Rural broadband and the policy cleave in Republican politics

Or, how did a socialist candidate win the most conservative precinct in Thurston County?

1. The PUD race was non-partisan. So, normal branding effects of a partisan label didn’t apply. Saturn’s opponent didn’t run with a D next to her name and Saturn didn’t run with a Democratic label or Socialist, so voters were able to judge on other things.

2.Saturn’s opponent was an active member of the local Democratic Party and when his campaign did go sideways, it did in relation to how he worked with local Democrats (to put it lightly). 

3. Lastly, I think people in the rural areas really did want the good internet. Zenkner Valley wasn’t the only rural precinct he won. In fact out of the 19 he did win, only two were inside Olympia or Lacey. And Zenkner Valley, the last precinct to the south before you hit Lewis County, is one of those remote places that likely isn’t going to get a corporation beating down its door to provide broadband.

I recently attended a Baw Faw Grange meeting in Boistfort where the topic was lack of rural access to high speed Internet.

This is a subject close to my heart as I experience the problem frequently in my Winlock community.

One of the attendees, Mary Mallonee, asked two of the best questions: “Isn’t Internet service a utility? Why can’t we have service like we get from the PUD?”

A representative from the PUD was present and explained that state law prevents our PUD from providing us “last mile” service.

Other speakers said that they had spoken to legislators who advised them that the private communication companies would spend whatever it takes to lobby and litigate against having to serve underserved areas or allow public entities such as our PUD to provide such service.

That answer should not stand.

In fact, please click the link and read Pollock’s entire letter. It is a populist political masterpiece. It clearly points on the direct economic role that broadband internet access serves today:

In the nineteenth century prosperity required access to railroads. In the twentieth century paved roads became a necessity.

Today the need is communication. Those who have it prosper. Those who don’t, wither.

She also presents a clear-eyed and cool-headed political analysis of how and why a coalition of pro-broadband activists would come together:

All across the state there are counties and communities just like us who are not being served creating a “Have, Have Not” dynamic.

However, we are not without options. The “Have Not” counties have commissioners, Legislators, and Congressional representatives. The need for high speed Internet extends beyond jurisdictional and political party lines. If we work together with our fellow “Have Nots,” we should be able solve this problem.

The point is not to take “no” for an answer.

This is a cogent, populist and policy-based vision that was based on the actual every day lives of rural people. I often see these rural policy debates in the frame of paying a premium in terms of transportation costs or lower level of services. I also am sensitive to the lower efficiencies of rural areas being able to actually pay for their own roads and fire service. 

I’m also reading a lot about density politics and how they’ve led us to where we are.

Which leads us back to today and the “Public Broadband Act.” In the Republican intraparty debate, you have a sponsor from Grant County who sees the benefit of broadband in his rural community. Rep. Alex Ybarra is a Republican and an engineer and an advocate for bringing broadband to all of Washington:

We knew prior to (COVID) that most rural areas are in need of broadband. It’s just a matter of how you get it out there. For years and years, we’ve been hoping that the Comcasts of the world would get it out there, but it wasn’t feasible for them to do that.

A member of his own caucus, Rep Vicki Kraft, has other thoughts:

Those are some of the potential challenges with supply and demand if there’s only one provider, the supplier, they have the control over what the price is. So I recognize that. My other challenge though is subsidizing everything through the government, which is socialism. I’m not interested in that within an American economy. Our economy should be subsidized by all the taxpayers, and that is what we’re seeing in a very large way right now.

… 

This is probably back to your point about the terminology. It’s socialism. Subsidizing health care and broadband, or anything, the more you do it, even if it’s a good cause. That’s what socialism is; it’s when more taxpayer money goes to offset true supply and demand.

There is part of me that is quietly cheering Rep. Kraft’s obstinacy. That is she wants to eschew good government that provides needed services to her taxpayers, then fine. That’s what you get for moving out to the sticks. Feel free to eschew other things like libraries, schools, roads and public hospitals. It is pretty obvious, the more they stand in the way of reasonable policy to expand broadband into rural areas, the more they’re dooming those rural areas economically. 

But, obviously I’m actually rooting for Rep. Ybarra and I hope he wins. There is an interesting discussion at the end of this podcast episode about political polarization and how density and economic health tends to determine politics in general. The nut of it is that counties that have voted Democratic for president are getting more dense in recent elections, but are also representing more of the economy. Conversely, Republican presidential counties are becoming more numerous, emptier and represent continually poorer communities. 

This has created, the theory goes, a much deeper divide in American politics than in the past. This is the divide that we’ve all been feeling in our social media feeds, but also the divide that I assume is being created in the Republican Party.

One solution mentioned in the podcast is investment in rural areas. Instead of assuming the richer/denser trend is determinative, doing small things to expand the economic base in rural areas. Things like making sure broadband access is available to everyone. 

The following discussion is about community colleges and branch campuses from the above linked podcast:

…the most important thing along these lines is just getting people to have more proximity, is one, making it easier for people in small towns to get post-secondary education. So I think there ought to be more community colleges. There ought to be a lot of them that are close to people. There ought to be more universities, more state universities, more branch campuses, right? Getting people to school.

…

And so if you make education a lot easier for rural, small town people, just the process of becoming educated opens you up a little bit to the world. It tends to make you a little bit more curious about the things you’ve learned about. “Maybe I do want to go on a trip to Chicago,” because it’s amazing how many people in, say, rural Illinois have never been to Chicago, and it’s two hours away, right? And that kind of thing is really, really, really important. And it’s not you’re trying to propagandize them into becoming critical race theorists at the big liberal university. It really is just the basic stuff. You’re teaching people about the world. You’re broadening their horizons a little bit.