Rural Versus Urban: The Growing Divide That Threatens Democracy

Suzanne Mettler is the John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions in the Government Department at Cornell University. She is the author of The Submerged State and Degrees of Inequality: How The Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream, among other books, and the coauthor of Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy. Trevor E. Brown is a postdoctoral associate at Johns Hopkins University. In 2026, he will join the University of Oregon's Department of Political Science as assistant professor.