It’s the only way America survives.
The rural-urban divide in America is real, and it’s getting worse. That’s why we need a national “Trading Places Day” where urban residents switch places with rural residents. Hear me out.
Most cities in America of any size vote liberal, while most rural areas vote conservative. In fact, as a general rule, the farther away from the city you are, the further you are to the right on the political spectrum, so that people in rural areas in large states who live a great distance from cities are always fascists. Meanwhile, people who live nearer the centers of cities tend to be communists, sharing in government services like public transit and taxpayer funded 4th of July fireworks displays.
But understanding how the other half lives matters, and it could make a real difference in America’s cultural dysfunction. That’s why we need one day each year where rural and urban communities trade places. On this day, all the rural folks (after they are hosed down) will be bused into the cities, where for 24 hours they will have the run of the place. Meanwhile, after cleaning any errant hay and cow dung out of the buses, all city “bangers” and “homies” will be transported into rural areas where they can sell their drugs to farm animals.
Each American will then have a chance to “walk a mile in another person’s shoes,” whether those shoes are shit-kickers or simply a pair of sweet kicks.
Here is how the day will play out: Upon arrival to the nearest big city, rural residents will be given abortions, internet access, and will briefly overdose on heroin laced with fentanyl. Once resuscitated, they will be heavily taxed to enrich a billionaire in order to build a sports stadium for a sporting event that they will never attend.
City residents, on the other hand, will fan out to farms and small communities where they will be given pockets full of gravel, a handful of second-rate methamphetamines, and training in animal husbandry, which is not what you think it is, except that sometimes it is.
As the city dwellers make their way to the countryside, they will view — many for perhaps the first time — the “spacious skies and amber waves of grain” sung about with such reverence in “America the Beautiful.”
Meanwhile, upon arrival in cities, rural residents may catch a glimpse of that revered “gleaming alabaster” — and perhaps even get a shard of it in the eye — as they take cover behind plaster and drywall during their first drive-by-shooting.
To mark the occasion, and because both city and country folks each enjoy a good celebration, a welcoming event will take place.
City dwellers (bangers/homies, etc.) will be given a parade with a small-town feel, where candy is still thrown because freedom still exists, although most of the candies will be Tootsie Roll Fruit Chews because that’s all they had at Dollar General. Meanwhile, rural folks now in cities will be given the opportunity to participate in a “hoedown,” complete with the option of having a “ho” (man, woman, or other) “go down” on you.
And finally, a point where city and rural dwellers already find some common ground: the environment, and how best to destroy it. In urban areas, citizens care deeply about the environment because they are unable to see it beyond all the crime, concrete, smog, and mile-high buildings, whereas rural dwellers know what a complete asshole the environment is, and so they frequently shoot it. That is why in both places, upon arrival, all citizens will be provided with Ford F-150s and firearms.
By allowing all Americans to revel in the other for a day, we can put aside our not insignificant differences to realize that our sense of community must transcend the very politics that benefit from its purposeful destruction. We are Americans. And in all cases and in all places, we must come together to do our farm animals, our drugs, and our shooting with empathy and understanding for one another. We must trade places if we are to save America. Well, the real America, anyway.
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