A shout out to Washington Post reporter Rhonda Colvin for giving us a great look at some of the rural organizing taking place across the country. Resistance groups popping up in places like South Dakota, Ohio, and Alabama are notable for their impact, their growing numbers, and also the composition of their membership, as Susan Kroger explained of her group, LEAD South Dakota.
Most surprisingly, Kroger said, some of her newest members are disappointed Trump voters. The uncertainty over health-care policy has become a top issue driving first-time activists to join their ranks, Kroger and other grass-roots organizers said.
“The exciting thing about our events is that every time we hold one, I always ask ‘Who here is new?’ and about half the people raise their hand,” said Kroger, co-chair of LEAD South Dakota, an abbreviation for Leaders Engaged and Determined. “I’ve heard from a few women who voted for Trump and have since had a change of heart.” [...]
Results of a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll suggest that Trump has long been on shaky ground in parts of rural America. Rural respondents to the April poll were as likely to strongly disapprove of Trump’s job as president as to strongly approve, 30 percent each. When broken down by gender, rural women reported a slightly higher disapproval than rural men, perhaps why many of the grass-roots groups are led by women.
For context, Donald Trump garnered 60 percent of the rural vote in 2016 and took all but five of South Dakota's 66 counties. Yet the rural Resistance began to take root almost immediately as people like 30-year-old Kelly Sullivan organized local events in conjunction with the National Women's March.
Sullivan said a resistance effort has been building in the state since Trump was elected. In January, she co-chaired a local march in conjunction with the national women’s march, attracting nearly 3,300 demonstrators to downtown Sioux Falls in 30 degree temperatures. Sullivan said the experience — seeing the sea of like-minded people — transformed her from a person who never dreamed of being politically active to someone who uses her spare time to call lawmakers. She is also preparing for her own run for a state legislative seat next year.
LEAD South Dakota has a nine-person board of directors and committees tasked with monitoring state legislative activity, candidate recruitment and other efforts. So far, the group is working with 75 candidates who are interested in running for office and is planning to break into chapters across the state to help manage its rapid growth.
If the Women's March was the catalyst, the groups also gained momentum from the fight to defeat the GOP's healthcare repeal effort.
When Moving Forward hosted its first community forum in May, a panel to discuss concerns about health care and immigration, “I was afraid it would be three people and a sign,” said the group’s chair, Jessica Leveto. The forum took place in Jefferson, Ohio — a rural town of about 3,000 people, in a county that cast 57 percent of its votes for Trump.
Nearly 125 people showed up, Leveto said.
Membership has grown from there as the group moved to larger meeting spaces to accommodate attendance. Leveto cites the vote of the area's congressional member, GOP Rep. David Joyce, against repealing the Affordable Care Act as a major win for Moving Forward.
The article also profiled an Alabama group calling itself the Kudzu Coalition, appropriately named after an invasive species that thrives in the South, the Kudzu plant. Founding member Mandy Fowler of West Alabama's Kudzu Coalition explained:
“We grow fast and we connect and we flourish in an area where it can be difficult for others to thrive. We are hard to get rid of."
The renewed energy is particularly good news at a time when Republicans control most state legislatures and governorships, as University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh professor James Simmons noted.
“If you look across the country, and you look at the real change that has happened over the last five or 20 years, it hasn’t happened at the national level, you see policy driven at the state level,” Simmons said. “If you’re talking about populist discontent, this is where it was bubbling.”
It's a beautiful narrative amid the daily cluster of dismal national news: People who were moved to action took inspiration from the Women's March, recognized the power of their numbers and, in some cases, realized that power during the healthcare battle. It's a story of connection and community taking hold and rising up in perhaps unlikely places. Power to the People!