After the 2016 election, there was a narrative in which we liberal elitists blamed ourselves for not connecting with rural voters. It’s still around, and I don’t like it. It feels like a puzzle that has most of the right pieces, and they look like they fit together from one side, but are a jumbled mess seen from the other. I have a story.

Remember when you complained in 6th grade about being stuck on a group assignment with a dolt? The teacher told you, although not this directly, that as a more enlightened being it was your duty to help bring the less fortunate up to your level. You thought this was some buck-passing bullshit, and you were right. How could you be responsible for the betterment of someone who resented you, and from whose culture you were alienated? The problem wasn’t really that he was a dolt, though he was, but that this role required a social rapport that wasn’t there and social skills you didn’t have. Being tossed in the deep end didn’t cause these qualities to appear, but made their absence more painfully obvious.

I don’t remember choosing this divide and I don’t know how to unchoose it now.