Tractor Supply and the Myth of Rural America
No, We're Not All Bigots
Edit: This post was punted backward in time, for reasons not worth getting into. It remains important enough, I think, that it should hit the last day of 2024…particularly as we’re seeing a more wholesale retreat from important equity work in Big Bizness.
A week or so back1, I got an email from Tractor Supply telling me I had $2 in Neighbor rewards. I won’t be redeeming them, because a few days before that, as you know, the company also told me (and you, I’m sure) that I’m not the right kind of neighbor.
“We deeply value our relationship with our customers and the communities we call home,” TSC writes in a press release announcing their decision to end support for Pride, commitments to DEI, and efforts to reduce carbon use. They officially caved to right wing “values,” likely because one particular right wing loudmouth podcaster was making noise about how Tractor Supply was doing stuff (read: not being awful to the LGBTQ+ community, trying to improve conditions for non-white employees, and doing something to recognize the threat of climate change) he claimed was inconsistent with the TSC customer base.
Which makes it clear: in the current economic-political calculous, TSC decided to go along with the myth that rural America is no place for people who, y’know, care about climate change, about LGBTQ+ rights, about social equity. Tractor Supply said they heard the right wing criticism loud and clear and would instead focus their efforts on issues they say matter to rural places, like support for military veterans2.
It’s no surprise that these weasely TSC moves come after a pressure campaign by right wing groups who have been gloating about their win. But that language the company uses in their release is still jarring, when you think about it. “Tractor Supply has been focused on one thing…serving Life Out Here,” the company writes. I live Out Here. Many of you reading this do also. Likely many of us shop at Tractor Supply.3 But as often happens, life in rural America is reduced to a caricature of “conservative” MAGA values.
I grew up on a farm. I was president of my childhood 4H Club. In fact, I’ve lived almost my entire life in rural America, even though I have been sold caricatures of rural backwardness forever. Despite those myths, I care about environmental protections, support the LGBTQ+ community, and believe Americans need to continue to address the way a long history of racialized politics has made it hard to consistently get a fair shake if you aren’t white. A lot of my neighbors are like me.
Still “Out Here,” to use the parlance of TSC, has been defined by illusions. Consider support for veterans. That’s certainly an important and laudable position, particularly for a place like rural America where the USDA estimates 11% of residents have served in the Armed Forces. 11% is a lot of people.4
But, wouldn’t you know it, 11% is also a percentage similar to the estimated number of folks who identify as LGBTQ+.5 Since being or not being gay has nothing to do with a person’s zip code, it stands to read just about as many rural Americans are members of the LGBTQ+ community as are veterans. Heck — brace yourself — there are even rural gay veterans. So when a company removes public support for Pride, that doesn’t change those percentages. It just means many people in rural America are being told, once again, they have no place their hometowns. And they are made less safe because of the cowardice of the company.
Similarly, the impacts of climate change don’t disappear out in the sticks. In fact, farmers are already getting crunched by more energetic storms, chaotic warming and freezing cycles, droughts, and all manner of climate change driven effects. Farmers are front line casualties of climate change, yet the knee jerk oversimplification of MAGA politics makes it seem like being rural and caring about the environment are not compatible. Reducing carbon emissions should be a priority in rural America, if actual impacts were judged.
Sadly, myths do most of the work for politics. Just as it’s easy for right wingers to repeat rural stereotypes, my guess is that many Americans who don’t live “Out Here” easily accept them too. Rural Americans have been quick to suffer blame for the rise of right wing extremism in American politics, and election night maps do little to offer a counter story, even though MAGA extremism is strong in the suburbs. It’s always been convenient to blame the country hicks.
This isn’t just about Tractor Supply. They made a calculation. I don’t like it, and I’m going to lose those two bucks in rewards (poor me, right?)6. The bigger issue is that the political outrage machine is going to keep spinning myths of rural America, because it’s been working out for them quite nicely at the ballot box. But the rest of us need to start recognizing these caricatures as the lies they are. We need to stop handing rural spaces — and rural elections — to the hard right, to the haters, and the bigots, and the climate deniers. We need to stop pretending everyone Out Here wears a MAGA hat.
By The Way
Have you ordered the book yet? Or told a friend about it?
Wellll….it was a week or two back when I wrote this, which was several months backs.
I’ve got no problem with support for veterans. Though we need to, as always, think about the way displays of patriotism too easily paper over America’s fetish for violent versions of “the good guy.”
Lately, I only shop there for dog food that prevents our dog from farting noxious clouds of ick. But I grew up going to Tractor Supply for farm stuff, and my family was part of that secret society that got to say, “yep,” when the cashier asked if the purchase was tax exempt (because it was for a working farm). That also felt more than a little cool, in an Appalachian rock-farming sort of way.
We also need to think about why so many rural Americans wind up in the military, which as a lot more to do with generational poverty and a lack of access to post-HS opportunity than it does with some inherent streak of rural patriotism. The military offers a way forward for a lot of rural kids, as it does for poor kids in, say, urban zones, but we definitely need to think about how failures to address generational poverty actually maintain a recruiting pipeline for the military. If fewer people needed the military to escape curtailed futures, fewer people would sign up. We might even want to ask if keeping people poor might actually be a strategy to ensure a market for recuitments.
Such estimates are pretty dang hard to accurately gather, since many many people have to stay in the closet for safety. I imagine the actual average of LGBTQ+ Americans is likely higher than the percentage of rural veterans, if we were honest and open about such things.
And there’s a real risk of gaseous clouds of dog fart in the house!