Today I talked to Matthew Ferrence about his book I Hate It Here, Please Vote for Me: Essays on Rural Political Decay (West Virginia UP, 2024).

When a progressive college professor runs for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in a deeply conservative rural district, he loses. That’s no surprise. But the story of how Ferrence loses and, more importantly, how American political narratives refuse to recognize the existence and value of nonconservative rural Americans offers insight into the political morass of our nation.

In essays focused on showing goats at the county fair, planting native grasses in the front lawn, the political power of poetry, and getting wiped out in an election, Ferrence offers a counter-narrative to stereotypes of monolithic rural American voters and emphasizes the way stories told about rural America are a source for the bitter divide between Red America and Blue America.

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