Rural Pain, Republican Gain : How the Republican Party Is Killing Rural America and Why Democrats Are Blamed / Michael E. Shepherd.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Shepherd, Michael E., Author.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Chicago University of Chicago Press, [2026]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

An eye-opening look at how Republican policies have affected health outcomes in rural communities and why poor, rural white voters are turning to the Republican Party-not despite this harm, but because of it. Over the last four decades, the health of rural Americans has been in free fall. Just as opioid and gun deaths have ripped apart rural communities, hospitals have closed at alarming rates, leaving millions desperately far from care. At the same time, voters in struggling rural communities have increasingly come to vote for the Republican Party. In Rural Pain, Republican Gain , Michael E. Shepherd demonstrates that these two trends are closely connected. At both the federal and state levels, the Republican Party has increasingly enacted policies that worsen rural health. Rural voters are not indifferent to this development (quite the contrary), but they misassign blame, in part, because the Democratic Party is more commonly associated with health-related policy initiatives and has ownership of health as an issue area. Republican politicians can reap rewards from their own destructive policies by appealing to the shared grievances of rural people. Shepherd draws on new, wide-ranging data, including in-depth studies of the opioid epidemic, hospital closures, and COVID-19. In so doing, he quantifies the harm of Republican policymaking and its disproportionate effect on rural communities, recasting how readers understand growing Republican support among less healthy, lower-income rural white Americans.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

1 Introduction

PART I Republican Policies and Rural Health

Introduction

2 The Right Against Life

3 Snake Oil States

PART II Race, Place, and the Rural Right

4 Under the Elephant: How the Rural Sick and Poor Became Republicans

5 Place and Prejudice: How Rural Identities Undermine Health

PART III The Rural Health Spiral in Three Acts

6 Deaths of Deceit: The Politics of the Opioid Epidemic

7 Dying for the Donald: The Politics of the Rural Hospital Crisis

8 COVID Comes to the Countryside

9 Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed August 05 2026)

ISBN:

9780226851808