Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

The car dependency of rural America is certainly worth discussing, and this specific grocery store case does have consequences. As one example, in towns like this retirement homes or apartments catering to older people are often within walking or shuttle distance of a town center with a grocery store, which helps preserve independence for people who no longer drive. But the focus of the article is strange, and seems to come from a rather urban mindset. Lines like "nowhere to buy even a banana" don't square with "the only grocer within 15 miles shut down last year" or "5 million people in rural areas have to travel 10 miles or more to buy groceries". A ten mile drive is not short, but it's not actually unusual for many services in the (mid-)western US. (Which is probably why the people interviewed don't share the reporter's focus on distance.) People living on actual farms may well have been ten miles from the grocery store too!

The most telling line in the piece is: "In town after town, people said their greatest challenge was enticing their neighbors away from dollar stores or the Walmart four towns over." Meaning, one, that people are already driving for groceries. And two, that finding out there's a grocery store in down didn't persuade them to switch. I looked up Mountanair to see where people were shopping, since 45 miles to a grocer is unusually long. (It's Family Dollar or a 45-mile drive to Belen.) In the process, I ran into this review for B Street Market, the new local grocer discussed in the story: "It's the only grocery store in town... Nice people that work there but[...] prices so high that you don't even want to go in there.... It's worth the drive to Belen[...] to go get groceries plus a lot better selection." Ending Mountainair's story with the happy news that it once again has a grocery store was only half the picture.

I think that poor choice of focus causes the story to neglect any truly interesting analysis. The obvious place to start is not "ten miles to a grocery store" but "the last grocery store went out of business", which leads to a larger discussion of rural America's economic prospects, the price disadvantages faced by non-chain businesses, and the vicious cycle of box stores taking money out of communities and so creating more dependence on low prices. Or else keep pursuing the briefly mentioned topic of where people are shopping - there's a fascinating comparison to urban food deserts, which enforce a similar choice between distant grocers and unhealthy processed foods nearby.

Fundamentally, this feels like pretending that one example of a much larger pattern is special, rather than just a human-interest way of approaching the topic.

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NIMBYism is terrible, and so is whataboutism.

A homeless heroin addict is also getting exactly what he wants from his dealer.

Sometimes, what you want in the short-term is not what's good for you in the long-term.

Whataboutism is sometimes a good way to point out rank hypocrisy.

I didn't vote for Trump and won't, but I totally understand why he won. He won largely by taking traditionally Democratic counties in the Midwest who are fed up with having their jobs sent to totalitarian countries in one-sided trade deals for the benefit of huge corporations. He also won because people look at the coastal "blue" cities and see unaffordable enclaves of the super-rich, not some kind of egalitarian paradise.

They also hear it in the rhetoric. The worst example was Hillary's "deplorables" comment. Yes I know that she meant Nazis, but a ton of people heard "poor and working class." I also must point out that while the Nazi types are noisy there are not really that many of them. Trump could not have won on their support, but he did win with the support of a ton of disenfranchised poor and working class voters.

Note that many of these people hate conventional Republicans as much as they hate Democrats. Trump was viewed as the outsider "fuck you" candidate, basically as a walking Molotov cocktail to toss into DC. "I hope he does as much damage as possible" is one quote I heard from a friend who lives in Ohio. I also read a lot of comments framing the election as Trump vs. Bush/Clinton, seeing Bush and Clinton as interchangeable "establishment" names.

BTW I take whatever opportunity I can to call out NIMBYism. My favorite quip: Texas is more liberal than California because in Texas a poor person can afford a home.