Every time I talk in a big city, I have so many folks come up and tell me about their roots in the heartland or rural spaces. Do you know why there are so many folks in the city from red, rural states? A brain drain. They left and never came back.
Replies
Yes, you are correct. I love you stand up for rural folks.
mar 30, 2025, 5:26 am • 7 0 • view
I left rural Michigan and never intended to came back. Hated every minute I lived there. X-tian conservatives and deeply stupid ‘murica twats were and are the bane of my existence.
mar 30, 2025, 1:16 pm • 1 0 • view
I would also not discount the problem of there being nothing to do. There is just blatantly things to do in a metropolitan area. When I asked someone why was our largest employer moving 1000s of positions to Houston the best answer was “No one wants to live here.”
mar 30, 2025, 2:40 pm • 2 1 • view
My town isn’t even Rural, it’s 150K but it can’t draw decent concerts. It doesn’t have any sports franchises. No decent museums. We have bars but there’s nothing special about them and as a college town they are all cheap. So either you drive 3 hours to do something or move there.
mar 30, 2025, 2:43 pm • 0 0 • view
My dad was from a small, rural town in Central Florida. He was smart and ended up getting a Ph.D. but the primary reason he left in 1950 was due to racism and to join the US Army.
mar 30, 2025, 2:02 pm • 2 0 • view
I left North Dakota and never looked back.
mar 30, 2025, 8:24 am • 1 1 • view
Very soon, you’ll have that happen when you give a talk in cities outside the US. “You know why there are so many US-trained scientists, artists, academics in Europe?” you will then ask. A brain drain. They fled the country AND NEVER CAME BACK.
mar 30, 2025, 10:57 am • 27 0 • view
And now Taylor Swift is moving to Canada, too. Are we worried yet?
mar 31, 2025, 1:30 am • 0 0 • view
3 from Yale have moved to Canada
mar 30, 2025, 2:11 pm • 3 0 • view
Yes. Marci Shore, Tim Snyder, and Jason Stanley. They were the ones I was watching. I told myself I wouldn’t panic until they fled. Our top thinkers on Ukraine, Putin, fascism, and authoritarianism have made a run for the border. I can’t breathe.
mar 30, 2025, 2:46 pm • 5 1 • view
Who’s to blame?
mar 30, 2025, 3:17 pm • 0 0 • view
Yep! I’m an only child in Seattle. Grew up deep in Appalachia. My elderly parents own a huge farm. I love farming and am an only child. I will not be returning to rural Appalachia. It sucks ass. There are no resources, the ppl are undereducated and bigoted. No way.
mar 30, 2025, 6:42 am • 5 0 • view
Honestly, yeah. My hometown was straight up a sundown town and still is. It had around 500 people when I was growing up, now it's 305 at the last census. A bar, a post office, and a church are all that's left.
mar 30, 2025, 11:20 am • 4 0 • view
I think the move to remote work could have helped lessen the brain drain but it appears many of the big companies are insisting on fully in office or hybrid for new hires
mar 30, 2025, 9:12 pm • 1 0 • view
This is beginning to happen country wide it seems as of now. Folks that won't get replaced.
mar 30, 2025, 5:16 am • 0 0 • view
I live in a deep blue area on the west coast, and I absolutely love that my child has friends of at least a dozen races, many mixed. We had Burmese food tonight. We have world class museums and galleries. Much of the world's technology starts here, and the weather rarely tries to kill you.
mar 30, 2025, 5:46 am • 17 0 • view
The West Coast would be such a cool country. If only we didn't have to subsidize all these failing Republican states.
mar 30, 2025, 6:19 am • 8 0 • view
I'm aware. I was one of those people for a long time. myferretsatepepethefrog.blogspot.com/2025/03/read...
mar 30, 2025, 5:35 am • 0 0 • view
I grew up in a large state that has a low population and is quite rural in many areas. Lack of good paying jobs or opportunities is the main reason why many individuals leave and never return.
mar 30, 2025, 7:51 am • 8 1 • view
I grew up in one of the larger towns in Montana, moved to another after I graduated high school. Ten years later I moved to the largest town in eastern Washington because of a job with a salary I could survive on. I've only gone back to MT to visit friends.
mar 30, 2025, 8:15 am • 4 0 • view
There are many communities across rural America who are trying to make it better. But we are fighting an uphill battle. The Republicans have destroyed funding for public schools, and that harms rural places the most. Bring back the schools. Bring back daycare. Bring back jobs. Our kids will return.
mar 30, 2025, 5:32 am • 356 44 • view
that's a generation and a half in the future Miss Piper it must be done ❤️
mar 30, 2025, 5:39 am • 0 0 • view
also high-speed internet for work-at-homes
mar 30, 2025, 5:45 am • 17 0 • view
You also have the "anywhere but here" syndrome to deal with. Nearly every high school kid in a small town has said "I can't wait to get the hell out of here." I don't have the answer. But Jess, the next time you're in Iowa, I'll be in the audience. And I'll bring my friends and family.
mar 30, 2025, 1:37 pm • 2 0 • view
“Bring back the schools. Bring back daycare. Bring back jobs. Our kids will return.” Eliminate racism, bigotry, xenophobia, ignorance and hate then perhaps some folks will return.
mar 30, 2025, 11:54 am • 10 0 • view
No we won’t. Not until the entire culture surrounding diversity and equality has shifted in rural communities. Every single day I am appreciative that my husband and I got out and our kids won’t have to grow up in a town where differences are laughed at and conformity is encouraged.
mar 30, 2025, 9:38 am • 31 2 • view
Agreed. I'm straight, white & was one of the weirdos in my small town (it was seriously racially homogenous) as the artsy gal who didn't wear the standard girl uniform nor did I conform to local customs of church, marriage, have lots of babies. I had almost no community when the gays fled after HS.
mar 30, 2025, 11:27 am • 4 0 • view
I grew up in a semi-rural southern town where there were morning prayers over the PA system given by various students every morning. Blatantly illegal. I'm never going back.
mar 30, 2025, 10:58 am • 4 0 • view
Hear hear! So tired of this nostalgic bullshit about some heavenly small town out of Norman Rockwell. My graduating class had 84 people in it. My small town was HELL. Bigoted, passive aggressive and back stabbing people. Harper Valley PTA was a song for a reason.
mar 30, 2025, 10:27 am • 13 0 • view
This is it right here. I have a tight community in the small town I’m from but there’s not a chance in hell I’d ever go back. No food, art, culture or opportunity, just lots of bored white people who gossip, fear the unknown, and blame their failed dreams on their kids. No thanks
mar 30, 2025, 11:48 am • 10 0 • view
Exactly! Same here. I left for college and didn't look back once I hit my 3rd year.
mar 30, 2025, 12:27 pm • 5 0 • view
I only went back briefly during the recession when I had no other choice 😆
mar 30, 2025, 1:11 pm • 4 0 • view
I lived in Columbia and worked in Fulton for years. I miss my little tight knit work family sometimes. But I got fiddle footed and moved to PNW.
mar 30, 2025, 10:35 am • 1 0 • view
I'm sorry, but no. This is not just an issue of education and economic opportunity; it is a cultural problem. People will not return unless or until the culture in rural areas changes. Gotta end the sundown towns and the vitriolic xenophobia and queerphobia that often thrives in rural communities.
mar 30, 2025, 12:18 pm • 59 1 • view
But education is the only hope for changing that culture. It might not be sufficient, but it's necessary.
mar 30, 2025, 3:28 pm • 1 0 • view
Relatedly, Idk why you have that number in your sn, but it's something I would encourage reconsidering if you don't want people to wonder if it's a dogwhistle.
mar 30, 2025, 3:51 pm • 0 0 • view
Oh, I had to look that up. It's not a dogwhistle, it's a random instantiation of an available user name. But anyone who so much as glances at my comments can see that I'm not what your veiled accusation suggest I am. And now enough, not sure why I engaged.
mar 30, 2025, 5:09 pm • 0 0 • view
*suggests
mar 30, 2025, 5:10 pm • 0 0 • view
It's not an accusation. I didn't assume. I just wanted to let you know this random instantiation contains a number that many Internet users may find worrisome.
mar 30, 2025, 5:14 pm • 0 0 • view
Here's the thing: I left because of education, in no small part because I learned that it is not possible to teach people who don't want to learn; the culture that needs to change is resistant to education and usually punishes those who offer it. Anti-intellectualism is a problematic part of this.
mar 30, 2025, 3:48 pm • 1 0 • view
I grew up in Kentucky. I left. I know exactly what you're talking about, but arguing against efforts to improve education as somehow futile is unproductive, in my opinion. You just give up on all the smart kids in stupid states?
mar 30, 2025, 5:06 pm • 1 0 • view
No, I don't. I help folks get out and get safe. I literally was working on expanding access to tech education for rural and underrepresented kids before the federal funding cuts axed my whole position. We are not the ones giving up on kids; conservatives are. We reach them online, at least for now.
mar 30, 2025, 5:12 pm • 1 0 • view
I'm really sorry about your job. We need your work.
mar 30, 2025, 11:53 pm • 1 0 • view
Exactly. I left rural Indiana because I didn't want my son to grow up with the children of people who were assholes to me. We started over in a new, bigger place.
mar 30, 2025, 3:44 pm • 3 0 • view
Correctamundo. Grew up in rural NC. The moment I understood I was gay, I understood I had to get the fuck out as soon as possible. (Being reasonably smart helped.) Never going back. Fuck that place.
mar 30, 2025, 5:04 pm • 6 0 • view
100% grew up in South Dakota. I realized I wasn’t like them. It has nothing to do with the little town needing more jobs…. It has everything to do with the town needing more decent people
mar 30, 2025, 11:12 pm • 3 0 • view
This. And the abuse that is enabled in general. I went to high school in a small town where the band teacher left his wife for a student. They’re married with 2 kids, he’s still teaching and now so is she. They’re also church leaders. It’s disgusting. The bullying was relentless, too. I left at 18.
mar 30, 2025, 5:19 pm • 3 0 • view
Exactly. The hatred and exclusion of anyone different, gay, etc etc and if you're not over the top religious then you're treated terrible. And in these times, forget it if you're from another country. No matter how much more educated, intelligent, better skills - you are less.
mar 30, 2025, 2:52 pm • 12 0 • view
Yup
mar 30, 2025, 2:09 pm • 3 0 • view
Those kids are gone. The smart ones eventually escape for a better life. They might buy a weekend place but it’s never the same. Sorry but no! 🤦♀️
mar 30, 2025, 7:13 pm • 2 0 • view
Yep. That's me. I left small town Missouri and now I live just outside of DC. I love the diversity and opportunities here that I never had growing up.
mar 30, 2025, 8:14 pm • 5 0 • view
I actually owe every opportunity I've had to my rural community, and it's the reason I now help folks stay rural and find local career opportunities. The reason I left was due to generational trauma. That's an important piece of the rural brain narrative that's often overlooked.
apr 1, 2025, 2:16 am • 3 0 • view
Yes, when I lived in Montana we often said, our greatest export is our children.
mar 30, 2025, 4:12 pm • 6 0 • view
😭
mar 30, 2025, 5:15 pm • 2 0 • view
We bought 11 acres in rural NC in 2009 & thought we were in heaven.A 200 acre gun range opened 1700ft from our property in 2019 & we had to leave💔.We've moved twice since, in poor rural towns, trying to still live on a bit of land, w/ the garden, chickens,etc. But the magat stupid out here is STRONG
mar 30, 2025, 10:50 am • 12 1 • view
Completely why I left my rural plains state roots. There was nothing there for me. No work, no place to live, no continuing education or social life other than drinking parties every weekend by some bridge or barn. Nope. It was time to move on.
mar 30, 2025, 11:11 am • 2 0 • view
I left for my daughter
mar 30, 2025, 1:16 pm • 1 0 • view
Ayup
mar 30, 2025, 5:21 pm • 1 0 • view
It would only take about 50 people in a lot of rural counties to completely flip the dynamic. Even less in others. There are already progressive thinkers here, but we need more in school administration, coaching and on our school boards to help plant seeds for our future.
mar 30, 2025, 6:53 pm • 8 0 • view
And we need to strip tax exempt status from “churches” who push politics.
mar 30, 2025, 7:01 pm • 6 0 • view
I wish I was one of them
mar 30, 2025, 5:17 am • 2 0 • view
theres no opportunities for them in my rural town you can either work at caseys, the small 4 isle grocery store, or the bar. thats it
mar 30, 2025, 5:27 am • 41 1 • view
The blueprint for every small city in the nation. Vape shops, liquor stores/bars, cannibus dispensaries, convenience store/gas combos, Dollar store/s, thrifts, pawnshops, the few eateries that survive this or a new one every few months in the same locale trying to crack the code..
mar 30, 2025, 11:35 am • 12 0 • view
Subway… a gas station by the highway and a bait shop
mar 30, 2025, 11:13 pm • 0 0 • view
The bait is sold at the gas station (with three brands of beer, tobacco, and ice).
mar 30, 2025, 11:22 pm • 0 0 • view
What? No dinky thrift store.
mar 30, 2025, 6:31 am • 1 0 • view
So many reasons I left - primarily, no opportunities to grow, dream or thrive. But, I wouldn’t change my childhood for anything. My mom was a public school teacher and dad worked at the local Ford dealership as finance mgr. Both those threatened by Rs today, so they won’t even have that.
mar 30, 2025, 1:09 pm • 1 0 • view
More than just a brain drain… a drain of decency, morality, empathy, compassion….
mar 30, 2025, 11:10 pm • 2 0 • view
Where are the next generation of Farmers and Ranchers coming from ???
mar 30, 2025, 3:10 pm • 0 0 • view
There's a term for this kind of thing: "differential migration."
mar 30, 2025, 1:19 pm • 2 0 • view
now we need keep republican politicians out of big cities to avoid suffering the same.
mar 30, 2025, 5:54 am • 2 0 • view
Counterpoint: A couple of folks I used to know moved from a big city in a blue state to a rural area in a deep red state. Rather than retaining their core liberal values they became enamored with guns & petty rural aggrievements. Now they're Trumpers. "Reverse brain drain" is a thing too.
mar 30, 2025, 5:19 pm • 8 0 • view
mar 30, 2025, 6:20 am • 2 0 • view
Years ago, doing maintenance work and the guy with me recognized the manager of the unit we were working on. Knew him from high school. They got to talking, and decided that between them they knew of 18 people - from their class - who'd moved from Washington, IA to the Des Moines area.
mar 30, 2025, 1:13 pm • 3 0 • view
Grew up in rural Indiana. Moved to Portland Oregon.
mar 30, 2025, 7:52 am • 2 0 • view
I feel seen. Mercer Co, PA to San Mateo Co, CA. Double masters. Never been back.
mar 30, 2025, 6:15 pm • 6 0 • view
Poorly educated people are much easier to control.
mar 30, 2025, 3:03 pm • 7 0 • view
My mom left her town at 18 because she got pregnant and they basically ran her out of town so how does one go back or even want to go back at that point? They still treated her badly 30 years later.
mar 30, 2025, 2:18 pm • 10 1 • view
Girl, I live right outside in New York City and we can’t wait to get out of here out of our high school either🤣🤣🤣🤣 but you are correct
mar 30, 2025, 2:17 pm • 0 0 • view
No opportunities is why they left. It is awful and as you say - by design. Can we stop this and save what is left of our country? 😢
mar 30, 2025, 5:28 am • 11 0 • view
We can’t stop it when they want to kick people out of the country. Cheap housing isn’t that much cheaper. Costs too much for 🚗 and gas to get to the job closer to town. There aren’t enough people to sustain businesses in all those areas. Especially with more disposable income going towards tariffs
mar 30, 2025, 1:48 pm • 2 0 • view
My wife and I were both born and raised in small towns in Missouri. We moved to St Louis 3 years ago and will not be going back
mar 30, 2025, 2:17 pm • 5 0 • view
We left NW Iowa 10 years ago. Now our best friends have moved to be near their grand kids. If you can't get the 20-30 somethings to come back to rural areas, the parents will be leaving too. I love the relationship I have with grands - watched soccer and played chess today. Every Tuesday is Theo day
mar 30, 2025, 6:08 am • 3 0 • view
And the republicans robbing the red states blind are happy the brainiacs have left. Makes it easier to rob em.
mar 30, 2025, 8:41 am • 6 0 • view
I would love to live retirement in a hilly and green rural area but those communities tend to be narrow minded and dogmatic. Choosing my to stay in a city.
mar 30, 2025, 12:10 pm • 9 0 • view
The point being that when so many of these folks are screeching about small town values and how we don't understand them, plenty of us do because we came from there too.
mar 30, 2025, 8:46 pm • 6 0 • view
Screeching about “hometown values” is that racist, ignorant, fearing change, religious & hypocrites, censorship, conformity, authoritarianism, uncultured, homophobia, xenophobia, and a general contempt for empathy & learning? That’s what I think of when I hear hometown values & no fucking thanks.
mar 30, 2025, 9:48 pm • 2 0 • view
We left for 40+ years & returned to retire. It is strong spirit that ended up staying without becoming a cynical, close-minded bad neighbor. Graduates should get a year of travel/wrk to 4 diff worldly locations. At 18, my mom went 300 miles for 5 yrs & became a different woman than her 3 sisters.
mar 30, 2025, 5:42 am • 8 1 • view
I’m one of those folks.
mar 30, 2025, 11:51 am • 2 0 • view
Northern Georgia and far western NC are absolutely beautiful areas filled with racist people and derelict yards with abandoned cars and trash. The police actively harass visitors. I would love to live there. Nope. Not happening.
mar 30, 2025, 2:00 pm • 2 0 • view
I am still here in northern Mn running several art non profits after teaching on the Rez for 35 years . Not all gone …
mar 30, 2025, 10:39 am • 6 1 • view
well we have some smart rednecks I worked with a few
mar 30, 2025, 6:33 am • 1 0 • view
Jobs
mar 30, 2025, 11:05 am • 3 0 • view
I hear and support you Jess. People leave because there is nothing in those towns and people want to live their lives. We left a red state And are so glad we did.
mar 30, 2025, 3:29 pm • 0 0 • view
I would love for you to come talk to us in Lexington, Kentucky.
mar 30, 2025, 1:48 pm • 2 0 • view
I lived in the city, Columbus, Ohio, for 45 years. I left because toward the end of COVID, I could see how little anyone cared for protecting anyone else. I have chronic illness, and didn’t want to get pulled into that conflict with my life.
mar 30, 2025, 7:51 am • 6 1 • view
I grew up in suburban Detroit. Smaller, backwoods, working class town. I knew I had to get out, even to just a larger town with more to do. I lived up north for two summers and the most fun was going to the Kmart outside of the deserted military base or having a 🔥 and shooting beer bottles.
mar 30, 2025, 1:37 pm • 0 0 • view
this is why: youtu.be/t6gcxNFc1I0?...
mar 30, 2025, 7:34 am • 2 0 • view
I left red rural for the city, then had to move back to rec rural due to my husbands work contract. We’re trying to get into a situation to make moving back to the city happen.
mar 30, 2025, 5:16 am • 21 0 • view
Because 90% of the rural folks I left behind are insane. They are willfully ignorant living in 1950.
mar 30, 2025, 8:24 pm • 5 0 • view
We won’t go back 😢🤬
mar 30, 2025, 2:42 pm • 0 0 • view
My three adult children who were born and raised in Ohio are now living in: Maryland, Colorado, and Washington (state). My husband and I moved to North Carolina due to his job. We keep hoping NC will flip for good.
mar 30, 2025, 11:45 pm • 2 0 • view
Can't wait for this to backfire
mar 30, 2025, 7:56 am • 3 0 • view
I wish people who could work remote would choose to work remote from rural towns - it’s what I do. It’s heckin afforable and could quickly flip the demographic.
mar 30, 2025, 11:48 am • 3 0 • view
It's actually dangerous for some people.
mar 30, 2025, 5:06 pm • 1 0 • view
Real estate is affordable. Other stuff more expensive, culture is churches & bars. That's the nature of low density and isolation. I grew up there. You're right that the demo could be flipped, but IMO it would take a bunch of people willing to sacrifice themselves to do it.
mar 30, 2025, 7:59 pm • 1 0 • view
My family is trying to move back to the country. I work remotely but we are hitting a snag with having reliable internet. There are very few provider options in some rural areas.
mar 30, 2025, 12:24 pm • 4 1 • view
true but that’s changing. My small town has fiber internet just last year.
mar 30, 2025, 12:33 pm • 3 1 • view
Exact reason to get ppl to come back. Broadband can bring businesses & jobs. The only true way to diversify small towns on the brink of closure. Got jobs, you'll need schools, hospitals, fire departments etc.
mar 30, 2025, 12:56 pm • 2 0 • view
Oh, 100% - it’s just hard if the infrastructure isn’t already there for people to move back. Especially if the state isn’t investing in rural broadband.
mar 30, 2025, 1:19 pm • 3 0 • view
If only someone would have done that…
mar 30, 2025, 1:50 pm • 0 0 • view
Amen sister. I didn’t walk, I ran
mar 30, 2025, 5:23 am • 3 0 • view
I grew up in a smallish town (50k) in East Texas. I have been back. There's nothing to go back to. And over the years I have unfriended most of the people I went to HS or college with for racist or homophobic FB comments. Yes, I left. As soon as I possibly could.
mar 30, 2025, 11:34 am • 9 0 • view
I grew up in SW Missouri. I spent the first 12 years of my life in towns with less than 800 people. Now I live in Ontario, Canada. You know what never stops blowing my mind? Small towns and family farms thrive here. When I visit where I grew up it’s all dead and empty by comparison.
mar 30, 2025, 1:50 pm • 2 0 • view
💯
mar 30, 2025, 9:03 am • 1 0 • view
My Dad told me he would buy me a car if I stayed home in our hamlet and went to the local community college. My reply was "Adios," and I went away to the city and never got a car until I was almost 30.
mar 30, 2025, 8:22 am • 8 0 • view
Trump is going to create a brain drain of US scientists going to the EU, Canada, China, etc.
mar 30, 2025, 10:56 am • 8 1 • view
I couldn’t wait to retire to the country. I remember my aunts and uncles who farmed and I always loved country folks. No more. I’m here. And country folks are some of the most hateful folks I have ever encountered.
mar 30, 2025, 11:45 am • 12 1 • view
They can go back now. We've had enough of their racist, evangelical conservatism.
mar 30, 2025, 5:41 pm • 2 1 • view
That is why I left, but it's not the whole reason of why I continue to stay away...
mar 30, 2025, 12:10 pm • 4 0 • view
Rural here. Would have left a long time ago if I could have. Bars and churches on every corner. The brain drain is real.
mar 30, 2025, 1:53 pm • 10 0 • view
That was Iowa decades ago - they received great educations and then left to get great jobs. MO is experiencing that as well - we don’t have the great jobs that our business oriented students want and deserve
mar 30, 2025, 2:44 pm • 5 1 • view
Speaking for myself: queer folk get lynched in small towns. We moved to the cities so we can be among people who treat us with equality and respect.
mar 30, 2025, 3:58 pm • 4 0 • view
Kansas view point 🤷♂️ Way out West continuing water right resolution, lack of The Now encroachment
mar 30, 2025, 5:19 am • 0 0 • view
Richard Florida’s book “Who’s Your City?” rocked the world and set Conservative’s hair on fire, proving that entrepreneurship is inherently a “Blue” initiative. …though I wonder what he would say about Silicon Valley & the Tech Bros today
mar 30, 2025, 4:43 pm • 1 0 • view
I ran to the city so I would not end up stuck in a town of 4,000 people where there was no work, no entertainment, and the only future was marriage & a house full of kids. My hometown still has 4,000 people, no work, no entertainment, and the only future is marriage & a house full of kids.
mar 30, 2025, 11:41 am • 5 1 • view
The comments on your post are validating - but sadly, I feel like I’ve been singing this refrain my entire life.
mar 30, 2025, 12:26 pm • 5 0 • view
Iowa is a good example. A lot of graduates, both high school and college, want nothing more than to get out of here. Why is our growth rate is so low.
mar 30, 2025, 9:23 pm • 3 0 • view
My daughter is senior in high school in Iowa. She's going to college in Chicago and probably never moving back.
mar 30, 2025, 9:57 pm • 2 0 • view
Exactly what happened here in Montana, some went to the bigger towns like Missoula, but many left the state.
mar 30, 2025, 4:44 pm • 0 0 • view
Absolutely correct! 👊🇺🇸🔥 I left WV in the 1970s because I saw the political establishment not seeing what would eventually happen (coal cratering, chemical plants closing, rural isolation). I came to the conclusion there was no future for me in a state that did not want to plan for the future.
mar 30, 2025, 1:23 pm • 5 1 • view
Had similar conversation with my brother in law this weekend, who is a superintendent in rural New England and is watching school enrollment numbers plummet year after year...
mar 30, 2025, 2:53 pm • 4 0 • view
My two sons left for Philly and NYC from Arkansas. I have nephews in Tulsa and Portland. Sadly, I doubt any return, but they remember their Arkansas roots and the values instilled within them. For a political party to ignore this is to commit malpractice.
mar 30, 2025, 11:06 am • 10 0 • view
I’m absolutely convinced that the Democratic Party needs new leadership, for this and many more reasons.
mar 30, 2025, 4:54 pm • 1 0 • view
I grew up in a major New England metro area. I ended up falling in love with the rural communities of the Midwest and south, but it’s hard when there’s no opportunity for the younger generations to build their lives on.
mar 30, 2025, 1:50 pm • 2 1 • view
People seldom stay where they aren't wanted.
mar 30, 2025, 11:08 am • 32 1 • view
By and large, the smartest people are frustrated by small, rural town living. It just doesn't provide the intellectual stimulation or career opportunities they crave. So they migrate to cities, not so much for urban life, but for options.
mar 30, 2025, 5:58 pm • 8 0 • view
I am a proud (NE) PENNSY girl. I say all the time how grateful I am to have grown up there. I got a rock solid public school edu. Ppl in PA had always been honest, open, friendly. I have no idea what happened to many who became so hateful. Door knocking-I learned many r now afraid of their neighbors
mar 30, 2025, 1:47 pm • 7 0 • view
Fox News.
mar 30, 2025, 2:51 pm • 8 1 • view
I know you are correct!
mar 30, 2025, 3:29 pm • 1 0 • view
I agree, Nebraska’s a great state to be from. BTW There “weren’t “ any gay people there when I graduated high school.
mar 30, 2025, 5:29 am • 5 0 • view
Just had a conversation about this with a nice someone here on Bsky.
mar 30, 2025, 5:40 am • 1 0 • view
So many reasons to go to a city & so few to stay in rural areas. Culturally closed, economically hampered, spiritually depressed…there is personal safety of self exploring & expression in cities. We are rural now,but city adjacent. Best of both.
mar 30, 2025, 12:56 pm • 8 1 • view
Now coming to a National Level NEAR YOU!! Let the FOOLS bury their OWN FOOLS, just like Jesus said (Luke 9:60) It is the DUTY of ALL intelligent people to LEAVE where they are not wanted; lest they be made to do horrible things in the name of the coward & corrupt
mar 30, 2025, 3:33 pm • 0 0 • view
Dad left. So did most (7 out of 8) of his siblings. It isn't just the economic, social and cultural opportunities, it's the stagnation in rural areas. And with today's connections to the world, it's unnecessary but it is a choice. And I think it's fear of change, which is so rewarding if overcome.
mar 30, 2025, 11:46 am • 2 0 • view
I don't want to have to fit into a tiny liberal pocket in my hometown.
mar 30, 2025, 8:43 pm • 4 0 • view
After they built the bypass and opened the Walmart… What opportunity was left
mar 31, 2025, 12:12 am • 0 0 • view
Ding ding ding! And, guess who suffers? I'll give everyone a big hint.
mar 30, 2025, 5:18 am • 1 0 • view
And that will happen nationwide if the DOGE Reich is put in place.
mar 30, 2025, 10:32 pm • 2 0 • view
My MO town was a great place to be from. Far from. I and my siblings all left to have careers, as did many of the close friends we had. There wasn't anything there to return to, and a lot to drive us away.
mar 30, 2025, 7:31 am • 4 0 • view
Yeah, because critical thought, diversity, and idealism are met with violence in rural spaces and that violence is endorsed or ignored by local authority. Smart, kind people dislike living in places where folks advertise Klan meetings at fast food places.
mar 30, 2025, 12:41 pm • 19 2 • view
I’ll never forget learning the klan still existed because they came to our school to recruit outside
mar 30, 2025, 3:04 pm • 6 0 • view
I wish that was less believable.
mar 30, 2025, 3:09 pm • 1 0 • view
Wow
mar 30, 2025, 8:25 pm • 2 0 • view
Americans are checking out and losing confidence in the justice system Nobody is holding corrupt politicians accountable anymore
mar 30, 2025, 12:22 pm • 1 1 • view
3 of our 4 kids left rural Iowa and are flourishing. All in blue states. THe 4th is saving to leave.
mar 30, 2025, 9:20 pm • 2 0 • view
It’s so sad when they shut down the USPS, Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare…the hospitals, the nursing homes and their employment base will fold. The regime doesn’t care about their maga followers. They think they’ve leaped into dictator dominance: only billionaires and war criminals count.
mar 30, 2025, 9:09 am • 4 2 • view
Continue exposing them ☮️
mar 30, 2025, 7:02 am • 0 0 • view
Soon that will extend to the entire nation.
mar 30, 2025, 10:32 am • 0 0 • view
Many of my Progressive Democrat classmates left for bluer areas. (My sister, 1 of my girls too) truth hubby and I would like to leave small town mo, I'm not sure if we could make a difference if they returned. (One went to IL, 2 or more CA)
mar 30, 2025, 10:23 am • 7 1 • view
Now we're losing top scholars to other countries.
mar 30, 2025, 5:57 am • 4 0 • view
MAGA are on record that "professors are the enemy".
mar 30, 2025, 8:44 am • 3 0 • view
And the media, and ANYONE who isn't MAGA. 🤦🏽 We are all enemies of the state. What a fucking mess.
mar 30, 2025, 8:51 am • 1 0 • view
I moved out of Oklahoma 6 years ago. When I was young OK was 17th in education, when I left OK was 49th. My son deserves better than what Oklahoma says is acceptable. I watched oil and gas destroy Oklahoma. It’s heartbreaking.
mar 30, 2025, 6:03 am • 21 3 • view
75,000 people voted for the Tiger King during OK governors race. Showered, got dressed, drove to vote for the fucking Tiger King. It's 8am and I need a drink thinking about this. Education matters.
mar 30, 2025, 12:15 pm • 6 0 • view
LITERALLY!!!
mar 30, 2025, 2:36 pm • 2 0 • view
bsky.app/profile/wjsi...
mar 30, 2025, 5:39 am • 2 0 • view
Rugged individualism is an obstacle to progress.
mar 31, 2025, 1:30 am • 0 0 • view
The JOBS were sent out of the country. Profit became more important than people. Both parties signed onto this. #BoycottBillionaires
mar 30, 2025, 8:27 pm • 1 0 • view
I left. Never went back. Now, older & back in a rural area for the quiet and nature. The same shitty attitudes/reasons I left rural the first time are here too. Older, don't go out like I used and have friends from college days and like minded work friends I see occasionally. Would leave again.
mar 30, 2025, 2:44 pm • 10 0 • view
I'm from a 1-stoplight town myself. Left as soon as I could.
mar 30, 2025, 12:37 pm • 1 0 • view
Most know the truth of what was going on in rural communities. If you’ve been threatened, ostracized, or shot at you know you are not welcome. Why would they go back?
mar 30, 2025, 7:10 pm • 2 0 • view
Cannot deal with redneck ass hikes.
mar 30, 2025, 6:14 am • 0 0 • view
NGL, for me it was the bookstores, lol. A brain drain, indeed. There's only so much "left behind" fiction a person can take.
mar 30, 2025, 11:46 am • 8 0 • view
Yep
mar 30, 2025, 12:41 pm • 0 0 • view
Small town America has been dying for quite some time. Some are being spruced up, but they're still small towns. Those towns are closer to the big cities. So I guess bring small town America back, but make them medium so the cities aren't overcrowded with rural buttholes and their stupid trucks.
mar 30, 2025, 8:16 am • 2 0 • view
My husband took this photo at our Walmart in Malvern arkansas. Its scary here. Our sherrif was arrested by the fbi for corruption! We haven't had a sheriff in 3 years! Overrun by evangelicals and bigots. The poor people are left here to rot.
mar 30, 2025, 2:31 pm • 3 0 • view
And there are no jobs. My husband commutes for work and I haven't worked in town since high-school. The jobs are low paying factory jobs and even then few and far between.
mar 30, 2025, 2:33 pm • 0 0 • view
We have a Walmart and a couple mom and pop grocery stores. And they're owned by these assholes too! We have a church every mile and a car lot every 2! I pass about 6 dollar generals on my way to work 20 miles away!
mar 30, 2025, 2:34 pm • 0 0 • view
But we own 10 acres and our house and we've been here our whole lives. Both of us are 5th+ generation families to this area. Its hard to leave behind.
mar 30, 2025, 2:36 pm • 0 0 • view
🤔🤔🤔The root of America’s struggle is in the red rural spaces. You mean to tell me that we have people gone “AWOL?” Interesting enough, I left the heartland of a big urban space to join the struggle at the root level.
mar 30, 2025, 12:29 pm • 1 0 • view
Like that old saying goes, how you gonna keep em down on the farm once they see the big city? My Okie fam came west with the Dust Bowl. Only one continued farming once in Cali. Hardest way in the world to make a living, & as a gardener, I respect how tough it is. Not enough city folk do.
mar 30, 2025, 5:23 am • 11 0 • view
Many of us have experienced rural America as the place where people hated on us and anyone else who wasn't just like them. So when we're asked to spare a tear for those people, we say, "yeah, no."
mar 30, 2025, 4:00 pm • 5 0 • view
I left rural Michigan because the job prospects were horrible... and so were the residents.
mar 30, 2025, 2:08 pm • 4 0 • view
I'm one of them. Grew up in a mid-sized town where a once thriving local economy took a dump thanks to Reaganomics. The best and brightest left to go to brighter futures while the racist dimwits stayed behind. You can imagine how that turned out.
mar 30, 2025, 5:20 am • 17 2 • view
Those dimwits picked a rapist felon tv game show host to be their President, TWICE. We are fucked as a country because of those dimwits. We have failed.
mar 30, 2025, 6:16 am • 13 0 • view
When did Urban sprawl become rural neighborhoods? You seem to want isolation without responsibility.
mar 30, 2025, 12:52 pm • 1 0 • view
Ohio. All the smart, thoughtful, well-educated young people are leaving the state.
mar 30, 2025, 11:56 am • 6 0 • view
Can attest to this. I graduated from a class of 25, moved to a city, and the thought of going back to my hometown is not desirable at all. Small-town group think is wild.
mar 30, 2025, 3:49 pm • 4 0 • view
Don’t stand in fear. Every day get loud, show up and every day call your reps and Mike Johnson (202) 225-2777 John Thune (202) 224-2321 Chuck Schumer (202) 224-6542 Hakeem Jefferies (202) 225-5936 Call for impeachment or treason charges. Use 5calls.org if you need help.
mar 30, 2025, 12:08 pm • 2 0 • view
rollcall.com/2016/11/10/i...
mar 30, 2025, 1:48 pm • 2 0 • view
My mother was born in North Dakota and couldn't leave fast enough. She eventually landed in San Francisco. I am Bay Area born. Now live in a small city outside Atlanta. Big regret.
mar 30, 2025, 3:40 pm • 1 0 • view
Once all the farm land is taken by corporate farms, there will be little reason to live in rural areas. It's sad.
mar 30, 2025, 3:33 pm • 0 0 • view
I grew up in rural WI. I left after HS, got my degree, did a stint in the military, and spent about a decade living abroad. I moved back to my hometown about 8 years ago after 20+ years elsewhere because my parents are retired now, but the brain drain is real! Everyday, I wonder WTF I'm doing here.
mar 30, 2025, 11:41 am • 3 0 • view
True - everyone from my generation with a college degree left West Virginia. My family - we all left. Three dentist, two orthodontist, mathematician, business major. Elementary principal, 5 engineers, etc. we all left. (Take me home, country roads…)
mar 30, 2025, 4:14 pm • 1 0 • view
I left and never went back!
mar 30, 2025, 11:48 pm • 1 0 • view
Red cities and towns and states are about to belly up because of all the stupid cuts the SuperJackasses are making to Fed Agencies, jobs and funding. It’s always awesome seeing MAGATs get gobsmacked in their fat ugly faces by their own stupidity and hate based votes that destroys their lives.
mar 30, 2025, 8:16 am • 3 0 • view
Exactly
mar 30, 2025, 8:03 pm • 0 0 • view
Bring back rural hospitals and small medical practices.
mar 30, 2025, 5:39 am • 8 0 • view
That's not profitable, United Healthcare won't stand for that.
mar 30, 2025, 6:20 am • 6 0 • view
My kids hate visiting central Illinois unless it’s Champaign Urbana because they grew up in LA where they were the only white people at their school and they loved it. They feel creeped out walking thru Walmart in Lincoln and everyone is white. They like diversity of food, thought & faith.
mar 30, 2025, 6:04 am • 17 1 • view
Jess, I wish I could meet with you in Logan county and Douglas county in central Illinois and do events. Lots of farm families and educators that I know who are republicans but know me and might come to listen. Even Obama came to Lincoln College to speak and received a standing ovation.
mar 30, 2025, 6:02 am • 3 1 • view
I grew up in a very small town in Central Illinois. My father was a farmer as were my grandparents. I moved to Chicago after college and then on to Los Angeles. I had 12 students in 8th grade and 5 have moved out of state.
mar 30, 2025, 5:24 am • 12 0 • view
Which small town in central Illinois, Shawn? I lived in Hamilton for a few years before moving to a small farm outside of Carthage.
mar 30, 2025, 5:43 am • 4 0 • view
Is Carthage near Peoria or western part of Illinois? I can’t remember.
mar 30, 2025, 6:00 am • 1 0 • view
Yes. Almost to Iowa.
mar 30, 2025, 6:38 am • 2 0 • view
I lived in a few: Newman, Villa Grove, Ottawa but primarily in Beason, a town of 200, and Lincoln which is where I went to high school. College at IWU in Bloomington and grad school at Champaign Urbana.
mar 30, 2025, 5:59 am • 0 0 • view
💙
mar 30, 2025, 6:38 am • 1 0 • view
I’m one of them. Grew up in SD and left at the age of 19 because of the racism and small mindedness in that state.
mar 30, 2025, 12:44 pm • 4 0 • view