Did rural America bring Donald Trump to the presidency? As a phenomenon related to the rise of Trump, the authors try, in this paper, to explain the conservatism that surrounds them personally, as rural residents and rural education scholars. Their neighbors are (mostly) conservative; in part it defines them; it is part of their culture. They have suffered loss across generations, so they are interested to hold on to familiar ways of living. The schools play a contradictory role in this, as rural scholars (worldwide) know well. The authors present four explanations of Trump-related conservatism, all of which, they believe, are apt to some degree. They may not add up convincingly, but they might be a start. First, they explain voting for Trump as a "weapon of the weak" (see, e.g., Scott, 1985). Second, they deal with the Republican allegiances of many rural voters as a variant of "false consciousness." Third, they examine the "rural resonance with fundamentalism"--a religious revival cultivated since about 1970 and marketed nationwide even earlier than that (see, e.g., Grem, 2016; Miller, 2014). Finally, they address "racism as endemic and ubiquitous" in White America, with more polite manifestations in polite society and more blatant ones down home (see, e.g., Inwood, 2015).