Acting locally in the wake of national upheaval In the past week, one of the most astute post-election explainers was an essay on Cracked using examples from three movies?The Hunger Games, Star Wars, Braveheart?to help explain why the 2016 election was not about Republicans vs. Democrats, but really about The Country vs. The City.
That?s the narrative that many are clinging to this year: People who live in rural communities felt exceptionally angry towards a federal government that failed them, and voted for a new direction.
Maps of new jobs and new businesses over the last few years were rolled out that showed little economic growth outside of cities, which helped to feed growing resentment towards city-dwellers.
?We country folk are programmed to hate the prissy elites,? writes David Wong in his Cracked piece. ?So yes, they vote for the guy promising to put things back the way they were, the guy who'd be a wake-up call to the blue islands. They voted for the brick through the window. It was a vote of desperation.?
2016 presidential election results by county

The ?blue islands in a sea of red? phenomenon is nothing new, of course. The country?s largest urban metropolises have voted Democratic for decades. These urban-liberal ?bubbles? created by bigger cities are being blamed for not exposing these Americans to political opinions different from their own, magnified by the death of local news outlets, a lack of diversity in the newsroom, and the...