{"id":40135,"date":"2025-08-14T12:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T12:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=40135"},"modified":"2025-08-21T03:59:32","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T03:59:32","slug":"why-rural-coloradans-feel-ignored-%e2%88%92-a-resentment-as-old-as-america-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/why-rural-coloradans-feel-ignored-%e2%88%92-a-resentment-as-old-as-america-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"Why rural Coloradans feel ignored \u2212 a resentment as old as America itself"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kayla Gabehart<\/a>, Michigan Technological University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many rural Coloradans, especially in agricultural communities, feel looked down on by their urban counterparts. One cattle rancher I spoke to put it plainly. \u201cIt\u2019s an attitude \u2026 we are the idiots \u2026 we are the dumb farmers \u2026 we don\u2019t really matter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sentiment is also portrayed in popular culture such as the hit TV show \u201cYellowstone<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the one constant in life. You build something worth having, someone\u2019s gonna try to take it,\u201d says patriarch John Dutton. He was facing repeated threats by developers from \u201cthe city\u201d to annex his land for a luxury hotel and resort development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a policy scholar<\/a>, I\u2019ve talked to and interviewed many dozens of people<\/a> in rural areas in Colorado. I\u2019ve also read hundreds of newspaper articles and watched hundreds of hours of legislative testimony that capture the sentiment of rural people being left behind, left out and snubbed by their urban counterparts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, I studied the divide between rural and urban Coloradans<\/a> by looking at their responses to four statewide policies. A designated day to forgo eating meat, two political appointees and the ongoing wolf reintroduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These policies, while specific to Colorado, are symptoms of something larger. Namely, an ever-urbanizing, globalized world that rural, agricultural citizens feel is leaving them behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018MeatOut\u2019 or misstep?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My expertise doesn\u2019t just come from my research \u2013 I\u2019ve lived it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grew up in a rural community in Elbert County, Colorado, about an hour- and-a-half southeast of Denver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early 2021, Gov. Jared Polis declared via proclamation that March 20 would be a \u201cMeatOut Day<\/a>.\u201d For health and environmental reasons, Colorado residents were encouraged to forgo meat<\/a> for a single day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supported by the Farm Animal Rights Movement, MeatOuts have been promoted across the U.S. since the 1980s<\/a>. Typically, gubernatorial proclamations, of which hundreds are passed each year<\/a> and are completely ceremonial<\/a> and devoid of any long-term formal policy implications, go largely unnoticed. And in Denver, Colorado\u2019s metropolitan center, this one did too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not so in rural Colorado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My neighbors in Elbert County promptly responded with outrage, flying banners and flags declaring their support for agriculture and a carnivorous diet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One rancher from Nathrop painted a stack of hay bales to say, \u201cEat Beef Everyday<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Communities all over the state, and even in neighboring states, responded with \u201cMeatIns<\/a>,\u201d where they gathered to eat meat and celebrate agriculture and the rural way of life. They also coupled these events with fundraisers<\/a>, for various causes, for which hundreds of thousands of dollars<\/a> were raised across the state. While Polis backed off the MeatOut after 2021, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has, just this year, supported a similar \u201cEat Less Meat<\/a>\u201d campaign, prompting similar rural outrage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did I mention there are nearly 36,000 cattle in Elbert County<\/a>? This is relatively typical of a rural Colorado county, particularly on the Plains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Colorado, 2.7 million cattle are raised annually, with a value of US$4.5 billion<\/a>. The industry is consistently the top agricultural commodity and the second-largest contributor<\/a> to Colorado\u2019s GDP, at about $7.7 billion per year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early March 2021, Polis declared March 22 \u201cColorado Livestock Proud Day<\/a>,\u201d in response to the backlash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other policies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This came on the heels of several policies supported by Polis prior to the MeatOut controversy that critics considered anti-agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, he appointed Ellen Kessler<\/a>, a vegan and animal rights activist, to the State Veterinary Board. Kessler criticized 4-H programs, designed to educate youth on agriculture and conservation, on her social media<\/a>, insisting they \u201cdon\u2019t teach children that animal lives matter.\u201d Kessler resigned in March 2022, just days before she was cited for 13 counts of animal cruelty<\/a>. More recently, in May 2025, Polis appointed Nicole Rosmarino<\/a> to head the State Land Board. Rosmarino has ties to groups that oppose traditional agricultural practices, historically a key component of Colorado State Land Board operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"People
Community members gather at the Colorado Parks and Wildlife hunter education building in Denver. Colorado ranchers petitioned the state\u2019s wildlife commission to delay the next round of wolf releases in September 2024. The petition was denied. Hyoung Chang\/Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then came wolf reintroduction<\/a>, passed by urban voters by just under 57,000 votes<\/a> in the 2020 general election<\/a> and supported by the governor. Those in support advocated for a return to natural biodiversity; wolves were hunted to extinction<\/a> in the 1940s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rural residents voted decidedly against<\/a> the initiative. Despite much legislative and grassroots action to oppose it, wolves were reintroduced in December 2023<\/a> in various areas along the Western Slope, in close proximity to many ranches. Several cattle have since been killed by wolves<\/a>. Ever since, rural interests have been working to overturn wolf reintroduction<\/a> on the 2026 ballot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An American mess<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Rural residents in Colorado have told me they feel excluded. This is not new or exclusive to Colorado, but a story as old as America itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

University of Wisconsin political scientist Katherine J. Cramer wrote about this rural exclusion in Wisconsin, calling it \u201crural resentment<\/a>.\u201d Berkeley sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild called it \u201cstolen pride<\/a>.\u201d In their book, Tom Schaller, a political scientist at the University of Maryland, and Paul Waldman, a longtime journalist, characterize it as \u201cwhite rural rage<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a dynamic that descends from slavery. Isabel Wilkerson, in her book \u201cCaste: The Origins of Our Discontents<\/a>,\u201d demonstrates that while Black Americans have historically been relegated to the bottom of the hierarchy of an American caste system<\/a>, poor white people are strategically positioned just above them but below white Americans of higher socioeconomic status. As Wilkerson explains, this is a durable system sustained by norms, laws and cultural expectations that feel \u201cnatural<\/a>.\u201d But they are entirely constructed and designed by the American upper class to intentionally exploit resentment of working-class white people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is what sociologist Michael M. Bell calls a \u201cspatial patriarchy<\/a>\u201d that characterizes rural America as dumb, incapable, racist, poor and degraded as \u201cwhite trash.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This spatial patriarchy<\/a> is as old as industrialization and urbanization. One of the first policy iterations was rural school consolidation<\/a> during the turn of the 20th century, designed to modernize schools and make them more efficient. Urban policymakers were influenced by eugenics<\/a> and the assumption that rural schools \u201cwere populated by cognitively deficient children whose parents had not been smart enough or fortunate enough to leave the decaying countryside<\/a>,\u201d according to sociologist Alex DeYoung.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, states around the country consolidated schools, the lifeblood of rural communities. Where a school closed, the town often died, as in small towns, schools are not just socioeconomic hubs<\/a> but centers of cultural and social cohesion<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Environmental impact<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The same concept \u2013 that urban policymakers know better than rural Americans \u2013 is manifest in the modern environmental movement. Like with the MeatOut, rural communities also distrust environmental policies that, in their view, intentionally target a rural way of life<\/a>. Rural communities take the position that they\u2019ve been made to bear the brunt of the transformations of the global economy<\/a> for generations, including those that deal with energy and the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, environmentalists frequently call for lowering meat consumption<\/a> and enacting livestock taxes<\/a> to lower global greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, there\u2019s a huge, untapped potential for environmental policies that use language consistent with rural attitudes and values<\/a>, such as ideas about conservation and land stewardship. Political scientists Richard H. Foster and Mark K. McBeth<\/a> explain, \u201cRural residents perceive, probably correctly, that environmental \u2018outsiders\u2019 are perfectly willing to sacrifice local economic well-being and traditional ways of life on the altar of global environmental concerns.\u201d They instead suggest \u201cemphasizing saving resources for future generations\u201d so that rural communities may continue to thrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations<\/a> attribute between 18% to 24% of greenhouse gas emissions to agriculture, while the International Panel on Climate Change places the estimate closer to 10%<\/a>. However, agricultural producers point out that, while they may be responsible for that 10%, just 100 companies<\/a>, such as BP and ExxonMobil, have produced 70% of all emissions. Agricultural producers say policies such as livestock taxes would disproportionately impact small-scale farmers and intensify rural inequality<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rural communities have the distinct feeling that urban America doesn\u2019t care whether they fail or flourish<\/a>. Nearly 70% of rural voters supported Trump<\/a> in the 2024 presidential election. He won 93% of rural counties<\/a>. Rural Americans feel left behind, and for them, Trump might be their last hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kayla Gabehart<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy, Michigan Technological University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kayla Gabehart, Michigan Technological University Many rural Coloradans, especially in agricultural communities, feel looked down on by their urban counterparts. One cattle rancher I spoke to put it plainly. \u201cIt\u2019s an attitude \u2026 we are the idiots \u2026 we are the dumb farmers \u2026 we don\u2019t really matter.\u201d The sentiment is also portrayed in popular […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":40136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,8025,277,15306,46,42,827,10,25,118,296,36,4,828,15533,38],"tags":[216,5780,6834,1907,144,885,891,886,860,14506,585,2077,16754,2076,2646],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40135"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40199,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40135\/revisions\/40199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}