This is part IV in our “Rural America” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. It is almost a golden rule of campaign journalism: Find a small-town restaurant packed with white conservative voters, and ask what their hopes are for America. The restaurant patrons enthusiastically support the Republican candidate and bemoan the direction of our country and her values. After the pancakes are eaten and the coffee cups drained, the intrepid reporter books it back to the big city.   We watched this scenario play out in the election of 2016, where a majority of rural Americans voted for Trump, many of them expressing the thought that big…