Jun 12 2024 35 mins
Many books have been written in the recent period about rural America. The beginning of this literary push to better understand the opportunities, problems and malignancies of what one author coined ‘overlooked Americans’ in the hinterlands of non-metropolitan areas was J. D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” which raised many questions. It dealt with the character of his family and people in order to determine the reasons for their own misfortune. Some have focused on the economic insecurity brought on by the corporatization of farm work and the loss of manufacturing jobs to cheaper labor in China and other places. It’s a complex tangle of politics, economics and culture, as well as elements of an American way of life that has vanished in the minds of rural residents. Brent Orrell, senior fellow, domestic policy at the American Enterprise Institute(aei.org) is our guest today. He, along with Tony Pipa, of the Brookings Institution have been collaborating on talks called “On the Front Porch” in an attempt to better understand rural America and find commonalities with the growing metropolitan populations. Their goal is to overcome the benefits many politicians have realized in creating urban/rural divisions.