This story was co-published with the Atlantic. Sometime during the past few years, the country started talking differently about white Americans of modest means. Early in the Obama era, the ennobling language of campaign pundits prevailed. There was much discussion of “white working-class voters,” with whom the Democrats, and especially Barack Obama, were having such trouble…
Well you ruined my day. Thank you for this post. I used to hang around Joe Bageant’s place to get my ass kicked once in awhile. The take away was that liberals’ simple solutions are mostly simple. The solution comes hard. Maybe we lose the part about “voting against their interests” and listen. The stagnation in these backwaters is real. If you can tune out the vitriol of the parents, can you really ignore the kids? Whether Bush or Gore won the 2000 election, that dying Appalachian township would look the same today. The global market’s verdict is in, what do we do about it? Pretending to care is more resented than indifference and we somehow suck at that. How about doing something. What?