Nov 15, 2017
The outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election was influenced by the rural vote. Host/Producer Julia Terhune talks to Michigan State University and Michigan State University College of Human Medicine students and faculty to see how perceptions of rural America have changed since the outcome of the election.
Transcript:
-[Julia] This Rural Mission is brought to you by Michigan State University College of Human Medicine Leadership and Rural Medicine programs. The podcast is funded in part by a generous grant provided by the Herbert H and Grace A Dow Foundation. To learn more about the Leadership and Rural Medicine programs please visit www.msururalhealth.chm.msu.edu. I'm your host Julia Terhune and stay tuned for more from This Rural Mission.
(folk music)
Just after the 2016 presidential election I did what every good wannabe podcaster does. I took my little voice recorder and I went and spoke to a bunch of undergraduate students. Well, maybe a few of them were graduate. I don't know.
(lively guitar music)
Every student that I asked, I asked the same question. What is your perception of rural America after the onset of the election? Most people I spoke to didn't even know what I was talking about when I said the words "rural America".
- [Man] Rural America?
- [Woman] What do you mean be rural America exactly?
- [Woman] What does this mean? Like which part of America are we referring to? Like just farmland America?
- [Woman] I don't know honestly. Just like... I mean...Yeah, it's like farmland and stuff, but I don't know.
- [Julia] The other group didn't have much to say.
- [Woman] Um, it hasn't changed.
- [Man] I think it's a hardworking community. They do a lot for our country. I mean, again, my opinion hasn't changed of them since the election.
- [Man] I think that they're a very hardworking down to Earth people.
- [Woman] Honestly they kind of stayed the same.That there were hardworking people.
- [Julia] But of course I couldn't ask about the election and rural America without talking about racism.
- [Woman] Are you asking if I think that there are a whole bunch more racist people in the world or something? Um, I don't know. It kind of depends. Like, I'm from small-town Texas, so what could be considered rural America, and I know for a fact that my folks voted for Trump. And I was super against it but they didn't vote for Trump because they're racist. They vote for Trump because they're both in the military and, you know, what he was saying was gonna benefit the military more and Hillary, you know, did some horrible crap that military folks could just never forgive.
- [Man] I just feel that people from rural America get like a lot of... Like a little bit of malice from the people from the city and people really aren't that bad from rural America, so.
- [Julia] Well what do you mean by "not that bad"?
- [Man] I don't know, there's kind of just like a sentiment that we're all like racist or we're all like, I don't
know, anti-immigration. But really a lot of us are from different ends of the spectrum, and we're also... Admittedly we're not very...We're not quite as exposed to other, I don't know, other people, it is mostly white out there, but we don't feel like we're racist. We don't judge people, so, I don't know. But I feel like we still get a lot of malice for that.
- [Man] My mom grew up in like up north areas of Michigan and they seem to be a little, I don't know, a little far right. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing or a good thing. I just think that it's just sort of... They seem like they're a little bit disconnected from the rest of the, I guess millennial generation. I don't really know much about it 'cause I'm not from there but I think that they're just sort of closed... I'm not gonna say closed-minded because that's sort of, I don't know, sort of a stereotype. But I think that, I don't know, that somehow they need to get more involved but I don't know how they can do that because they're so far away from everything, you know what I mean? So, I mean, that's kind of it really.
- [Julia] And then there were instances like this.
- [Man] Undereducated. Believe what they want to instead of look at facts.
- [Woman] They're probably not exposed to the more urban, more current understanding of other people because they're stuck in their old ways in their little farmhouses. So they're not really exposed to a lot of different kinds of people.
- [Julia] It wasn't enough for me just to canvas Michigan State University. I also wanted to hear from the people who are from rural America. The people who are serving rural America and the people who are vowing to serve rural America. The voices you're about to hear on this podcast consist of a number of individuals. We are going to start with Doctor Andrea Wendling, the director of Rural Community Health for Michigan State University and a family medicine physician in northern Michigan. She spoke at a round table we held with Leadership and Rural Medicine medical students after the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. All of the students sitting at that round table have devoted their clinical medical education to rural communities. This was Doctor Wendling's first comment to the group.
- [Doctor Wendling] Okay so our question for tonight is how did this election impact your vision of rural America or your feelings about rural America. My feeling is that, you know, my whole life is trying to figure out rural disparities, right? And trying to help rural populations. I think a lot about rural, I dream about rural, and so there was a lot that went on during this election around the time of the election where there were a lot of root words that were floating around like "racist" and "homophobic" and , you know, a lot of negative words. And you know, they were kind of being um...You know, they were kind of being assigned to people who supported Trump, okay, or people with conservative ideologies, right? And then it was really hard for me internalizing so much about rural America. Watching that night, like, county after county after county turn red and having people feel like okay every rural county is gonna be red and every urban county is gonna be blue when I knew that there were all these words attached to this feeling, right? You know I think at the beginning I was, you know, I was upset because all these words were attached to it, but then as you think about it there were a lot of reasons why... You know there was a lot of conversation that happened as part of the election, you know, I think that all of a sudden these issues that face rural America that are really significant, meaningful issues like the economic disparity and the educational disparity or lack of educational opportunities and lack of feeling hope, you know, that your future will be different. You know, that kind of came to light and so there's part of me that feels like it might be an opportunity because this is stuff that was not a surprise to me, right? But seemed like it was this huge surprise to everybody. They're like what happened? Why is everybody so unhappy in rural America? It's like, have you looked at it? (laughs) You know have you seen why people are so unhappy?
(light piano music)
- [Julia] Doctor Joel Maurer is the Dean of Admissions at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. As a rural native himself and a physician for many years he also had a profound insight to the needs of rural America.
- [Doctor Maurer] Understanding that, you know, I was disappointed with the result, I kind of admire rural America for kind of figuring out a way at the grass roots level to say you can't ignore me anymore. I kind of admired a marginalized group of individuals figuring out a way to have a major impact in the leadership of this country. At least for the next four years. You know, I use Nebraska as sort of my example. And the thing that I think people tend to overlook about the state of Nebraska is that at least if you look at the Democratic side of that state, in the primaries that state went Bernie. So did Oklahoma. So did Wisconsin.
- [Julia] So did Michigan.
- [Doctor Maurer] Michigan, right. I think that in and of itself should be an indicator to the, at least the leadership of the Democratic party, that there's a certain amount of unease and unrest that's going on in some of these states. They just need some attention from someone.
(light guitar music)
- [Julia] But what is more significant is what the students themselves had to say about serving a rural community after the outcome of the election.
- [Woman] Oh yeah, I'll be really honest about how I felt, like the next day one of the first things I said was that I don't want to go to Traverse City anymore. Like it was really a shock and it was hard. And I think that one of the things that someone said to me, my brother said this to me right away, is that these are people that you're gonna be helping, like what you're describing and you have to understand where they were coming from.
-[Woman] I was a medical assistant in Marquette for a while before med school and would hear things from people that were kind of like a racist undertone or... It's these weird things. So I think I always in my head have kind of known if you're working with people, and not necessarily from like Marquette but people who are from these tiny little one stoplight towns outside who are driving two hours to come to Marquette because that's the big city where they're gonna get care, like, it just doesn't necessarily surprise me to hear certain, I don't know, I've heard certain viewpoints before that I disagree with and was still their medical assistant and was able to in my head be like wow I don't agree with what you just said but I can still treat you like a person. Their medical care is what... It's what matters. So I guess, yes it was made more public, but my whole viewpoint of I don't agree with these people I said I'm still gonna treat these patients didn't necessarily change for me.
- [Woman] One of the things that really bothered me was like the generalization of rural America. Because I know so many people that are very well-educated, very well established that both do and do not support Trump. And yet, both alike get thrown into this general stereotype that oh, because you're from this area you're uneducated, you're racist, you're this and that. If you're from these towns, regardless of your standpoints then this is what you are.
- [Man] Another thing too though, that I also noticed with my conversations were we're all healthcare people and so we are super focused on healthcare. And I don't think I ever had a single conversation with people that did support Trump that started or ended with healthcare.
- [Woman] See, I have a different experience. I had multiple conversations that started with Obamacare. Very anti-Obamacare because of all the inflation and health costs and what they didn't realize was that the inflation of health cost comes from other things that we just had a lecture on. There was three pages of a document of just listed things that made healthcare more expensive. And when push comes to shove some of the general population just doesn't understand it because they're not from a healthcare perspective.
- [Woman] Also I'm confused.
- [Woman] I don't understand it.
- [Woman] Yeah it's really confusing too. And so when they bring up Obamacare and they say... They throw this one fact, this one fact that you're unfamiliar with, but you show them all this other facts but you're not able to address that one thing that you're just unsure of. It's like you cannot connect. Even though you know from a different perspective what may or may not be better or what's true.
- [Woman] Similar to that, I forgot where we sat, but someone was talking about how there is racism and sexism in this country. Like those are just things that exist. But they're really subtle and it's these tiny little things to have these nuanced discussions about ways sexism exists in everyday life, ways racism exists in everyday life, that you really have to dissect and think a lot about to understand, whereas if you don't like Hillary Clinton people can just be like oh she's crooked. But to explain why the subtleties of sexism and why sexism lead to why you think Hillary's so crooked. You know what I mean? Like, that's a very long, deep conversation versus just being like yeah, she's crooked so I would never vote for her. And that's the end of the conversation. Or like, explaining how racism exists in society versus being from an all white town where you've never dealt with minorities and being like racism is over, what are you talking about? We have a black president. And that's just the end of the conversation. You know, like it takes a certain level of education just to be able to dissect these issues enough to know that they're even there.
- [Julia] How do you think the perception of rural America in the media right now is going to affect future leaders, future medical leaders. Students right now who might want to go on and serve those communities. Do you think it's going to be a deterrent?
- [Doctor Maurer] I think for those who want... Who know in their heart they want to serve in that capacity it's not going to be a deterrent. I think what we struggle with is you have the rural kid who is able to pursue higher education, depending on where he or she chooses to go, that kid chooses to go to an institution that does have a history of a lot of progressive thought, exposures to people who are different from themselves. What I worry about is is that kid four years later still gonna wanna go back to rural America to serve? For that matter, the kid who is from rural Michigan who really chooses to go outside their comfort zone and I'm gonna go to the University of Southern California for four years. Are we gonna be able to get that kid to come back to serve his or her rural constituents? I think the answer is "I don't know". I mean it I think it depends on what their experiences were. But I think that it's possible that that four to five-year college education, depending on where they choose to go, probably is gonna have a huge, huge influence on whether or not someone wants or chooses to return to the rural community. And that... And so I think that probably plays a bigger role. I think part of our success in being able to get students to return to medically rural underserved communities, we're gonna have to... There's gonna have to be, I think a significant outreach effort that occurs before they even hit the medical school's door. We gotta figure out a way to keep them tied to their rural roots in a positive manner and how can they use these very interesting educational hidden curriculum experiences in a residential college and university. How can they use what they've learned about life and themselves in applying that to the care that they would be able to offer in rural America. I think that's where we need to focus right now.
- [Julia] For four years Doctor Andrea Wendling has been working with pre-med undergraduate students from rural areas of Michigan. Through the Rural Pre-medical Internship Program, Doctor Wendling and Doctor Todd Shepard have worked to mentor pre-medical students who want to become doctors and want to return to rural America. Through this program Doctor Wendling and Doctor Shepard have been teaching students what it takes to get into medical school and what it takes to become a rural doctor. After four years of this program there is significant fruit coming from all of Doctor Wendling's efforts. With the onset of the election, the media coverage, and the perceptions and ideas that have come from and out of rural America, Doctor Wendling wants all rural and rurally-minded medical students, healthcare professionals, and young people to know this.
- [Doctor Wendling] I came in and I said, you know, there's a lot of conversation about rural Americans happening right now. And this election has brought to light a lot of, you know, a lot of things that are happening to rural people in a lot of disparity. And you know, regardless of your political ideology that's a real thing. Like, this disparity is a real thing and it affects people and it affects people in a really meaningful way. And you know, it affects all of you in this room. And you need to understand that MSU...You know, you are part of our mission. We want rural students and we want rural students who want to care for underserved populations and we know that your path to medical school may have been harder than the paths of many of your peers because of these disparities and that's okay. You know, we want you.
(mellow country music)
♫ Gathered near the lake
♫ Celebrate the union
♫ All of my old friends and me
♫ There was singing and dancing
♫ Till the morning had come
♫ And we sang and we danced some more
♫ So long my comrades
♫ Till we meet again
♫ Years pass more quickly
♫ And the reasons for gathering
♫ Are fading away
♫ But you know who I was
♫ And I know what you went through
♫ And nobody knows me like you
- [Julia] Thank you again for listening to This Rural Mission. This podcast is produced by me, Julia Terhune. I want to extend a great deal of thanks to Doctor Joel Maurer for taking time out of his schedule to speak to me. Doctor Maurer will be highlighted on several other podcasts. What he had to say was so tremendous and so interesting. I also want to thank all of the Leadership and Rural Medicine students who took time out of their Wednesday night to meet with us at a round table. And all of them gave their profound insight and perspective onto what happened in the election. I also want to thank all of the people that I terrorized while I was canvasing around Michigan State University. It was cold, it was wet, it was rainy and there were so many people who gave me the time of day and answered my silly little questions. As always, thank you Doctor Wendling for making this project a key priority of the Leadership and Rural Medicine programs. Until next time, I'm your host Julia Terhune and I encourage you to make rural your mission.
(mellow country music)
♫ So long my comrades
♫ Till we meet again
♫ Years pass more quickly
♫ And the reasons for gathering
♫ Are fading away
♫ But you know who I was
♫ And I know what you went through
♫ And nobody knows me like you
♫ My comrades and friends
♫ You don't who I am right now
♫ Years and the miles had their way
♫ But you know who I was
♫ Before I became who I am
♫ I can see where I've been in your eyes
♫ So long my comrades
♫ Till we meet again
♫ Years pass more quickly
♫ And the reasons for gathering
♫ Are fading away
♫ But you know who I was
♫ And I know what you went through
♫ And nobody knows me like you
- [Julia] To learn more about the Rural Community Health Program please visit our website at www.msururalhealth.chm.msu.edu. By joining our website you can connect to us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You can also find out more about our musician. Music today was provided by Horton Creek and Brian Edgars, a local musician and Michigan native. We hope you tune in next time to hear more from This Rural Mission.