Yeah. I get that. I’m actually super aware of the difficulty in upending your life and spending years making shit money with the hope it will get better. I’ve done it.

But seeing as you “country bumpkins” (are we really doing lousy stereotypes?) constantly tell others to pick themselves up by their bootstraps while undercutting social programs as well I figure it was fair game. Y’know, the same people working jobs that minimum wage hasn’t kept up with for more than a decade but keep getting told those jobs aren’t supposed to support a living. No, of course you won’t move. No, you don’t want anything that might change the situation either. No, you won’t take advantage of loans or other assistance and upend your life to make a major change, because doing that sucks and is risky. But that thought process never applies to other people. Crabs in a bucket. Just reinstate some magical yesteryear that in reality pretty much sucked just as bad except for the part where mom still made dinners for you. Your comment is in a nutshell all of this. We won’t change, and fuck those fictional guys over there for taking advantage of a system that doesn’t actually exist.

But the rural parts are also extremely unwelcoming. I have a remote job and those places are typically beautiful and cheap. But it's Trump country where everyone hates people of color, lgbtq, people of no religion, and anyone different. New money could be injected there plenty by the openness of digital work, but who wants to go be surrounded by hate and Trump supporters?

Sorry, not generalizing about you specifically, but the areas for sure.

Fwiw (I sure hope this is not an empty platitude), as a trans woman who'd love to be able to feel safe outside of cities in blue states, who very much knows and experienced that it's not free:

You're absolutely right.

I read this back early 2016, been reeling from it ever since: https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/

We have been divided by the american mythos of "pinko city slicker vs rugged indvidualist rednecks" and the truth is it's all so the boss can take the whole plate of cookies, while scapegoating your brown/queer/whatever co-worker "He's gonna eat your cookie"

I refuse, at least for my inner child anyway, to surrender the love I have for my fellow common person, regardless of where you're from. Sweeping generalization.

There's lots of blame to go around. Big Pharma, Politicians, the way in which the midwest and south's entire economies that were always built on the idea of very high capital using extractive methods to get resources out of the land either cotton or mining or oil or water or agri business, those economies always depend on a few people with a lot of money, and then a whole bunch of people who are poor.

I blame them, not you. I see you. We are not alone. There has got to be a better way.