Hi, I’m From Flyover Country and Here’s What the Coasts Get Wrong About the Midwest

I’ve been lucky in my life. I’ve had a chance to live on both coasts. I’ve lived in a variety of parts of this country but nothing annoys me more than people who have never left the US coastal states and actually seen what it is like in the “square states.” The flyover states are a different place with different values and there are many things that would be different in our society if Jefferson hadn’t bothered with the Louisiana purchase. For progressives, it can seem like these states are holding the country back from a far better future. The reality (as usual) is a little bit more nuanced than that.

Not All-Midwest People are Dumb

I like to call this the arrogance of ignorance. There is often a media reinforced message that people from the Midwest are just not as glamorous, sophisticated, or as smart as people who grew up on the coast with more modern schools and access to globally recognized cultural institutions. However, this is simply not the case. When it comes to education, the coasts do have an advantage but there are plenty of quality institutions in the middle of the country as well. There is a cultural heritage as well that is as vibrant as the Mississippi at its widest point, dramatic architecture reaching for the wide-open skies, as wonderful as the music blasting out of bars and clubs, and as loud as a football game.

Important cities like Chicago, Denver, and Kansas City are often able to compete with any coastal dynamo. Important contributions to science happen through the industry around agriculture and extraction. Materials science research also still goes on in states where manufacturing is still an economic driver. The point is that people in the Midwest aren’t dumb. Jersey Shore proved that the coasts still have their village idiots just like everybody else. The midwest is different but can still well compete with people on the Coasts and those working on elections would do well to remember that.

Yes the Weather is Weird

This is a quick sidebar. The Midwest has to take a loss in this area. Midwest weather is absolutely nuts. It’s not just the tornadoes either. It’s the coming and going of seasons, the constant threat of snow or cold, and that weird phenomenon where its sunny but bone-chillingly cold. The Coasts with their large bodies of water just have better weather. Seasons actually last more than a week and they look better thanks to all that humidity. The weather is better, it just is and its something Coastal people will never understand.

Immigration is Different

The immigration debate has a strong urban/rural element to it and when it comes to the question, people on the coasts tend to look down on midwesterners who are concerned about immigration. Due to the lack of density, when immigrants move into a rural community to take jobs in meatpacking and the like, the composition of these rural counties changes far faster than it does in a large city like New York or Seattle. So in this way the lived experience of the changes of immigration have a different impact. At one time, President Trump suggested that he would flood major cities with immigrants so they could deal with the problems of immigration. The policy never went anywhere but even the idea seemed ridiculous as major cities are often filled with immigrants already and with services for them. Immigration is just a different issue and votes have different experiences of it. Many rural communities haven’t grown in decades. Many of the people that live there and choose to stay there often consider their communities closed to too many new people. The Coastal experience is different. People come and go all the time. People immigrate in and move on and this happens on a regular basis. The community isn’t closed it is fluid. At a philosophical level, the geography is symbolic of the attitude. States with lots of land in the middle of the country are more fixed like the dirt that they work. Coastal cities are fluid like the oceans that they border. There is constant movement.

Midwesterners Have Families, Worries, Problems, and Troubles Too

There is often a discourse within the democratic party of how they can win in rural areas or win in the midwest. After the loss of Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016, the party was suddenly turning its attention to the midwest. There is often a certain dismissiveness of the problems of people who live in this part of the country. The problems are deeply regional. Further out west, issues with the EPA and BLM are as big as the issues around manufacturing jobs in Michigan. The upper midwest has concerns about the future and life after manufacturing. In the plains, farm subsidies and commodity prices are at issue because the economy turns on agriculture. That doesn’t even include the completely normal problems that families have in the region. Everyone has problems and there is probably more in common with those problems than we might originally think. Especially if we have respect for each other. That’s something that’s missing, respect.

I think the biggest difference between the Coasts and the Midwest is there are differing values. Coastal states tend to be more liberal (especially on the west coast) and they express values that are just as valid as those held by midwesterners. One of the ways the public debate has floundered in recent years is that the conversation being had between the Right and the Left is essentially two sides shouting at each other rather than talking about values and principles and finding ways to create a harmonious policy from those places. It’s beyond bipartisanship, it has to do with how the country will proceed into the future.

The Left spends far too much time telling the same people it is trying to win over that they are racist, damaging their environment with their trucks, xenophobic if they have a problem with immigrants in their community, or don’t think in the prescribed manner that they are wrong, incorrect, backwards, and dumb. It isn’t a wonder the democrats don’t understand the Midwest, they are too busy talking about things that can be solved later. It is going to be very hard to get unemployed manufacturing workers to care about LGBT rights if you don’t follow it up with a jobs and trade plan.

The Economy is Different

One of the most interesting things about our country is the economic inequality between the states. It is often a political trope that expecting someone in Iowa to pay for highways in California is unfair. However, the economic reality is that voters in California are often paying for all sorts of things in the Midwest. This transfer of wealth via federal tax dollars is quite simple: the Coasts have more dynamic economies and more people. Most of the major businesses in this country with a few exceptions are headquartered on Coasts. From Amazon in Seattle to Delta in Atlanta, the economies are very different. For those on the Coasts, they often have larger and more resilient economies. In the midwest, the picture is bleaker. When a major employer leaves a Midwest town, the whole town may very well go under. When a city loses an employer, it is not a good thing but workers and the city will likely bounce back in a shorter period of time.

For many people in the Midwest, the economic devastation that swept across the country not only means a lost job but an entire way of life that includes friends and family. The chances of those workers easily finding another job are very difficult. For workers in cities, they can get other jobs in other businesses. Many people on the Coasts often don’t understand these different dynamics.

Awhile back, I read a fascinating story about some Silicon Valley-types who tried to help the unemployed in places like Arkansas by training them to do small tasks online. The people tasked with using this money faced a number of challenges ranging from computer illiteracy to actual illiteracy. Ultimately, the program failed and the program had to pivot to more tangible skills, like welding new dumpsters for their local city. This is one of the reasons why the economics of the United States are so unique. The solution for unemployed workers in New York City or Seattle is very different from the needs in Kansas, Iowa, or Missouri.

These are the people that serve in the military, grow the food, drive the trucks, and keep this country moving. They deserve fair economics, respect for what they do, and a fair chance at a good life. It may take some time to get people to recognize that those include some new policies that they might find strange or odd. They might be shocked that the same social policies that they need will also benefit people in rough neighborhoods up and down the coasts. However, these people still believe in America and if its sold right, they will step up. They always have.