The official “GOP” Twitter account didn’t expect Rep. Josh Harder when they tweeted out a photo of some farmland from above and made what they must have thought was a very clever joke about “coastal elites.” The photo turned out to be of a part of the Central Valley area of California, which is of course a coastal state, and Harder, a Democrat, wasn’t about to let them get away with this misrepresentation.
“Wait until the coastal elites find out that this is where their food comes from!” the GOP account wrote.
“Wait until the @GOP find out this is my district,” Harder hit back.
As it turns out, many rural areas of the U.S., in and outside of California, are represented by Democrats and contain a high number of people who are liberal, leftist, or identify as something else that Republicans might find reprehensible. Many farmers — at least the real ones, not counting big agriculture conglomerates — live on very low incomes and understand the value of social services and generally helping each other out, defying hyper-independent cowboy stereotypes.
Meanwhile, if there’s anyone who’s out of touch, it’s the kind of people ordering interns to post on Twitter for them after they took a photo literally in the sky, from what may or may not be a private jet. Federal GOP representatives are not hitchhiking back to their farms after working around 200 days per year in Washington D.C. They’re jetting back to their mansions and penthouses.
One of the most high-profile Republican candidates for the Senate last year couldn’t even figure out the right ingredients to get for crudités, let alone make sure he knows the actual name of the grocery store he deigned to set foot in for an attempted political ad. Remember when Donald Trump revealed that he thought you needed an ID to buy groceries while defending voter ID laws?
Republicans often trot out the “coastal elites” accusations against Democrats in spite of the fact that many of them are richer than their liberal counterparts and generally cater more to the rich and big business, while fighting any legislation that might help the poor.
In the South, many rural districts populated heavily by poor people of color are so gerrymandered and strangled by voter suppression by the GOP that no matter how hard they vote, they end up being represented by Republicans. This can lead to the impression that this entire region of the U.S. is dominated by white Trump fans, but often this couldn’t be further from the truth.
