As they begin a comprehensive effort to convince the country that “Bidenomics” is working, President Biden and his allies are gleefully needling Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) for celebrating Alabama’s receipt of federal funds to expand rural access to high-speed internet, money that came from a bill Biden signed and Tuberville, like most Republicans, voted against.
It’s not an uncommon story these days; the administration is spreading a huge amount of federal funding around the country, and politicians love to claim credit when government dollars reach the ground. But it’s clear that Biden is determined to convince voters in places Democrats have struggled in the past few elections — including rural areas — that his party can improve their lives.
It’s something Democrats often talk about, but Biden has a rare opportunity to actually show it. And if he can be even moderately successful, it could have a transformative effect, both substantively and politically.
The funds Tuberville is so happy to get come from the $42 billion the administration announced this week to expand broadband access to underserved areas, many of which are rural. At the event, Biden quoted a woman from Iowa who wrote to him expressing her joy at her new internet access. “This is the best thing that has happened to rural America since the Rural Electrification Act brought electricity to farms in the ’30s and ’40s,” he said she wrote. Meanwhile, Democratic groups are amplifying the message on social media.
The context here is that the administration is distributing a truly massive amount of domestic spending from four significant pieces of legislation Biden signed in his first two years in office: the American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Chips and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act. Put together, those four bills represent well over $3 trillion in new spending over a decade.
When I’ve talked with people in rural America about their elected representatives, I’ve encountered plenty of skepticism about promises of economic development through things like worker retraining; the common response is, “Yeah, we’ve heard that before.” Politicians don’t win many points by telling a 50-year-old former coal miner he can learn to code.
Many a Democratic candidate has struggled against that skepticism. But it’s one thing to say you support government programs to promote development; if they can actually show people something tangible they’ve already provided, it might be a different story.
Not that it will be easy; voters may remember disappointments forever, but they tend to take progress for granted pretty quickly. Still, if rural Americans see that they got broadband and their town got a new sewer system, they might be a bit more receptive to the case Biden is making.
Even if they don’t make the immediate connection, the practical effects of the kind of infrastructure and economic development Biden is pushing could make it easier for Democrats to compete in rural America over the longer term. In recent years, Republicans have told the White voters who are the majority in rural areas a compelling story: You’ve been getting the short end of the economic stick, and elitist liberals hate you and everything you stand for. So nurture your resentments, and make sure you vote against those dastardly Democrats.
Every genuine improvement in the lives of rural Americans makes that case harder to make. That’s not to say only economic issues matter — the urban-rural divide also reflects differences on gender issues, religion and education — but the more conditions improve, the more those resentments can be defused. And the more open people may become to hearing what Democrats have to say.
In the best-case scenario, that could touch off a virtuous cycle of political competition. Part of the problem rural America has today is that both parties ignore it because it isn’t competitive. While Republicans rely on the disproportionate influence rural voters wield because of gerrymandering and the electoral college to leverage them into power at both the state and national levels, they don’t seem to feel much urgency about improving rural Americans’ lives. Make politics more competitive, and they may decide they have to deliver results.
It wouldn’t take much to alter the rural political landscape. If Democrats could improve their margins by just a few points in rural areas in swing states, it could create a political emergency for the GOP. That’s what happened in a vital Wisconsin Supreme Court race earlier this year, in which a shift to the Democrat-backed candidate in rural areas helped her win easily.
Democrats don’t have to win the argument over who’s more on the side of rural America. All they have to do is start the argument, which these kinds of projects could do. And they need to make it about why Republicans haven’t delivered.
Democrats can say to rural Americans: Why didn’t you get this from your government when Republicans were in charge? They could have brought you better broadband, replaced those lead pipes and stopped your hospitals from closing. But they didn’t. What have they done for you lately? Maybe you should ask them.
That’s a case Democrats haven’t made to rural America. They’ve been defensive and pleading, saying “Please don’t hate us” instead of “Why aren’t you angrier at Republicans?” If Biden and Democrats can deliver tangible things to rural communities, it could provide the opening to finally change that debate.