The Political Culture of Wisconsin and Iowa

Two interesting books about Middle West politics were recently published by University of Chicago Press. Authored by Katherine Cramer (professor of political science, University of Wisconsin–Madison) and Josh Pacewicz (assistant professor of sociology and urban studies, Brown University), the books have much in common.

Both focus on Upper Midwest swing states; both are about politics more broadly defined than parties and candidates; both note the partial triumph of post-partisanship in America; both rely on face-to-face interviews of grassroots citizen-voters; both exhibit an understanding of political viewpoints presumably different from the author’s own; both are well-written; and both have incomplete or misleading subtitles.

The Cramer book is not really about Governor Scott Walker or his rise. Instead, it’s a case study of rural Wisconsin populism. What the subtitle of the Pacewicz book gains in alliteration it loses in clarity. It’s really a case study of political culture in two Iowa cities in the post-1980s era. They have many similarities but the two books differ in a few important ways. While the Wisconsin study focuses more on rural communities and political conflict, the Iowa study concentrates on urban communities and political consensus.

Cramer’s book tells us that “many rural residents exhibit an intense resentment against their urban counterparts” (5). During her interviews, she repeatedly “heard that urbanites ignore people in rural areas, take in all of their hard-earned money, and fundamentally disrespect and misunderstand the rural way of life” (11). Cramer draws an astute distinction between political issues and personal understanding: “Perhaps when people vote for a candidate their overarching calculation is not how closely does this person’s stances match my own, but instead, is this person like me? Does this person understand people like me?” Such calculus does not exclude positions on issues but they are not necessarily the overriding factor in voting (7).

While most of us have an intuitive sense of its meaning, Cramer unfortunately does not define the word rural. But she posits, correctly I think, that residents of farms and small towns tend to share a perspective she calls “rural consciousness.” This consciousness includes “(1) a belief that rural areas are ignored by decision makers, including policy makers, (2) a perception that rural areas do not get their fair share of resources, and (3) a sense that rural folks have fundamentally distinct values and lifestyles, which are misunderstood and disrespected by city folks” (12).

Although many Americans feel ignored by, and have a distrust of, government, rural consciousness is linked to a sense that government is “particularly dismissive of the concerns of people in rural communities” (61–62). Chafing under stereotypes of rural folks as backward, stupid, and prejudiced—perhaps clinging to “guns or religion or antipathy,” in the words of Barack Obama in 2008—ruralists feel misjudged even though they have their own stereotypes of people who live in cities.

Many rural Wisconsinites with whom Cramer spent time “used identities rooted in place and class” rather than party (6). Even so, there is a partisan dimension to rural life. Cramer makes an important point when she says, “We tend to talk about red versus blue when we look at electoral maps, but perhaps a more important divide is urban versus rural” (12). This can be seen when looking at a map of county voting in the 2016 election—a sea of red for Trump (across the nation) with islands of blue for Clinton (large cities).

In recent decades, the national Republican Party base has been rooted in rural communities. Formerly a reliably Republican state, and arguably the birthplace of the GOP, Wisconsin has become a swing state in terms of statewide office and presidential elections, with essentially an even balance when it comes to party identification. The core...