Rural Analogies and Politics

In American politics, it's difficult to miss the deep undercurrent of agrarianism and rural wisdom that the political parties' public relations teams invoke in their scripts. Why? Because they work. In our traditionally agrarian society, things like religious faith as a way of life, anti-intellectualism, and respect for men who manage livestock and talk simply resonate with the public, and create a perception of trustworthiness and familiarity, which translates into votes for their candidate. Woe be it for the opposing team to lose this PR struggle, or worse, to be painted as "smooth talking", lawyer-like, or having European aristocratic values or sympathies - these perceptions will result in the loss of the votes of a majority of Americans. Furthermore, candidates who deny having religious faith face certain defeat.

A direct manifestation of this strategy of alignment with our agrarian heritage is the frequent appearance of farming analogies in political discourse. Here are five that I can think of off-hand. I've heard many more but can't recall them at this writing:

• Carts, horses, and relative placement thereof. This is applied to situations where proposed actions or initiatives are out of order.
• Structures housing hens, and their vulnerability to their natural predators, foxes. This is applied to situations in which there's a lack of sufficient oversight, checks and balances, or other controls, and in which there are conflicts of interest.
• Applying leverage to the horns on bulls (as they're solid grasping points), so as to take control of them. Invoked when there's a difficult situation which requires leadership to take a direct and forceful approach.
• Finding small, difficult-to-spot objects in large piles of hay. Used when justifying a lack of effort or success in finding something.
  
• Wolves and sheep, and their predator-prey relationship. The sheep analogy has been applied to either the American populace as a whole, where nations or organizations considered to be military opponents are branded as the predators, or to segments of the American population, such as those that do not arm themselves routinely. This is especially useful as it taps into the listener's fear, creating an irrational support for proposed anti-predator measures.
  

It's important to remember that it was not very long ago, relative to the history of civilization, that this nation was created by the migration of opportunistic farmers, entrepreneurs, individualists, religious fundamentalists, and anti-authoritarians, and this heritage is evident in American norms and values today.