Welcome to Utopia, TX
This small town was envisioned as a socialist paradise. Now it’s Trump country.
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Town and Country
“True commonwealth’s freedom lies in the free enjoyment of the earth. True freedom lies where a man receives his nourishment and preservation, and that is in the use of the earth. For as man is compounded of the four materials of the creation, fire, water, earth, and air; so is he preserved by the compounded bodies of these four, which are the fruits of the earth; and he cannot live without them. For take away the free use of these and the body languishes, the spirit is brought into bondage.”
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“They feared a “Jewish question” coming to America as it had to Europe.”
Features
Out of the Shtetl and Into the Heartland
What happened when assimilated German Jews tried to settle their Eastern European brethren in rural America?
Marxism and the Agrarian Question
The leading thinkers of Marxism stressed how important it was to govern in partnership with the peasantry. When communist states imposed collectivization by force, the results were disastrous.
“The political myths of the heartland fuse the elegy to a hard day’s toil, a sense of place, and a rooted, set-in-our-ways identity.”
Front Matters
The Soapbox
Letters
“During the Nakba, the collective farms were a crucial part of the process by which Palestinians were forced off their land.”
Cultural Capital
“While Lula holds the presidency, the agribusiness lobby dominates Congress.”
The International
“Liberals have cast working-class people in rural America as an obstacle to be overcome.”
The Tumbrel
Girondins
Can Policies Make Rural Politics?
Provincial Pretenders
On Coconut Trees, Columbia University, and (Once Again) the Two Oldest Candidates in American History
“The system not only kept most tenants in debt but perpetuated living conditions that bordered on the intolerable.”
