Editorial: Should people in rural areas simply move?

That lack of empathy for rural areas isn’t confined to the left, though. A surprising number of conservative commentators take the same point of view. In 2016, Kevin Williamson wrote a scathing piece in the right-leaning National Review about Rust Belt communities in upstate New York and concluded “the truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die.” His blunt advice to the people who live there: Move. “They need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul.” Even President Trump — who rode to office on the strength of votes from places that Williamson says “deserve to die” — apparently now shares similar views. In an interview last summer with The Wall Street Journal, Trump also said that residents of some communities should simply move: “I’m going to start explaining to people when you have an area that just isn’t working —like upper New York state, where people are getting very badly hurt – and then you’ll have another area 500 miles away where you can’t— you can’t get people, I’m going to explain you can leave.” We bring all this up because there’s recently been a flurry of articles in national publications— from the New Republic to the New York Times to Reason to Slate — that essentially pose the same questions: Is it really possible to build a new economy in communities that have seen traditional employers wither away? Should we even try to save them? Or should we simply tell people to move?