The DNC is Losing Rural Democrats

The Schumer Effect

I’m a rural Democrat. I work with rural Democrats. I hang out with rural Democrats.

We have to work double-time in our communities — we don’t have the advantage of being in the majority. We risk our livelihoods and our relationships by way of our voting habits. You have to be made of tough stuff to live where we live.

One thing you need to understand — rural Democrats have no use for weak-kneed folks. No use for someone in power who won’t use their power to stand up and speak up. No use for entitled lawmakers bowing to the wealthy instead of fighting for everyone.

No use for flip-flopping or business as usual during a damn coup.

And, that’s exactly what Chuck Schumer and nine other Senate Democrats did last Friday when they rolled over and shamefully showed their underbellies to the world — when they gave in without a fight. When they agreed to a budget that will add billions to defense and allow Musk to keep using his chainsaw to the government. When they agreed to step aside while the Trump administration continues its attack on the Constitution and the people.

It went over exactly as you’d expect in rural spaces. We are pissed.

First Annual Rural Victory Dinner, Cass County, Nebraska. 3/14/25

I was already scheduled to speak in rural Nebraska last Friday night —the same evening the budget passed without a fight.

I drove down about 4 miles of gravel during a severe thunderstorm warning to get to the event space. It was a winery tucked into the rolling Nebraska corn fields. A small blue light blazing in the red state. The hard wind blew my little SUV all over the place, and by the time I made it to the winery, the raindrops were so big that it sounded like I was being pelted by rocks thrown from the sky.

The event was the first Rural Victory Dinner in Cass County. It’s a short drive to Omaha, but you’d never know it by the landscape. We were treated to supper and deserts and wine. It was just what I needed before I spoke to the 50 or so gathered Democrats in the room — they likely could have sold another 50 tickets. Every seat was filled.

I was introduced and then I laid into the meat of the problem. The GOP. Supermajorities that have stripped rural spaces and red states for parts. The uncaring and cruel Republicans who have ravaged our areas and are now aiming that same destruction at the entire country. The party that attacks the very existence of our trans friends and the marriages of our gay friends and the lives of our pregnant friends.

The Republicans are to blame, but by-god we’ve got a few elected Democrats who are side-stepping their duty to protect Americans during a coup — during the dismantling of our country in an effort to give it over to the oligarchs.

And I called these Democrats out by name. The boos and hisses started. Folks shook their heads in agreement. They clapped in outrage. These rural Democrats want someone to fight back against the Republicans. These people have no time to sit back and watch as even more power is ceded to authoritarians.

And here is something I want you to understand: there is a misconception that rural Democrats are more conservative than Democrats from other areas of the country and that’s just not true. The biggest round of applause and a standing ovation came after I talked about trans rights. Yes, the very folks some establishment Dems are throwing under the bus…looking at you, Gavin Newsome.

I slept overnight in Nebraska and then got up early for my next event in Fairfield, Iowa. It was a four-hour drive over so I listened to some of my favorite Substacks including Heather Cox Richardson’s. She spoke of the budget and then explained how several times in history, lawmakers have stood up and done the right thing even at personal risk.

Fairfield, Iowa Democrats and Independents gathered. 3/15/25.

The Fairfield event was a big one. There are close to 9K people who live in Fairfield, so it’s definitely not as tiny as some areas I travel to speak in.

I arrived early to change in the bathroom, per my usual, and came out to see the organizers placing pies out for the silent auction. The organizers had maybe 30 chairs set out. And then people started showing up and more and more and even more chairs had to be pulled out.

I think there were around a hundred folks in the room by the time I started to speak.

I again started with the GOP and the cuts Governor Kim Reynolds made to public schools and the legislators’ attack on trans people in Iowa — basically making these folks non-citizens. I spoke on corporate farms and water quality. Iowa is in much of the same condition as Nebraska and Missouri and Kansas. We have been fighting back for decades and still we show up under the abuse to make our voices heard.

And then I leveled my voice to talk about Schumer and the other nine Senate Democrats, and wouldn’t you know it…gasps and head shaking and outrage.

How could national Democrats do this to us? How could they play dead as Trump is tearing up our Constitution? How could they stop fighting when it’s all we do in our own little part of the world?

And there it is. The anger is swelling and the DNC risks losing rural Democrats because of inaction and to cowardice.

I knew I was mad and I have been able to take the pulse of those in other rural spaces and they are as angry. I heard several people say they stopped their monthly ActBlue donations to the DNC and redirected them to state-wide candidates and those who will challenge the Republican Congresspeople who are too scared to hold town halls.

Maybe lawmakers like Chuck Schumer don’t worry about folks like us because we only make up about 20% of the country. We do make up a whole lot more of the grit and perseverance needed to get votes to help elect Democrats at the nationwide level, though.

I know that it isn’t just rural people who are angry at what several Senate Democrats did last Friday. I know the budget was a poison pill as Schumer stated, but we all watched him swallow it anyway.

We can do better and must actively fight Trump and Musk and the oligarchs. We lose our party and our country by rolling over.

I expect elected Democrats to work at least as hard as we do in rural spaces.

We need them to stand up.

Do the work.

Fight back.

~Jess