Ethan Demme

Thoughts and Policy for Building a Better Pennsylvania

The Great Revolt – Book Review

With Salena Zito

Salena Zito has been a political journalist for almost 15 years. Her rule for traveling is “no planes, no interstates and no hotels.” While many pundits, journalists, political strategists, and the like tend to fly over the rural and industrial areas of America, Zito stays at the local bed-and-breakfasts and eats at the local diners. This dedication to getting to know Middle America has given Zito a compelling vantage point for understanding the 2016 election. Her book The Great Revolt (co-written with Republican strategist Brad Todd) introduces us to the counties and citizens who put Donald Trump in the White House.  Through a compelling mix of anecdotal insight, extensive number-crunching, and substantive analysis, the book showcases “the populist coalition reshaping American politics.”

The authors identify several archetypal Trump voters, from the much-discussed Evangelical to the Independent who only votes once in a blue moon. The section on the white working class voter contains several surprises. The authors note that “among those surveyed for this book in this demographic, 84% were actually optimistic about the future of their career, even as they expressed concern for their communities.” (20.) In addition, this voter group “ranked Trump’s promise to bring back manufacturing jobs as more important than his promises to protect safety-net programs or his pledges to build a wall on the Mexican border or put conservative judges on the Supreme Court” (20.) On a much more sobering note, “fully half of this group reports that they know someone personally who has battled drug addiction.” (21)

Similar to this group is another voter demographic that the authors call the Rough Rebounders, who tended to be Trump’s fiercest supporters.

Regarding this group, the authors write: “whether they were bouncing back from foreclosure, bankruptcy, multiple family breakups, or business calamity, Rough Rebounders saw in Trump something they wanted to believe about themselves – a resilient and unconventional survivor who seemed tougher than his critics and his obstacles.” The authors note that “Trump’s missteps and gaffes and penchant for saying the impolite, the inappropriate, or just the inaccurate, endeared him even more to many of these voters.” (79)

Another fascinating voter group identified by the authors is the Rotary Reliables. Here’s the demographic summary:

“The Rotary Reliables are at the top of the pyramid in their communities, the kind of people who run the factories, banks, and civic organizations. But unlike the upper class congregating in the nation’s most elite zip codes, these voters spend much of their lives intersecting not with fellow college-educated professionals, but with working-class voters. They hunt and fish with them, they share PTA duty at school with them, they sit on the same church pews. Unlike the corporate manager who lives in a cul-de-sac outside Dallas or Philadelphia, these college-educated voters in less-educated communities knew plenty of people who were not only voting for Trump, but were enthusiastic about him.” (145)

The most important thing to note about this voter group is that they “voted with their neighbors and not their economic or educational class” (146.) The authors explain that “the sense that Trump was looking at the overlooked, and fighting for the forgotten in Middle America, enabled him to succeed with the upper-middle-class votes in places like Erie who are scarcely different demographically from the suburbanites who were the weakest part of the Trump coalition” (159.)

The broader county-based data analysis is a particular strength of the book. The authors draw attention to the sheer number of counties that were crucial to Trump’s election:

“Thirty-five counties in Ohio, long the nation’s premier presidential bellwether, swung 25 or more points from 2012 to 2016. Twenty-three countries in Wisconsin, thirty-two counties in Iowa, and twelve counties in Michigan switched from Obama to Trump in the space of four years. With few exceptions, these places are locales where most of America’s decision makers and opinion leaders have never been.” (3) On the other hand, “of the forty-four mega counties in the nation with populations over one million, Trump carried only three – Tarrant County, Texas, which includes Fort Worth; Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes Phoenix; and Suffolk County on Long Island, New York” (144.) In these counties “Trump’s net margin of votes in mega counties was worse than Romney’s in thirty-two of the forty-four” (144.)

A surprising finding is that “Trump did very well among the college-educated in counties farther away from major cities – a vital component of the record margins he assembled in those non-metropolitan counties” (144.) Though, as might have been expected, “in counties with far more than the national average of 29.8 percent of adults with bachelor’s degrees, Trump fared poorly. Of America’s one hundred most educated counties, he carried only nineteen – Romney had carried twenty-six” (144.) Regarding these findings, the authors summarize that “Americans who live their lives among a group of friends and neighbors with varied educational backgrounds preferred Trump more than Clinton or Romney, while college-educated Americans who live exclusively among other degree holders were less likely to support Trump, even if they were otherwise Republican” (145.)

The book also features insightful analysis of specific counties that voted for Trump such as Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. The authors write: “traditionally, Luzerne County has been emblematic of the heart and soul of the working-class wing of the Democratic Party. Its residents personified the character traits of the New Dealers; they supported government social programs that served as a safety net for the residents, they were pro-life, pro-gun, they joined unions and churches alike” (28.) Trump’s victory in Luzerne was crucial in securing the state, but it’s rather remarkable that this historically blue county went red. After all, “in 2008, Barack Obama beat Republican nominee Senator John McCain of Arizona by 9 percentage points in this county; he beat Mitt Romney in 2012 by 5 points” (31.) And yet, a mere four years later, Trump beat Clinton in this county by a 20 point margin.

So what does the future of United States politics look like? Zito echoes the notion that there are two Americas. One America is found in the Big Four clusters [New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C.] which is dominated by various keywords like “cosmopolitan” and “multiculturalism” and “open borders.” That America is powered by the technocratic progressivism on full display in Hillary Clinton’s campaign. And then there is the America that is so diligently detailed in The Great Revolt. Zito writes that “the emerging populist-conservative coalition is in no small measure a resistance to the mores and powers of those Big Four clusters – and the Democratic message of the Obama era has proven to be a purely distilled insistence on conformity to the values, societal norms, and priorities of that hyper-educated, metropolitan class.” Zito explains that “if the people who make branding, news, and political decisions are immersed in environments hostile to a coalition that represents a governing majority of the nation, cultural schism is the most likely outcome.” (236) Zito identifies the NFL controversy as one example of this schism and warns that “the NFL won’t be the last gas tank to combust under the friction of the colliding mores of coastal brands and heartland populists” (257.)

Nevertheless, the idea of an emerging ascendant multicultural coalition of voters remains increasingly plausible as well, and in fact, both the Democratic party and large businesses like Starbucks and Google, are banking on the future of that coalition.  Zito quotes the journalist Ron Brownstein: “in the long run, Republicans have a demographic problem and Democrats have a geographic problem” (263.) The future likely belongs to whichever political party can solve their respective problem the fastest.

 

 

The Conservative Heart – Book Review

Arthur Brooks wasn’t always the conservative president of a leading think tank. Before he was at the helm of the American Enterprise Institute, he was a young self-proclaimed “liberal bohemian” native of progressive Seattle. At age 19, he dropped out of college to tour the world playing concerts. He moved to Spain to convince a girl named Ester to marry him – which she did.

After years of living this global adventure, he found that it no longer was a source of happiness so he signed up to earn an inexpensive BA degree by correspondence from Thomas Edison State College. It was during those college studies as a twenty-eight-year-old that he found himself falling in love with economics. He went on to earn a masters degree and then a Ph.D. in public policy. He learned that:

“We can’t change behavior just by passing a law against something we don’t like. I learned that people are complex and respond to different incentives, which is why so many social problems are not fixable through government programs. But most of all, I learned that American-style democratic capitalism was changing the world and helping billions of poor people to build their lives. To my shock, I also learned that this outlook made me a ‘conservative.'”

In The Conservative Heart, Brooks calls for us as conservatives to “reclaim the moral high ground” and stop arguing against things and instead start advocating for people. He boldly calls for us to “put forward a hopeful, optimistic governing agenda – one that focuses on improving the lives of all people, especially the most vulnerable, through authentically conservative policies.” This means that conservatives are actually not opposed to a safety net (and here Brooks cites the iconic libertarian economist Friedrich Hayek and Ronald Reagan) but that conservatives see the purpose of that safety net as a means of helping the poor people “lead lives of dignity, independence, self-reliance, and above all, work.” Less typical of conservative rhetoric is Brook’s assertion that we need to stop fixating on the rags-to-riches narrative. Instead:

“Our movement should be focusing not on the people who make it to great wealth, but rather about those who never get rich – but thrive by lifting themselves up out of poverty, building their lives, supporting their families, and understanding their true purpose. That’s the essence of American entrepreneurship.”

While there are policy highlights and suggestions throughout the book like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a wage subsidy administered through the tax system that Brooks calls “the most powerful pro-work, antipoverty measure”, the real strength of the book lies in the many examples of conservative private sector solutions to pressing concerns. For example, Brooks highlights the work of the Doe Fund, a program in which homeless men (many of whom had been incarcerated) would live in a community and learn to work, earn, save, and prepare to “enter society as value-creating, values-conscious individuals.” And Brooks gives us both a birds-eye view of this successful program (since 1990, the Doe Fund has helped over 22,000 people) and a ground-view through the personal stories of men like Dallas Davis who had been incarcerated on drug charges and who entered the Doe Fund program, developed a strong work ethic, and graduated at the top of his class (giving the commencement address), with certification from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to fix boilers and sprinklers.

Brooks also sprinkles bullet point takeaways throughout the book to reinforce the values that are on the conservative heart. Principles like “Work is a blessing, not a punishment” and “Human dignity is not a function of wealth.” He also offers an excellent critique of the rhetoric of conservatives, writing: “the left talks about the human experience while the right talks about GDP growth, tax rates, and spending levels.” We need not be afraid, says Brooks, of morality shaping our rhetoric: for example, we can boldly declare that it is immoral to deny people the opportunity to participate in the dignity of work!

In his concluding chapter, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Conservatives”, Brooks offers some counter-intuitive advice like “Get Happy” (doomsday rhetoric doesn’t inspire) and “Go where you’re not welcome” (reach across the aisle, not just as a political move, but because you actually care). He is quick to point out that this chapter (and indeed the whole book) is not a manual of rhetorical tricks designed to fool people into voting for you. No, the point is “to make us better at expressing the content of our own characters so we become better servants for people in need.”

A City Transformed – Book Review

Lancaster City is one of the oldest inland cities in the United States of America. It was originally settled in 1709 by German immigrants, the Pennsylvania Dutch. Lancaster was originally known as Hickory Town and was designed by James Hamilton. Lancaster was chartered as a city on March 10, 1818. During the Revolutionary War, Lancaster was the capital of the American colonies for one day, September 27, 1777, when Congress was fleeing from the British. Lancaster was also capital of Pennsylvania from 1799 till 1812.

In his book A City Transformed, David Schuyler traces the history of redevelopment in Lancaster City from 1940 through 1980. Schuyler is Professor of American Studies at Franklin & Marshall College and he has spent a lot of his academic career exploring the challenges cities faced during the second half of the 20th century.

In the postwar years, cities across America faced drastic economic decline. Lancaster was one such city and in order to try and address this decline, the city adopted various urban renewal programs with the goal of revitalizing the city and particularly downtown.  Sadly, as Schuyler documents, most of these government-driven programs were failures that often exacerbated the problems. One of the greatest issues facing Lancaster was the need for affordable housing. Schuyler writes that “the discovery of a crisis in housing was the initial step in the development of a comprehensive urban renewal program for Lancaster” (pg. 35) After the Lancaster newspaper drew attention to the substandard living of poor residents in Barney Google Row and Shanytown where the “houses” were shacks with no running water or electric, Lancasterian leaders decided that something needed to be done. Unfortunately over the course of the next several decades, providing adequate housing for poorer families would prove a harder task than what was imagined.

Pertaining to housing, Schuyler documents in heartbreaking detail the unintended effects of gentrification with the Church-Musser plan for townhouse development which led to large increases of rent driving out poorer families from their homes. Schuyler also explores the ugly reality of segregation and the ways in which racial tensions also hurt families and kept them from accessing affordable housing.

One recurring theme in A City Transformed is how government intervention consistently made things worse. For example, during the summer of 1965, Lancaster’s leaders decided to demolish the historic west block of Lancaster despite intense public opposition. Schuyler writes that “despite the concerns, citizens voiced at the September 1964 public hearing, and despite editorials that warned against turning downtown into a rubble-strewn wasteland … members of City Council and the Redevelopment Authority abandoned a policy that had prevented premature demolition and adopted a new one that ensured it.” After demolishing the west block, the block sat vacant for almost a full decade and became known as “our hole in the ground” (pg. 87).

A City Transformed is a sobering account of Lancaster’s history here in the 20th century and the struggles for economic sustainability and affordable housing. Despite the best interests of Lancaster’s leaders, often the very initiatives that were hoped to alleviate the problems of the poor and revitalize the economy had the opposite effects. Nevertheless, the book is also a celebration of the enduring spirit of Lancastrians, their compassionate conservatism, and their work to try and make the city a better place for everyone.

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