White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy

by Tom Schaller

“I had so many people that whispered to me and held my hand real quick and tight and said, ‘Oh my god, thank you,’ and whispered and kept walking.” She choked up as she described going to meetings that were pleasant enough “until you talk to the woman who is asking you for help and doesn’t know what to do, who’s in a horrible situation and saw that there’s a political meet-and-greet and decided to come and seek help because her son had just committed suicide, and [she] didn’t know where else to go. And now she’s standing in front of me, and I have her name, and I have her phone number, for what? How am I ever going to help her? What am I going to tell these neighbors in Geauga County, the county below Ashtabula, who came up to me in a parking lot and said, ‘Kathy, I can’t take one of your signs, because I’m so afraid of my neighbors. I can’t even talk to anybody, but you have my one vote, and I promise you that.’ ”