Know Your Enemy: Organizing in Rural America

Know Your Enemy: Organizing in Rural America

Matt and Sam talk to Luke Mayville of Reclaim Idaho about progressive organizing in rural and red America.

Know Your Enemy is a podcast about the American right co-hosted by Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell. Read more about it here. You can subscribe to, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher, and receive bonus content by supporting the podcast on Patreon.

Many people on the broad center-left are asking tough questions about Donald Trump’s strength in rural America—according to one post-election analysis, he won 62 percent of rural voters. To unpack what’s happening in these parts of the country, we talked to Luke Mayville of Reclaim Idaho, a grassroots organization that, among other things, helped win a ballot referendum that expanded Medicaid in the state. Why, when an initiative like that can succeed, or voters in red states reject school vouchers or approve hikes to the minimum wage, does the party that opposes these measures tend to clean up in such places? What can be gleaned from talking to voters from all over a state like Idaho about how they view the two major political parties, understand the role of government, and explain the problems facing them in their lives? We take up these questions and more.

Further Reading:

Luke Mayville, Do Something Big, Commonweal (2020)

— The Battle Against School Vouchers, Commonweal (2023)

— John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy (2016)

Paul Demko, The Ballot Revolt to Bring Medicaid Expansion to Trump Country, Politico (2018)

Daniel Nichanian, How Organizers Are Defending Direct Democracy, Bolts (2023)

Dana Goldstein and Troy Closson, Voters Poised to Reject Private School Vouchers in Three States, New York Times (2024)

Keith Orejel, The Political Economy of the Urban-Rural Divide, Law & Political Economy Project (2024)