Marie Gluesenkamp Perez on What Urbanites Get Wrong about Rural America

The political gulf between educated urban progressives and rural and blue collar Americans has accelerated in recent decades. The consequences for blue cities - and for the Democratic Party - are profound.

In this episode, we explore the evolving rural/urban divide with Blue Dog Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who represents Washington’s State’s 3rd Congressional District in Southwest Washington. Outside the blue urban enclave of Vancouver, WA,  the 3rd CD is largely red-leaning Timber Country: it voted for Trump in all three recent presidential elections, and no Democrat had carried it in any race, federal or statewide, in more than a decade before Marie pulled off a stunning upset victory in 2022. She was then re-elected to the seat in 2024.

In our conversation, Gluesenkamp Perez, who owned an auto repair and machine shop with her husband before her election to Congress, brings a thoughtful and unique perspective on the nature of growing hyper-partisanship. We begin by exploring what she learned from her experience running for the county commission in deeply rural, overwhelmingly Trumpy Skamania County in 2016, a race she lost, but one where she listened intently to the anger and resentment of her fellow rural voters who felt ignored by urban elites.

The conversation also explores the challenges Gluesenkamp Perez faces from progressive Democrats who expect her to align with their positions on every issue. She argues that deliberative democracy is not about nationalized political tribalism or cookie cutter ideological checklists, but should be about authentically representing the values of the local community.

We also talk with Gluesenkamp Perez about her efforts to revive and reinvent the moderate Blue Dog Coalition as the voice of blue collar voters within the Democratic Party. She emphasizes her "hyper-local" and "anti-partisan" approach, and the importance of focusing on tangible constituent needs.

Finally, Gluesenkamp Perez, raised as an evangelical Christian, discusses the growing divide between secular cosmopolitans in blue cities and voters of faith. She emphasizes the importance of understanding and engaging with religious communities, arguing that it is a mistake to walk away from such a core part of the fabric of American life.

Quinn Waller is our editor. 

About Blue City Blues: 

Twenty years ago, Dan Savage encouraged progressives to move to blue cities to escape the reactionary politics of red places. And he got his wish. Over the last two decades, rural places have gotten redder and urban areas much bluer.  
 America’s bluest cities developed their own distinctive culture, politics and governance. They became the leading edge of a cultural transformation that reshaped progressivism, redefined urbanism and remade the Democratic Party.
But as blue cities went their own way, as they thrived as economically and culturally vibrant trend-setters, these urban cosmopolitan islands also developed their own distinctive set of problems. Inequality soared, and affordability tanked. And the conversation about those problems stagnated, relegated to the narrowly provincial local section of regional newspapers or local NPR programming. 
Blue City Blues aims to pick up where Savage’s Urban Archipelago idea left off, with a national perspective on the present and the future of urban America. We will consider blue cities as a collective whole. What unites them? What troubles them? What defines them?

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