The Ezra Klein Show The Rural Power Behind Trump’s Assault on Blue Cities
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Oct 21, 2025 
Suzanne Mettler, a political scientist and professor at Cornell University, dives into the growing rural-urban divide threatening American democracy. She discusses how rural political coalitions now influence blue cities, revealing the historical unity between urban and rural voters. Mettler explains the role of resentment toward Democratic policies, economic decline, and media narratives in shifting loyalties. She advocates for Democrats to prioritize grassroots organizing and address rural economic concerns to rebuild trust and connections.
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Recent Roots Of The Rural–Urban Split
- The rural-urban political split is recent, growing since the 1990s and now deep and place-based.
- That geographic polarization reduces everyday contact and fuels dangerous us-versus-them politics.
FDR's Coalition Explained The Old Alignment
- FDR built a durable rural–urban coalition through targeted policy that kept rural Americans aligned with Democrats for decades.
- The decline of those policies and rural representation helped weaken that bridge after the 1980s and 1990s.
Policy Views Don't Fully Explain The Divide
- Rural and urban white Americans often share similar policy views but vote differently across place.
- The divide is therefore more about partisan identity and grievance than large issue disagreement.
