If locally-tailored progressive populist programs take root in rural communities, the fruits of these programs will restore communities to economic, civic, and democratic health and provide rural voters with a more ideologically diverse choice of candidates.

Negotiating, funding, and implementing such programs requires depolarization of the divides that prevent liberal and conservative, and (sub)urban and rural residents, from finding common cause.

Toward that end, RUBI has four areas of focus: