More extreme conservative politics can only speed up Kansas’ long, slow decline | Opinion

I’m glad for the attention that vice presidential candidates Tim Walz and J.D. Vance have brought to “flyover country,” and for the opportunities it provides to expand and complicate people’s understanding of rural America .

I was brought up outside a Kansas town of just a few hundred people, 30 miles from the center of the contiguous United States. My brothers, sisters and I were born to a registered nurse and a farmer. My paternal great-grandfather was an immigrant and a miner, finding work in places with names such as Silver Inlet and Leadville. My great grandparents went on to become so-called homesteaders, “settling” the land where I grew up, driven by a fervent wish to lose no more children to the mines. Some of their descendants, like my father, continued to farm. Some — like three of my siblings — went away to college, but still call Kansas home. I have lived in New York City for 30 years, though I still maintain connections to Kansas and many of its values and customs, such as the finger wave.

My family provides a textbook case of upward intergenerational mobility, over time entering the middle class and holding jobs that provide a stable income and health insurance, and that don’t require us to risk life and limb . This narrative seems to support the ideology of individualism and the American dream. But there’s more to the story.

First, the need to rely on others defines the human experience, including the rural one. What looks like individualism and personal achievement on the surface actually reflects the importance of collectivism and public goods. For example, my grandparents married at the height of the 1918 influenza pandemic. Although newly wed, they separated so that Granny could stay in town to nurse the sick and my grandfather could continue farming.

To this day, you can still find people prioritizing the needs of the community.

Need for libraries, schools, hospitals

When Dad had an accident that partially blinded him, when Mom needed ongoing medical treatment 170 miles away, when people lost homes to tornadoes or fire — that’s when neighbors provided food and child care, offered to plant or harvest, and otherwise do what needed to be done. My mother helped found the area hospice program. The people she trained and worked alongside were among those whose care allowed both of my parents to remain in their home at the end of their lives.

The willingness to pitch in and help out operated outside times of crisis and health care, to include supporting education and learning.

As a child, I would regularly go to the library, riding my bicycle 3 miles into town or catching a ride. Sometimes, I’d arrive to find the library closed. On those occasions, people in my town cared enough to make sure I could still get into the library, either by retrieving the key from the municipal office upstairs or — if it was lunchtime — crossing Main Street (aka Highway 24) to the cafe.

My K-12 education was similarly defined by individuals going the extra mile. In grade school, three of us (from a class of about 14) were periodically sent over to the high school math teacher for tutoring in basic algebra and geometry. In high school, the science teacher tutored me before school to prepare me for college-level biology classes. The same teacher drove a few of us four hours round-trip to visit Kansas State University.

The support of family and community members — teachers, librarians, county clerks, waitresses, other people’s parents — absolutely matter. But a tradition of what Walz describes as showing “generosity towards your neighbors, and work(ing) for a common good ” can only go so far. One also needs the resources of a well-stocked public library, well-funded schools and hospitals, and supportive government programs (Social Security, veterans benefits, nutritional assistance, school lunches) to begin with.

The Kansas public school system historically has offered an excellent and equitable education. It allowed students like me to attend a state university (the University of Kansas — sorry Mr. A!) without loans, with help from merit- and need-based aid and the Kansas Board of Regents’ scholarship program.

Brownback ‘tax experiment’ still hurting education

In February 2015, then- Gov. Sam Brownback took $45 million in public education funding to fill a hole created by his experiment in tax cuts and supply-side economics. Public schools experienced the impact of the budget shortfall . Although Gov. Laura Kelly has fully funded Kansas schools since 2018, the impact of Brownback’s experiment continues to resonate. While Kansas still ranks high in overall educational attainment, the state now ranks in the bottom half of all states in terms of the quality of that education.

Kansas is experiencing other declines , too. Far more Kansas households live in poverty (around 1 in 8) compared to when I was growing up. Kansas currently ranks among the worst in the country on both mental illness and its treatment , and in the bottom fifth for public health funding . Kansas is one of only 10 states that have not yet expanded Medicaid coverage, a measure that would make low-income Kansans healthier and more financially secure. Since 2005, Kansas has shut down roughly 1 in 10 of its rural hospitals. More than half of those hospitals are at risk of closing .

The extreme conservative agenda of the Republican Project 2025 for a second Donald Trump administration would eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, including Title I, which provides funding to schools to ensure they can deliver a high-quality education to low-income students. Allowing this to happen would wipe out an estimated 1,450 teaching positions serving nearly 20,000 students in Kansas alone. If limits on out-of-pocket Medicare drug costs are done away with, the number of Kansans who would face rising prescription drug costs could fill both KU and K State’s football stadiums. Another 90,200 low-income Kansans would be at risk of losing health care coverage should Project 2025’s caps on Medicaid go into effect.

Kansas communities are struggling. More than small family farms and traditions are disappearing. Kansans are at risk of losing high-quality public education and facing even more limited access to health care.

Americans throughout the country — not only in Kansas — cling to “bootstraps” rhetoric and the myth of individualism and the American dream. If we want to see people succeed, we need not only strong communities and a willingness to help one another out, but strong infrastructure, including government-funded social support for health care and public schools.

Kansans, please think about this when you cast your votes this November. Providing a path out of poverty and ensuring access to health care and education are important no matter where one calls home.

Because there really is no place like it.

Jeanne Flavin grew up on a small family farm in Mitchell County, Kansas. She now is a professor of sociology at Fordham University and lives in New York City.