Readers React: Urban or rural, it doesn’t matter -- we’re all in it together

To the editor: Victor Davis Hanson apparently thinks our country is divided between urban dwellers, described as “decadent” and “dependent,” and the paragons of virtue and self-sufficiency in rural America. Spending time in urban America makes him “brood” about the urban “elite that runs the country.” (“How the widening urban-rural divide threatens America,” Op-Ed, Nov. 1)

But the many benefits of modern life were all achieved via interdependence and cooperation, often with the direct support of government. Fortunately for rural dwellers, anti-collectivism didn’t prevent the government’s rural electrification and interstate highway programs.

Although partisan politics has twisted pride in partial self-sufficiency into contempt for those perceived as imposing collectivism, why not recognize the necessity of interdependence, even between urban and rural America? Otherwise, those who often bellow about taking their country back risk taking it backward instead.

Jon Thingvold, Murrieta

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