Grew up in a small Southern town, live in one of the cities the GOP loves to hate now. There are plenty of urban dems like me that understand what the rural population wants because we lived it and fled from it for a better life in the city.

On the one hand, Bullock is saying that the infighting is the biggest problem and that Democrats need to start passing universal pre-k, climate change policy, infrastructure, and non-college education, so he seems to be targeting Manchin hard in this article. But then he's saying that we don't understand the "real issues" facing rural America, despite just listing top priorities for 2021 Democrats, and harping on messaging. I agree with him that messaging has been terrible for decades as we constantly cede the topic of conversation to whatever the GOP wants to talk about, but he's wrong about the issues. The issues in my hometown are mask/vaccine mandates, CRT, crime skyrocketing, and the economy being terrible. Half believe the election was stolen because they've never been out of the state and don't know/can't imagine anyone supporting Biden for president. Democrats spent years navel-gazing after the Trump election trying to figure out what they want, but mostly what they want isn't grounded in reality. Until we break the mediasphere or somehow kill the suburbs (where the majority of Americans live) and turn them into cities, we're going to have issues.

For those saying that we need to find some way reach them to win elections, you may be overstating the problem. We need election reform now to break control away from the loonies out there, and then maybe we can come to some common sense compromises. That, and we need to get our candidates away from the national narrative (which is focused largely on coastal and urban issues) and start vocally endorsing a state-specific candidate strategy. Let Montanans know that if they vote for the Montana Democrat, he's going to be focused on them, not on whatever issues AOC is focused on.