People’s Action director: Media misses ‘basically everything’ about rural voters

George Goehl, the director of the progressive group People’s Action, said Wednesday that the media misses “basically everything” about rural voters.

Goehl told Hill.TV’s “Rising” that mainstream media coverage is “missing people’s humanity” and leaves out the fact that “a lot of” people in rural counties “rejected” President Trump and voted for 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and/or former President Obama. 

He added that the media forgets “that people are much more complicated ideologically than we might think” as rural communities also held demonstrations against family separation at the border and in support of Black Lives Matter, which he said “barely gets covered.” 

“I think there’s an over fascination. One with the Trump voter, and one this kind of characterization that, like, everybody that lives in a rural, majority-white community is like a Trump-loving, backward racist,” he said. 

“And to be honest, in the larger progressive project, that makes our work so much harder because a lot of things we heard from people … is ‘I want to be on the team, but it’s not really clear that you all want me on the team,’” he said, referring to his group’s canvassing project in rural communities.