White rural voters believe our nation has betrayed them, and to some degree, they’re right according to the new book, "White Rural Rage." Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman explore why rural Whites have failed to reap the benefits from their outsize political power and why, as a result, they are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions.
Their rage—stoked daily by Republican politicians and the conservative media—now poses an existential threat to the United States. Schaller and Waldman show how vulnerable U.S. democracy has become to rural Whites who, despite legitimate grievances, are increasingly inclined to hold racist and xenophobic beliefs, to believe in conspiracy theories, to accept violence as a legitimate course of political action, and to exhibit antidemocratic tendencies.
Tom Schaller joins us.
