Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
The divisions in our nation mostly lie along urban and rural lines. Why is that?
Recently I spent a week in Memphis. It’s famous for Beale Street and the Blues, Elvis’s Graceland and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, but as is the case with any famous city, it’s so much more than what it’s known for.
The Greater Memphis area population is about 1.3 million, but the latest Census count puts it at 633,104 inside the city limits. It should be no surprise that, in 2020, Biden won big there, carrying all of Shelby County with 64.4% of the vote.
Contrast that with, say, Tucumcari, population 5,278, in Quay County, population 8,746. It’s about 40 miles from the Texas state line, and it shows in its politics; 68% of Quay County’s voters went for Trump in 2020.
They don’t call this area of eastern New Mexico “Little Texas” for nothing, you know. It’s also a microcosm of rural America, because the conservative values found in Tucumcari are all over rural America.
Of course, there are exceptions, such as rural northern New Mexico where support for Democrats dominates local politics, but overall, America is divided between liberal urban-dwellers and conservative country folk. It’s urban left, rural right, and it’s more than just politics. It’s cultural.
The World Wide Web has certainly made the world smaller, but technologically urban centers are a step ahead - and that complicates things for them. Sure, modern “conveniences” are marketed to make life easier, but do they really make life better?
In the cities, you’ve got Uber Eats to deliver your favorite restaurant fixings to your doorstep, while Instacart will provide you with grocery deliveries and pickup services. But in a small town, neighbors help neighbors. If you need someone to bring you groceries or a hot meal, someone will be happy to.
It’s built into the cultural fabric of rural life that, when someone is in distress, someone else will step forward to help.
It’s the difference between personal human interaction and “an app for that.”
Moreover, you’ll find differences in matters of faith.
Here in small town New Mexico, it’s not uncommon to find Catholic majorities, with a few smaller protestant churches scattered around. But in the cities like Memphis, you’ll find megachurches of all denominations. And synagogues. And mosques. And just about any other faith you choose to believe in.
In other words, there’s a greater diversity of beliefs in the cities. Contrary to what a lot of the small-town faithful choose to believe, freedom of religion is greater in the cities than in rural areas.
Which leads us back to politics. Liberalism is born out of diversity, while conservatism grows out of familiarity and wanting to preserve it. Unfortunately, the ideal of true conservatism has lost its place in this era of Trump, so that now the Republican Party has been taken over by reactionaries - and that has further divided our nation along tribal lines.
Still, we have our commonalities. In small towns and big cities alike, people care about each other. Others, in much smaller numbers, seek to hurt each other.
Acts of kindness and bouts of violence are on display throughout our nation, and neither the cities nor the small towns have a lock on the good, bad and/or ugly of our American life.
Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at: