyover country. What that seemingly innocent remark suggests is you'd never actually go there. You'd only ever fly over it. My goodness, you wouldn't set foot there. And it's not important. Yes, that's exactly right. You have a particular style, an effective style, I'll add,

that you write essays using stories from your own life, your family's, to try to, well, I guess, puncture some of the stereotypes you've just described. Tell me about your parents. Sure. I was raised on a fifth-generation wheat farm in Kansas. Couldn't be any more in the middle than that, right smack in the very center of the United States. And on that wheat farm, my father was a farmer, obviously, but also a construction worker to make ends meet. My mother was 17 when she became pregnant with me. I'm also from a long legacy of teen pregnancy.

And so money was very tight. We generally had enough to eat. There were some moments of food and housing insecurity, but we were nonetheless certainly below the federal poverty line, as we say here. And so it was a hard go of it. It was all work and, you know, some joy and levity mixed in. But a very difficult time and moment specifically for farming folks as corporate agriculture was becoming more imminent and taking the place of that more agrarian lifestyle. And my parents, you know, good, decent, hardworking people who didn't get to go to college, their lives were very much shaped by the economic realities of being, quote unquote,

uneducated. There's another term that I don't care for. They were educated in plenty of ways, but not formally and not with degrees. And so their agency and opportunities in life were quite limited. You know, Sarah, we have vast amount of prairie here. I grew up next to wheat farms in Saskatchewan. You know, it's common in North America, the area you're speaking about. What do you think that we can learn from backgrounds like yours, your family, and the writings that you make about them? Well, what I hope, and when I offer my family's story with their blessing, and they've been very generous and courageous in that way, because there's some shameful things that I describe, that shame being put on us and on them by society, even if we don't believe that's fair. And I hope that in revealing the characters of my place and that landscape and who is actually living there, not just backwards, bigoted, terrible folks, that one, an easy and corrosive and damaging

narrative or stereotype about that place and people might be pierced, might be punctured, might become complicated for a reader. And then also, on the other side of that coin, and what is actually the most delicious to me as a writer and most moving when I hear from my readers, is folks for whom that landscape and those people actually are understood firsthand. And so rarely have they seen an accurate portrayal in modern culture. I hear from those folks a sense of relief and validation in recognizing some truth about the beauty and the complicated nature of their human stories and their specific place. So the fact that both of these things drive my work and are the impetus for my message tells us that there is a real problem to be addressed.

It feels like we aren't hearing enough about the nuanced picture of American people and politics now, especially in this electoral cycle. You know, you wrote back in 2016 for The Guardian newspaper, I think, The Guardian media company, that media characterized the poor as, quote, dangerous idiots. And that's the reason you suggest that people think they vote for Donald Trump. Are we still making those vast characterizations, mischaracterizations now in 2024? You know, Susan, I think it has improved some, the conversation around class, at least we're having it. Here in this country, at least I can

say that for most of my life, and I'm middle-aged now, you know, I felt like I was sort of screaming into a void of conversation about economic justice. The word class and the concept now has entered the discourse, sometimes in problematic and inaccurate and incomplete ways. But the fact that we're in the conversation, that is some progress. That said, I do think that the default in explaining the Trump or MAGA movement remains the poor rural white as though that is the base. Indeed, there has been a shift in voting behavior in statistical terms toward the right among that group. However, that is not the same thing if we're seeking accuracy as that group being the reason for his rise. And indeed, his voters, you know, among them, you will find many college degrees and affluent folks who live in Tony suburbs and have golf carts who are voting for Donald Trump in droves,

they are largely white. Also, I've been saying for years that I think it's kind of a white problem more so than a poor white problem. But because of a culture that has historically scapegoated and feared and exploited the poor, that becomes an easy story for folks who maybe are rubbing elbows with, you know, middle or upper middle class Trump voters at the country club to keep putting the blame on these folks who seem to be an other out in some place that where they're not going. They're the moral scourge and the explanation for this political moment. And that's just not factual. You know, I remember vividly Hillary Clinton's remark caught in the 2016 campaign calling Trump supporters deplorables. It really cost her for sure in that election. And, you know, I understand what you're saying, but there is data,

at least in this election campaign, that Donald Trump is attracting a bigger share of voters with lower levels of formal education. And I take your point that degrees don't mean you're uneducated or lack of degrees. But what do we take from that statistic that he is attracting more of that vote and that Kamala Harris is attracting another? vote and that Kamala Harris is attracting another? Sure. I mean, generally speaking, what I have attempted to do is sort of like complicating the story about, you know, how do we explain Trump was to divert attention from this very important question about how and why and who and and to talk about the sizable political minorities in any given place. And my family, as white working people who do not vote for Trump, would be among a relatively sizable political minority

that I don't think gets enough attention. But your question is important. What about those folks who are voting for Trump and why among the working class has he had such appeal? And this is my best answer. We were talking at the beginning of our conversation about a sense of feeling unseen. And, you know, I remember being out on that farm during what we called the farm crisis. There were foreclosures everywhere, farms going under. That was largely due to decades of federal policy that privileged big business.

Certainly, the Republican Party and Democratic Party both were complicit in the forces that ultimately cost the working class and agricultural communities dearly. But it happened to be, in terms of which party was going to actually look at that group and start speaking to their grievances. One did and one didn't. So for decades, the Democratic Party did not invest in going to places that are considered quote unquote red states. Our electoral college here in the United States means that a winner take all politics in any given state might mean that, you know, a candidate only wins by six points. But nonetheless, now that's a red state. And so it would be a poor use of national investments to go try to flip that state, if you

will. And so decades of that sort of calculation meant the Democrats just weren't here. They weren't going there. They weren't looking at those people or speaking to those folks, even if their policies might have been, by some people's estimation, more advantageous to those groups. Meanwhile, a very concerted and successful effort among conservative factions with messaging, some of which I would call propaganda, in the form of conservative talk radio, then Fox News, now we're into the social media era, specifically looking at those places and saying, I see you and I know that you're suffering, even though the broader liberal culture is not validating the ways in which you are. That sure goes a long way.

And I think that that's how the traction was made. You know, I take your point about the sizable political minority as part of the unseen. I mean, I looked it up. I was curious. Kansas hasn't voted Democrat in a presidential election since 1964. But as you point out, more than 40 percent, four in 10 people in Kansas voted Democrat in 2020. This is that unreported middle that you're talking about. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, and it's true in red states as well. Excuse me, blue states as well. There are a whole bunch of Republicans in those places, too, or Republican voters.

So this this just kind of like dichotomy that we create with that red and blue map and talking about American politics can be very misleading. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is.

I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. So the Democratic nominee for vice president, Tim Walz, recently did an interview on the Smartless podcast, and he echoed a lot of what you're saying. Have a listen. I'm a geographer by training. I love maps except one.

Whoever built the red-blue map did more damage than you would ever imagine because you look at that map and you look at South Dakota and say, oh, South Dakota's all red or whatever. That's not true. That is not true. There's a mix. Or even you look at an urban area and say, well, that's that blue, everybody in there. That's not true. That is not true. There's a mix. Or even you look at an urban area and say, well, that blew everybody in there. That's not true either. And they created this false mindset. How did you react when Tim Walz was picked to be the vice presidential nominee?

Well, I thought that it was a really smart move by the Democrats in just analyst terms. And in personal terms, frankly, it warmed my heart because he is from a farm country very similar to mine, not very far from it, Nebraska, his home state where he grew up in a town of 300 people, is just north of the state line here in Kansas. And he looks and sounds so familiar to me, even down to what I assume is a Germanic last name. The landscape here where I grew up just contains a lot of really decent men like him who can be allies the way that he has been in some ways that might surprise folks in urban coastal places and who also, you know, contain a very geographic and cultural sort of masculinity that might involve coaching a football team or going pheasant hunting. And that he contains all of those things, which I've always known can be true, is true, but yet is, you might look at Tim Walls if you were going by the prevailing stereotypes or narratives.

And if you didn't know which team he was on, the assumption, if you said, who does he vote for? I bet the guess for a lot of people would have been Trump. And so I just love it. He's kind of an embodiment of my message, Susan. Is his candidacy working, though, to attract the people or to not attract, but to speak to or reach the people that you write about? And just anecdotal, but for what it's worth, when I drive down these long Kansas highways, I see more Harris Walls signs than I saw Biden signs in the past election and Clinton signs in the one before that. I also think that they've been very they've been pretty good in their messaging. There's a there's like a camo hat that's part of their campaign merch.

that's part of their campaign merch. So these kind of symbols of rural America that have been, sadly, to my mind, co-opted or wholly claimed by the right, a kind of reclaiming of symbols that signal working class or rural spaces has been, I think, done pretty well. So we'll find out soon to how much effect. I want to touch on another very volatile issue in U.S. politics, of course, abortion. One of the essays in this current book of yours deals with a vote that took place in Kansas right after the Supreme Court made its decision on abortion and struck down Roe versus Wade. What did that vote say to you about the red state, blue state divide? about the red state, blue state divide? Well, speaking of how that red-blue map is misleading, that vote in Kansas that you referenced was the first ballot measure, the first time that abortion or reproductive rights appeared on a ballot after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And there was, and I knew because I'm on the ground here in Kansas, a massive coalition joining hands of folks who may not agree on all sorts of other things.

Republicans, Democrats, rural, urban, moderate folks, even progressive folks all got together and defeated this amendment that would have basically stripped the right to an abortion from our state constitution. And they did so against all sorts of odds. And this, while it wasn't a given for sure that that would be the outcome, and I was certainly holding my breath, that said, I wasn't nearly so surprised as were, you know, folks, again, in those kind of blue dots on the coast who would have assumed that Kansas voters would have indeed removed the right to abortion from the state constitution. So what it tells me is, one, it was validation of what I've been saying all along, that things are more complicated on the ground than you think. And two, I think an important point for all of us to consider in these polarized times when people identify with a given party or ideology as their own sort of brand, if you will.

It's become, you know, you have your race, your gender, and your political party has gotten mixed up into just the fiber of one's self-identity in ways that wasn't true for me, at least not so long ago. in ways that wasn't true for me, at least not so long ago. And so I think that if you pull an issue away from those labels like Democrat or Republican, and you just say, look at this issue, what do you think about it? Some interesting things happen. And often the outcome at the voting booth is in the progressive direction, even in places that tend to vote red. I'm curious briefly, the legislation, of course, was not passed, but has the unity stuck? That image that you described, what, two years ago? Not only has the unity stuck to some extent, you know, parlaying into this current political season, but it really provided a roadmap for, and made me proud as a

Kansan, as a kind of largely disparaged place, that that indeed became a roadmap for the Democratic Party across the country. They took the term freedom, which has largely been claimed by the right and said, if you want to talk about freedom and liberty as a value and a virtue, why don't we apply that to the body and to bodily autonomy? And that was a very successful strategy. The Democrats ran with that in the midterms that followed and really did successfully hold off the predicted kind of red wave that midterm season. And now here we are in the general and that same language is still being employed and successfully, I think. employed and successfully, I think. And I do think that that coalition here is those kind of bonds that were made remain and also kind of gave people permission to maybe toe that line that before was feeling very rigid about who is allowed to go where and talk to whom and vote for

whom. But here America is, you know, less than a week before the presidential election, the general as you call it. And it doesn't feel like there's more unity in the United States, certainly up here in Canada. You know, we're hearing rallies from Trump with overtly racist and sexist speakers there. He's vowed to punish his political opponents. Do you feel like finding common ground is still possible? Well, I, you know, there were some conversations that arose several years ago, kind of, I suppose, during the Trump presidency around, you know, let's find empathy for those voters. That conversation doesn't go very far for me and especially for, you know, I can't ask someone whose identity causes them harm or to be endangered by that movement to then, you know,

extend empathy toward voters who would do them harm. So that conversation, that's for somebody else. That's not really where I put my attention. But when you talk about the possibility to reach people and can people change, I do know that I do know they can and they do. I, in fact, here, because of the nature of my work, and I'm coming from a place that seemingly represents one quote unquote side, and I myself am from a place that seemingly represents one quote-unquote side, and I myself am from a political persuasion that's quite different, being a bridge person of sorts, if you will, I get a lot of direct messages, private messages, quiet comments, largely from women, largely from white women, saying I'm ashamed to say that I voted for him before,

and I'm not going to do it again, and more often than not, it's specifically because of this reproductive rights issue. This will be our first presidential election after the removal of the federally assured right to an abortion. So I do think that people change and they are changing. These things are very hard to quantify and count on the ground in real time. And so one can't predict, but I do think that those shifts are being made. And I think that even in places like Kansas, which almost certainly will go for Trump in the general election next week, that large political minority that we were talking about grows. Meanwhile, and perhaps the spread will be less than last time. And then

that paves the way for different outcomes in future elections. We could speak for a long time on this. There's so much to unpack. I guess, finally, I wonder if you see this economic class and the class divide playing in U.S. politics in the years ahead? And how do we avoid being blinded? Well, you know, I think that our politics and our political discourse and our outcomes that then become policy are all a reflection of our culture. And so for me, what I'm ultimately trying to do while in these political seasons, I find myself, you know, privileged to have a conversation about an election. What I really want to do outside of the political framework is to elevate class consciousness. And that's something that is

not specific to any election moment. It is a way to move through the world with an awareness of the power structure that is the gulf between the haves and the have-nots at a moment of historic wealth inequality. And the more that we can all include the concept of class in our conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion alongside race and gender and all the other sorts of injustice that we rightly discuss, the more that we fold class into that conversation, the more we wake up to the way in which it affects all of our lives. And then whether in media narratives or cultural portrayals or political campaigns, perhaps then the language

and the decisions and the messages better reflect reality. Sarah, thank you so much. I hope you'll speak to us again post-election, but in the years to come about decoding all of this for us. It's been very helpful. I'd be happy to come back. Thanks for having me, Susan. Sarah Smarsh's new book is called Bone of the Bone,

Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.