“Donald Trump.” Is it “country,” “cowboy” or “rural“? Lately, I have been noticing how country and cowboy culture seem to be everywhere. That’s something I talked about on a recent episode of “The Opinions.” And after that episode, we heard from a lot of listeners. Emily said: “I live in rural East Texas, at the end of a two-mile dirt road. There is a difference between ‘cowboy’ and ‘country.’ ‘Country’ is gardening, raising animals, hunting, fishing. ‘Cowboys’ ride horses; ‘country’ rides side by sides. MAGA is overwhelmingly ‘country’ in my opinion.” You bring up a really good point, Emily. “Country” usually refers to a cultural geography. So, yes, a place, but there’s also the shared traditions and habits that people have. “Cowboy,” on the other hand, is more of an archetype. It anthropomorphizes the West. I realized there is this third, sort of hidden, variable out there, and that is the idea of “rural.” More often we are talking about a low population area, and we tend to be talking about the ideas of economic hardship. So, these ideas, when we use them, they can have very different meanings, and politically, that difference matters. So let’s put that to the test. My editors gave me a list of words. My job is to categorize them. Is it “country,” “cowboy” or “rural“? I have not seen this list ahead of time. The first one is “boots.” Cowboy boots go with the “cowboy.” “Firearms.” Firearms are actually quite expensive to keep and to maintain, and so I don’t want to associate that with just rural life. I think that is more “country.” OK, this one is funny, you guys. “Meat.” Leaning into how significant the archetype of “cowboy” informs our idea of ranching, I’m going to call this one “cowboy.” Now we have “protein.” Considering our political moment, where “protein” has become very loaded with political ideas —— “People should be eating protein.” “Protein.” “More protein.” I am going to categorize “protein” as being “country.” “Donald Trump.” I cannot believe there is a New Yorker on the list, and I have to say what I am about to say. “Donald Trump” is “country” cosplaying occasionally as “rural.” “I’m all about the rural.” But yet, somehow, he still magically, successfully promotes himself as being the true country everyman. “Marjorie Taylor Greene.” I don’t think she quite sells her political aspirations as upward mobility successfully, and so she has this sort of feeling of rural grittiness to her. “Farming.” You can be successful as a farmer, and so it doesn’t have that negative economic valence. So I’m going to go with “country.” “Horses.” I mean, come on, horses go with cowboys. That one is Western as a cowboy thing. “Fox News.” So it tries to be “rural” but is more closely associated with the political rhetoric of “country.” “MAGA hats.” This one is similar to “Fox News” in that it tries to be all of these, but I am going to call this one “country.” “Country.” “Cowboy.” “Rural.” These distinctions matter because they shape the kinds of stories we tell about each other and what those stories mean.
