Tariffs are, literally, all the rage these days. Are they always bad? Can they ever be useful? How do they impact rural industries and communities? Trade attorney Lori Wallach tells us how we got into this mess and discuss how we can understand tariffs in the context of global trade agreements going back to 1944.

In a state Trump won by 20-points, Independent Dan Osborn came within six points of unseating a two-term Republican incumbent Senator. Dan talks about his campaign, what he ran on, and how, when and where Independents can run to win rural races.

Why did some deindustrialized mid-western factory towns make a right-wing turn while others retained their Democratic allegiance? Stephanie Ternullo interviewed working class residents in three very different small post-industrial cities in Wisconsin, Indiana and Minnesota. Her learnings open up new possibilities for candidates to reach voters many assume have been lost for good.

Democrat Sarah Keyeski defeated the Republican incumbent in her rural Wisconsin state senate race. Sarah will talk about their campaigns, what they ran on, and what they see as the keys to their success.

A conversation with Arlie Hochschild about her new book, Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right. Arlie has spent the last few years talking with blue collar men in Pikeville, Kentucky about their lives, their dreams and their disappointments. The men in her book wonder whether or not their jobs, their region, and their self-worth have simply been lost or—as Donald Trump tells them about the 2020 election—have been “stolen.”

Our panelists crunch the numbers and analyze voting behavior to get a picture of who voted, how they voted, and why. We examine national rural voting patterns and then zoom in for a closer look at North Carolina, Montana, Penn, and mid-western factory towns.

Meet the man who "brought the class war to the DNC." John Russell, a self-described "dirtbag journalist", is a labor and class politics reporter for More Perfect Union and has his own Substack called The Holler ("class politics for rednecks and hippies"). An Appalachian, Ohio Valley native who ran for Congress, John made his way to the 2024 DNC mainstage where he gave an electrifying speech calling on working class Americans to come together for control of our government and workplaces. John has also produced a viral video where he interviewed Trump supporters at a rally in Erie, PA.

RUBI's own co-founder and Communications Director, Erica Etelson, shares highlights from two new RUBI resources: The Back Road to 2024: 8 Ways to Depolarize Rural Electoral Campaigns and Talk Like a Neighbor: Communication Tips for Rural Candidates. In this era of peak polarization, left-leaning candidates who can defuse partisan hostility stand a better chance of appealing to soft Republicans, swing voters, and the "exhausted majority" of the electorate. Erica is the author of Beyond Contempt: How Liberals Can Communicate Across the Great Divide and co-writes the Rethinking Rural column for The Nation.

As we get closer to the November election, many progressive and Democratic strategists advise a focus on “turning out the base,” while others prioritize persuading independents and other potentially movable voters. But what if “the base” for progressive and Democratic candidates is shifting? And what if one of the biggest blocs of potential voters for Joe Biden and Democratic candidates – working class and rural people – is showing signs of shifting their votes away from MAGA Republicans towards more populist progressive representatives? In this presentation, Sarah Jaynes, Founder and Executive Director of the Rural Democracy Initiative, provides an overview of fascinating new rural polling and the work of more than 100 organizations and initiatives making headway in rural America. Sarah also highlights some candidates running in rural districts with a strong chance of winning.

In 2000, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly told a Washington Post reporter, “We’re the only show from a working-class point of view.” Liberals and progressives found this laughable. O’Reilly’s show and Fox News constantly boosted a party inflicting deep wounds on working-class people: undermining unions, blocking more affordable health care, and starving public services through tax cuts on the rich. How could he possibly represent a working-class audience? In this presentation, communication scholar Reece Peck explains how conservative media producers learned to effectively brand political conservatism as blue-collar by appealing to working-class taste, knowledge, and morality.