Trump takes the GOP hate for cities to a new extreme

The rural-urban divide is one of the defining features of the American electorate: Democrats dominate in cities, while Republicans rule in rural areas. But as the presidential race has shown, the two parties are treating the voters in their opponents’ favored territory in very different ways.

Democrats are working to attract rural voters and promoting policy initiatives to improve life for rural Americans. Republicans are heaping contempt and calumny on cities and treating their residents as deluded.

Conservatives have long disdained urban areas and those who live in them. But as Election Day approaches, Donald Trump and JD Vance are deploying a particularly nasty anti-urban strategy, seemingly driven by the belief that if Americans who don’t live in cities — or ever go there — look upon them with disgust and fear, then they’ll vote Republican.

In rural Pennsylvania last week, Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, unveiled a policy plan to address some of the challenges faced by rural Americans. It includes an effort to hire 10,000 desperately needed health care professionals to work in rural areas. The day before, Vance traveled to Minneapolis, but not to offer the Trump-Vance plan for urban America. Instead, Vance insulted and demeaned the city, falsely claiming that Walz let it “burn to the ground” in 2020 during protests against police violence and that the city “has now become overrun with crime.” Vance warned that “the story of Minneapolis is coming to every community across the United States of America if we promote Kamala Harris to president of the United States.” Never mind that Minneapolis was named the happiest city in America this year, just one of its absurdly long list of accolades.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-takes-the-gop-hate-for-cities-to-a-new-extreme/ar-AA1sAm5J?ocid=nl_article_link