Rural Caucus

Maybe! Do you live in a community with less than 100,000 people in it? Do you live in a red, often gerrymandered district? Does your community have a strong history of extractive industry (think: tourism-dependent economies, big agriculture, mining, or ranching)? Are you in a college town seemingly in the middle of nowhere that relies on the higher education industry to help sustain your local economy? Do you find yourself having to drive long distances for necessities? If you answered “yes” to more than one of these questions, you just might be “rural!”

It’s a common myth that “rural” = white, straight, and more homogenous than the rest of the country. This doesn’t hold up to even the slightest scrutiny. 1 in 4 rural residents are people of color, and that ratio is often higher, especially in the Deep South and the West. Rural areas are also diversifying rapidly. Queer activism, multiracial labor movements, and movements for the liberation of people with disabilities, migrants, Black and brown people, women, and every intersection therein, are core pieces of the rich history of rural America.

We can help with that! If you’re looking to start a group, you can fill out our group registration form. After that, you’ll hear from a member of our staff to help you get started. You can also email rural@indivisible.org to get some pointers on how to get a group started in a rural area.

Have you done your research? Are you aware of your own biases and assumptions about rural? Are you ready to listen rather than lead?

You can look at local news stories in rural areas near you, build rural-led representation into your Indivisible state structures, and talk to rural progressives. We strongly recommend this guide from Anthony Flaccavento at Rural Urban Bridge Initiative as a foundation to build up your knowledge and challenge your assumptions.

Sometimes. Make sure you keep up with our email list and use your best judgment. Remember that you’re a guest in this space, and our programming focuses on folks who work in rural areas. Be a gracious guest, and make space for rural groups to talk to each other.

Times where you might want to join a rural call:

You know your community best, so when in doubt, don’t go out. Rural leaders have successfully put on events without a single hitch. They’ve written letters to the editor, held rallies, been published in local news, canvassed, and called around their neighborhoods without incident. They’ve also faced a lot of pushback at times. All of them have weathered the storm.

YES. Your members of Congress and state legislators may not listen, but your friends and neighbors will.

Many of the votes taken by representatives in rural areas are deeply unpopular in those areas. It’s been proven time and time again that GOP leaders consistently legislate to the right of the people they represent, but constituents can find it extremely cumbersome to track what decision-makers are doing.

We believe when we organize on issues where MAGA extremist positions are unpopular and ours are popular, we can pull more of your friends and neighbors away from the MAGA agenda. When no one fights against MAGA’s preferred narrative, folks can mistakenly assume that those positions are popular, when in fact, those positions (and politicians that peddle them) are extreme. As we tackle these issues over time, we can demonstrate that these leaders are not actually representing rural communities’ values and hold them accountable.

It’s our job as Indivisibles to make unpopular decisions by MAGA extremists as public as possible and show the world who they are, and to remind our friends and neighbors that we are better than the politicians that enact massive harm every day. We have plenty of guidance, slides, and recordings from past calls in our public-facing agenda and resources. Give them a read! You never know what you will find.

Your life as a rural champion for progressive change begins in one click! You can sign up for the Raucous Rural Caucus at https://bit.ly/JoinRural, and get call links, recordings, slides, and updates from the team (we do not spam your inbox, we stay on topic, and we keep it brief). You can also reach out to us any time by emailing rural@indivisible.org.