Too much boondocks

"Can you believe that South Dakota once had two  Democrats, Tom Daschle and Tim Johnson, in the U.S. Senate.  And a Democrat, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in the House of Representatives.  Now just saying the word Democrat in the state could get you lynched."   The speaker of those words was a former college faculty member who once taught in South Dakota, but has moved on.  He was at a faculty convention chatting with former colleagues from South Dakota.  The politics of the state are a bit of a puzzle in that the state is totally red, so staunchly Republican that it seems like the Democratic Party has gone extinct as far as the state is concerned.  

There is much conjecture about why the state became such a bastion of what now passes for conservatism.  My own observation comes from my role as the keeper of a donors list for the county Democratic Party and as a professor at a state university.  In those roles, I noted a that the state had a very significant outmigration of people, particularly those with advanced learning.  The 14-county area where I live received national attention for the rate at which its residents were departing. Also, I was on search committees for hiring professors and witnessed candidates turning down job offers because of, as one put it, "too much boondocks."

At the university as it recruited students, we staff members noted a pattern, also.  Many students who went to out-of-state colleges after high school graduation did not return to the state after they received their degrees. And many of those who attended college in the state intended to leave the state once they obtained their degrees.  For many students, education is a passport out of the state.  The desire to leave is often motivated by a need to escape the provincialism that grips much of the state.  

I recall a freshman student paper in which the author recounted his first visit home after entering college.  He was anxious to meet up with his high school friends and neighbors and exchange information about what they were doing.  When he met with one of his close high school friends who had decided to stay on the farm, the friend castigated him for going to college, as if he thought he was better than the schoolmates who did not go to college.  I had him read the paper in class as an example of how to address an issue, and many class members said they had experienced the same provincial attitude, some within their own families.  I found out from college counselors that the attitude was a comparatively common problem that they helped students deal with.

Evidence indicates that South Dakota's growing conservatism is the result of the outmigration of educated and talented people.      Those left behind or move into the state are resentful toward those who pursue lives that engage with a forward-looking, more generous, more educated life.  The state exults in its backwardness.  And that is its reputation.