Venture out of your bubble, Trump supporters, and try to understand how most of America thinks

[kpete]

Eugene Robinson/WaPo:

Want to understand Biden voters? Here’s your reading list.

After Donald Trump won in 2016, the media and academia embarked on a numbingly comprehensive sociological and anthropological examination of “the Trump voter.” Reporters and researchers swarmed what seemed like every bereft factory town in the industrial Midwest, every hill and hollow of Appalachia, every windswept farming community throughout the Great Plains. I’m pretty sure television crews did, in fact, bring us reports from every single diner in the contiguous United States — at least, those where at least one regular patron wears overalls.

Never mind that nearly 3 million more of us voted against Trump four years ago; no one seemed terribly interested in our inner lives, our hopes and dreams. This time, however, the gap is too big to ignore — Biden, the president-elect, beat Trump by more than 6 million votes and counting. He won back the heartland of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He won Georgia, for heaven’s sake.

Logically, then, we should put aside those dog-eared copies of J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” and subject “the Biden voter” to the same kind of microscopic scrutiny. Venture out of your bubble, Trump supporters, and try to understand how most of America thinks


https://www.washingtonpost.com/

[mr_lebowski]

1. Link is just to the paper, not the article FYI :)

[theaocp]

2. My friend and I met a woman in SD in 2000.

We stopped at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere to let my ferrets get some wiggles out, having been cooped up in a couple of carriers for the move from CO to MI. A resident of the state noticed my weezils and asked about them. We taught her about them and said they were not uncommon in CO or MI as pets. She said, "I ain't never been outside of SD before." I still remember that quote as clear as the moment she said it. It's still true. Venture outside your bubble, folks.

[zeusdogmom]

4. That situation is more common than you might think

Takes money to travel. Vacation hours at many jobs - totally non-existent or so minimal they are hardly worth it. Or you have used them up taking care of medical needs of self or loved one because oh, by the way there is no or very little sick leave, either.

If it takes everything in your paycheck to keep a roof over your head and bills paid - vacations, if any, are short and nearby.

[Claire Oh Nette]

5. Americans are not all that mobile

Most Americans don't move around.

70% of Americans live in or near the same towns they where they grew up. 75% for women, 68% for men.


A New York Times article from a few years ago showed the typical American lived about 20 minutes form mom.

Sure, we're free to move about the country, but we don't.

[link:https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-family.html|

[Foolacious]

3. Full link:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/want-to-understand-biden-voters-heres-your-reading-list/2020/11/23/1b5f07a0-2dbe-11eb-bae0-50bb17126614_story.html