#rural-decline

#rural-decline

Like most of South Dakota, Walworth county is built on farming. To the east of Selby, the county seat, vast fields of soybeans and wheat grow between roads that run straight to the horizon. To the west, beyond the county line, the Standing Rock Indian Reservation spreads across miles of rumpled green prairie studded with creamy erratics and dark clumps of trees.

The fried chickens have come home to roost. Cracker Barrel is reverting to its old logo, fewer than 10 days after announcing a new, stripped-down version. The ensuing controversy has been at once a welcome distraction from other news and an outgrowth of all the most annoying impulses in American life. The right-wing backlash to the company's redesign stems from the claim that an avatar of small-town southern authenticity is being overrun by woke culture. But nothing about the change suggests wokeness.