Critical Public Health Perspectives on Rural Outrage

Our new editorial, “Left behind again: Rural America and the hypocrisy of populism,” has just been published in the Journal of Critical Public Health. In it, we explore the sources of outrage among rural residents in the US, who are often blamed for Trump’s election, and how this outrage bolsters support for policies that undermine democratic principles and for politicians who traffic in right wing populist rhetoric.

Relatedly, a great read is Nancy Krieger’s recent editorial in the American Journal of Public Health where she reflects on who will be (or should be) blamed for the escalating health inequities in the aftermath of the recent US election.

“Our job in public health is to prevent scapegoating and to document and make vividly clear, in media and forums of all forms, the causal connections between economic and social inequity, illiberalism, and the people’s health. We must ensure that blame for immediate and subsequent health harms is affixed, as warranted, to the new administration’s actions, policies, and plutocrat allies.”
(Krieger 2025, pg 324-325)