Fueled by dark money, Kentucky’s rural/urban divide hurts all of us | Opinion
Kentucky is comprised of 120 counties. In only two of those counties is there a major city, Louisville and Lexington (1.4 million and 517,000 respectively). Together these two key cities make up 44% of Kentucky’s population.
The citizens of Louisville and Lexington are diverse in race, religion, and ethnic origin. The population in Kentucky’s smaller towns and counties is primarily white and Christian.
The biggest concerns in the urban centers are crime, homelessness, and human rights. The rural areas focus on gun rights, “Family Values” and government overreach.
The issues for both sides are unique and fundamental to their respective populations.
This stark contrast in Kentucky values can equate with the story in Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse (1918). She reworked Aesop Fable, “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse” with the country mouse going to the city and disliking the food and being frightened by a cat. When the town mouse visits the country, he is frightened by the rain, the lawnmower, and the danger of being stepped on by cows. The story shows that a person’s views is what one is used to.
However, 75% of Kentucky State House Representatives, 77% State Senators, 83% of U.S. House Representatives and 100% of Kentucky’s U.S. Senators are making laws that affect nearly half of Kentucky’s population who are against what these legislators are voting for and what their campaigns are based on.
This ever-widening gap between the urban and rural areas and their respective areas of concern are being fueled by fabricated fears from charlatan rainmakers like the Family Foundation, super PACS and by some of Kentucky’s own religious leaders.
Ultra conservative organizations are spreading misinformation that includes:
Mexican workers taking away “American jobs” while sponging off our welfare system.
Jews control the news media.
The government wants to take aways your guns.
Any type of reproductive rights or access results in murdering unborn babies.
Children need to be protected from “LGTBQ+ predators” who are “grooming” your children.
And certain books need to be banned in order to safeguard “parental rights.”
Along with false claims of rampant voter fraud and stolen elections, these dogmas are reinforced by local and national broadcast programs, which are subsidized by revenue producing ads pushing gun shows, gold purchases and food for the imminent apocalypse.
Candidates run on volatile platforms proclaiming that ‘big city liberals’ are brainwashing Kentucky’s schoolchildren with a “woke agenda” and “CRT ideology” along with promoting sex change procedures for young children.
This schism is not simply a culture divide but has escalated into a religious war. This commonwealth, this country, are in the midst of the American version of the Holy Crusades.
Facts, science, and logic cannot penetrate the terror that people on all sides have been indoctrinated with. Pointing out the hypocrisy is meaningless. There is no effective way to combat this intrusive and relentless propaganda.
The citizens of Kentucky are fighting for their very existence. Laws are being passed that claim to “protect” the rural population from concocted horrors, are in fact hurting and killing people in the urban population.
And with the campaign advertising and the abundance of dark money flowing in, no legislator, no candidate, no traditional or social media outlet, nor any religious leader is going to give up this lucrative revenue in order to compromise. The only true objective here is money.
Gerald Seib reported in a recent Wall Street Journal article, on the data compiled by a non-partisan nonprofit research organization that tracks money in U.S. politics (OpenSecrets.org.) They showed how the spending by outside groups increased 70-fold in the last 20 years “from $27.7 million in 2002 to just under $2.2 billion in the 2022” election cycle.
Our corporations must stop being greedy and craving “the dark money.” Our elected officials and judges must start abiding by the U.S. Constitution of leaving their religious beliefs out of our laws and their rulings. And religious leaders must stop using their worship services and religious institutions as political campaign events.
Until then, the lure of the dark side of money will continue to destroy us all.
Mary Lou Marzian is the former Kentucky House Representative for the previous District 34, and Honi Marleen Goldman is a Kentucky activist.
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