I came from rural America and let me just tell you what I have been taught since birth by everyone: if you are a rural person, you don't matter. It's a shitty, mean, belittling way to treat people, but that's the way we treat rural people in America. Even when they grow most of our food and do all our oil fracking in the middle of nowhere North Dakota.

Nobody talks about rural America because that doesn't get clicks for the media or on Twitter. Because, see earlier, rural people don't matter.

Read Sarah Smarsh's phenomenal memoir/journalistic book "Heartland" to understand this better.

Great piece. Thanks for writing it.