Donald Trump’s latest bright idea is to take a swing at mail-in and early machine voting. He’s promising an executive order to clamp down on it. Now, here’s the plain country logic: nobody uses mail-in and early machine voting more than rural America. And rural America, for the last twenty years, has been voting MAGA like it’s a religion.

So if Trump really does cut off that voting lifeline? Fewer rural votes. Which means a whole lot fewer MAGA votes. It’s like watching a fella saw the limb he’s standing on.

Spend enough time with Democratic operatives, or the nonprofit campaign folks that shadow them, and you’ll hear the same sermon every time:

 “We’d do better everywhere…especially rural…if we could just get the non-voters to vote.”

They act like there’s a secret blue army just waiting for clipboards and free pizza. Consulting firms make a good living off that fantasy, selling glossy polls that say non-voters love higher wages, universal healthcare, and social justice. So Democrats keep pouring money into registration drives and “turnout operations” like it’s Willy Wonka’s golden ticket.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Registering folks and pushing turnout is the right thing to do. Patriotic even. But here’s the hard truth nobody likes to touch: what if it doesn’t actually help Democrats win?

Take a recent NPR story. Pew Research crunched the numbers and said: Even if everybody had voted in 2024, Trump still would have won—and by a bigger margin.

So here’s the question folks duck like it’s a rattlesnake in the grass:
What if you do get that sleeping giant to the polls, and it wakes up cranky and votes Republican?

That NPR piece reminded me of 2012, Obama’s reelection run in the coalfields of Virginia.

Here’s some mountain wisdom for you. A member of the Greatest Generation was sitting with us at a local Democratic committee meeting when the national campaign decided to send in “help.”

Now, “help” meant a couple of young organizers fresh out of training somewhere far from RURAL country. New sneakers, clipboards, and the confidence that comes from never having to dig a car out of a holler in February. Their mission was to knock on doors and register voters.

Out here, “foreigners” doesn’t mean overseas. It means anybody not from here. You can be from Richmond, Rhode Island, or Mars. If we don’t know your people, you’re a foreigner. And we’ve learned to be careful about strangers knocking, whether they’re selling religion, snake oil, or a politician.

Anyway, one of these field workers came to our county committee meeting, proud as a banty rooster, reporting how many doors they’d knocked and how many “new” voters they’d signed up. They handed over a clean list of names like it was gold.

The old timer took the list, smiled, said thank you…because mountain manners still mean something.

But once the door closed, he shook his head and said, “Lord, bless their hearts, they just registered more Republicans than Democrats.”

And he was right. Another ‘Greatest Generation’ committee member leaned in and said, “I’ve never seen a list with more hard-core Republican family names in my life. If they’d let us guide the canvassing, pick the right doors, maybe steer the talk a little, they might’ve actually helped instead of hurt.”

Here’s the plain truth: Democrats didn’t start losing 70–30 in rural counties overnight. It took twenty years of neglect.

The GOP, and later MAGA, filled the space the Democrats vacated. They backed candidates who showed up at county fairs, hog cookouts, and church picnics. They made rural folks feel seen and heard. And most important, they gave local voices real power to shape the message.

Meanwhile, Democrats parachuted in outsiders with clipboards and talking points written by focus groups three states away.

That’s why the hole keeps getting deeper. It doesn’t matter how “right” your message is or how many facts you’ve got stapled to it. If rural voters don’t see themselves in it, it’s just noise.

And until the Democratic Party learns that lesson, they’ll keep losing elections out here by margins that make you wince.

So maybe, just maybe, instead of panicking about Trump’s scheme to kneecap early machine and mail-in voting, Democrats should sit back and let him do it. Sometimes the best move is to let the other guy shoot himself in the foot.

Be curious, not judgmental.

Till next time, that’s the story from the ‘Back Forty’. — John W. Peace II

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John W. Peace II is a fifth-generation farmer from Big Stone Gap, Virginia, where he grew up on his family’s dairy, Clinch Haven Farms, and still lives today farming hay and beef cattle. He’s a proud father to Trey and Shelby Peace, and partner in life to Cathy Swinney. A Virginia Tech graduate with graduate studies at Penn State, he served as the youngest Chair of the Wise County Board of Supervisors (2004–2008). John co-owns SafeHavenServices.co and urTOPIX LLC (urTopixLLC.com), a Democratic campaign consulting firm focused on reaching rural voters that is sponsored by www.RuralAmericaRising.com PAC. He’s also a two-time Amazon bestselling author. Learn more at www.JohnWPeace.com.