RVI Report: A Values-Based Approach to the Concept of Hard Work
Topline Findings:
Hard work was a defining value for rural voters and played an outsized importance in their view of life and politics, often through a partisan lens.
Hard work was regularly associated with sacrifice, not simply manual labor. Getting paid to do physically intensive work was not really “hard work” if one enjoyed it, according to participants. Office work was hard work if you did not like doing it but still performed quality work. Hard work, as a value, was tied to taking pride in one’s work and sacrificing to do that work. Doing a good job and doing more than the minimum requirement was a defining aspect of hard work.
The perceived threat to hard work stemmed from a fear of a “something-for-nothing” culture becoming prevalent. This threat from a “something-for-nothing” culture was more than a societal concern for many respondents who identified it with what seemed to be a multi-faceted frustration with some aspect of their own station in life. Specifically, individuals were frustrated by the belief they were working more than other individuals (those individuals whom they perceived to choose not to work hard and “elites” who never had to work hard to earn their status) and hence subsidizing those groups in some way with their labors rather than furthering their own station in life.
Voters preferred leaders for whom hard work is a part of their values system yet failed to name an elected official they felt embodied that. Voters were readily able to name elected officials they felt did not value hard work.
There is room for candidates of either party to define themselves as the candidate of hard work, but Democratic candidates must do it in spite of the Democratic brand deficit on this concept and presuppositions associated with it by many rural voters, including negative brand associations by Trump-Biden swing voters. Republican candidates start off with an advantage on the value of hard work because of associations with the Party brand. Even as Democratic candidates work to define themselves related to the value of hard work, Party entities need to organize long-term efforts to narrow the brand deficit with rural voters.
Democrats are having the wrong conversations. When one rural voter panelist explained his conviction that Democrats’ focus on societal issues essentially devalues him as an individual (a recurring subtle issue with panelists), a rural Democrat responded by continuing to explain the societal focus of the Democratic agenda seemingly oblivious to what had just been said. Democratic candidates must individualize the way they communicate their agenda and message. Existing small-town and rural Democratic organizers, Party Committees, and volunteers must be empowered and equipped to engage rural voters framing the message about the individual and his / her / their stake in the Party’s agenda or a candidate’s vision.
For more findings and recommendations, download the report here.