Harvest the Vote: How Democrats Can Win Again in Rural America

by Jane Kleeb

Overview

From Democratic Party rising star Jane Kleeb, an urgent and stirring road map showing how the Democratic Party can, and should, engage rural America

The Democratic Party has lost an entire generation of rural voters. By focusing the majority of their message and resources on urban and coastal voters, Democrats have sacrificed entire regions of the country where there is more common ground and shared values than what appears on the surface.

In Harvest the Vote, Jane Kleeb, chair of Nebraska’s Democratic Party and founder of Bold Nebraska, brings us a lively and sweeping argument for why the Democrats shouldn’t turn away from rural America. As a party leader and longtime activist, Kleeb speaks from experience. She’s been fighting the national party for more resources and building a grassroots movement to flex the power of a voting bloc that has long been ignored and forgotten.

Kleeb persuasively argues that the hottest issues of the day can be solved hand in hand with rural people. On climate change, Kleeb shows that the vast spaces of rural America can be used to enact clean energy innovations. And issues of eminent domain and corporate overreach will galvanize unlikely alliances of family farmers, ranchers, small business owners, progressives, and tribal leaders, much as they did when she helped fight the Keystone XL pipeline. The hot-button issues of guns and abortion that the Republican Party uses to wedge voters against one another can be bridged by putting a megaphone next to issues critical to rural communities.

Written with a fiery voice and commonsense solutions, Harvest the Vote is both a call to action and a much-needed balm for a highly divided nation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062960917
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/15/2020
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	1,085,754
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Jane Kleeb is an experienced grassroots organizer, manager, political strategist and nonprofit entrepreneur. Recently profiled by PBS in a film called “Blue Wind on a Red Prairie,” Jane is currently the Chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and founder of the grassroots group Bold Nebraska.

Table of Contents

Part 1 The Urban-Rural Divide: Building the Bride

Introduction: Raising the Red Flag 3

1 From the Tractor Brigade to the Tractor Caucus of One 19

2 The Unlikely Alliance 35

Part 2 Rural People at the Democratic Table

3 We All Do Better When We All Do Better 83

4 Hot Buttons and Wedge Issues 129

5 Organizing and Rebuilding the Democratic Party in Rural America 153

Epilogue: Closing the Gate 181

Some Things You Should Know-When You Visit Rural America 187

Groups You Can Support 191

More Reading 195

Acknowledgments 199

Index 205

Editorial Reviews

[Kleeb’s] overarching message often transcends political party. . . The book contains twin delights: Kleeb's sensible approaches to bridge building and a pleasing, conversational writing style. — Kirkus Reviews

“Jane Kleeb sounds the alarm for national Democrats to wake up to rural issues: start with ‘the Farmers’ Bill of Rights,’ pay attention to rural health care, especially mental health services, as Republican policies have closed rural hospitals. ‘Show up with ears open and mouths closed.’  That’s the way to win and that’s the way to govern.” — Sherrod Brown, U.S. Senator from Ohio

“Deeply personal and persuasive, Harvest the Vote shows progressives that we don’t have to sacrifice our values to expand our coalition. Jane proves that rural issues aren’t any different from the issues confronting people all over the country, and require a national effort that includes Americans from every region and walk of life.”  — Jon Favreau, co-host Pod Save America

Only Jane Kleeb could have written something so passionate, clear-eyed, and persuasive. The solutions are exactly what we must do to put the needs of all working families first as we reform the Democratic Party. As progressives, we need to show up and stand with them. — Nina Turner, former state senator from Ohio, and co-founder of Our Revolution

“There is no finer rural political leader in America than Jane Kleeb, and this cogent and comprehensive volume distills the wisdom she’s won in one hard battle after another. I’ve spent most of my life living in rural America, often in very ‘red’ parts, and I share her sense that these can be sources of real power for a progressive realignment, if only we get to work!” — Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy and The End of Nature

“Jane Kleeb knows Democrats have solutions that will help families no matter where they live. What I learned through organizing in Indian Country is that one-on-one conversations matter, and people in underrepresented communities need to know that our democracy includes them.” — Deb Haaland, U.S. Congresswoman from New Mexico

From the Publisher

Deeply personal and persuasive, Harvest the Vote shows progressives that we don’t have to sacrifice our values to expand our coalition. Jane proves that rural issues aren’t any different from the issues confronting people all over the country, and require a national effort that includes Americans from every region and walk of life.” 

Jon Favreau

Jane Kleeb sounds the alarm for national Democrats to wake up to rural issues: start with ‘the Farmers’ Bill of Rights,’ pay attention to rural health care, especially mental health services, as Republican policies have closed rural hospitals. ‘Show up with ears open and mouths closed.’  That’s the way to win and that’s the way to govern.

Sherrod Brown

There is no finer rural political leader in America than Jane Kleeb, and this cogent and comprehensive volume distills the wisdom she’s won in one hard battle after another. I’ve spent most of my life living in rural America, often in very ‘red’ parts, and I share her sense that these can be sources of real power for a progressive realignment, if only we get to work!

Bill McKibben

Jane Kleeb knows Democrats have solutions that will help families no matter where they live. What I learned through organizing in Indian Country is that one-on-one conversations matter, and people in underrepresented communities need to know that our democracy includes them.

Deb Haaland

11/11/2019

Grassroots organizer and Nebraska Democratic Party chair Kleeb debuts with a savvy political strategy guide for Democrats looking to make inroads in rural communities that typically vote Republican. Noting that liberals and rural voters can find common ground on such issues as Medicare and Medicaid expansion, fighting climate change, and “end eminent domain for private gain,” Kleeb suggests that Democrats can have success simply by showing up to rural towns and asking locals what’s important to them. She also offers advice on how to respectfully agree to disagree on issues including guns, abortion, and immigration. Kleeb cites FDR’s New Deal and the 1980s farm crisis as moments when urban Democrats advocated for rural communities, but her most inspiring example is the campaign to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline. National environmental groups, farmers, and Native Americans worked together, Kleeb writes, in a “David versus Goliath battle” that led to the Obama administration’s 2015 rejection of the pipeline proposal. Kleeb’s account is somewhat repetitive and might have worked just as well as a long-form essay; nevertheless, her advice is cogent and well-supported by both history and personal experience. Democrats hoping to win in the next election would be wise to take note. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Only Jane Kleeb could have written something so passionate, clear-eyed, and persuasive. The solutions are exactly what we must do to put the needs of all working families first as we reform the Democratic Party. As progressives, we need to show up and stand with them.

Nina Turner

2019-10-21
A grassroots Democratic organizer suggests how rural and urban voters can find common ground on a variety of issues and perhaps wrest elective offices from the Republican Party.

Though Kleeb's extended essay is candidly partisan, her overarching message often transcends political party and approaches why-can't-we-all-just-get-along territory. "At my core…is a desire," she writes, "more than anything, to have our country work for everyone, not just for a few people at the top." Using her personal life as an example in numerous extended passages, the author discloses how she morphed from someone who knew nothing about farming or ranching or Native American tribal land to someone happily married to a Nebraska man, living enthusiastically in a rural sector of the country. Currently, Kleeb is the chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and founder of Bold Nebraska, a "grassroots advocacy group" that welcomes not just Democrats, but also Republicans, Independents, and even nonvoters. The author expresses alarm that outside of Nebraska, few federal policymakers understand the lives and challenges of farmers and ranchers. She illuminates how farmers of all political persuasions pulled together in the 1980s to descend on Washington, D.C., by way of a tractor brigade, which resulted in new legislation and government regulations ameliorating a farm crisis. Today, however, only one U.S. senator is an active farmer back home: Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat. As Kleeb notes, while helping organize rural residents against the massive Keystone XL energy pipeline project, she found common ground among unlikely allies. She wants to build similar alliances to bridge an urban-rural divide on other issues, including affordable health care, the abuse of eminent domain land grabs to undergird deleterious corporate projects, the looming extinctions of climate change, sensible gun control, and much more.

The book contains twin delights: Kleeb's sensible approaches to bridge building and a pleasing, conversational writing style.

Kirkus Reviews