In the heyday of American labor, the influence of local unions extended far beyond the workplace. Unions were embedded in tight-knit communities, touching nearly every aspect of the lives of members—mostly men—and their families and neighbors. They conveyed fundamental worldviews, making blue-collar unionists into loyal Democrats who saw the party as on the side of the working man.

Today, unions play a much less significant role in American life. In industrial and formerly industrial Rust Belt towns, Republican-leaning groups and outlooks have burgeoned among the kinds of voters who once would have been part of union communities. This episode explores why that’s happened and whether new unions coming online at places like Starbucks may change the picture moving forward.

Our guest is Lainey Newman,  a J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School and co-author with Theda Skocpol of Rust Belt Union Blues: Why Working Class Voters are Turning Away from the Democratic Party. Newman is a graduate of Harvard College and a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Episode Transcript

Michael Berkman From the McCourtney Institute for Democracy on the campus of Penn State University I’m Michael Berkman.

Chris Beem I’m Chris Beem.

Jenna Spinelle I’m Jenna Spinelle and welcome to Democracy Works. This week we are talking with Lainey Newman, co author with Theda Skocpol of the new book Rust Belt Union Blues: Why Working Class Voters are Turning Away from the Democratic Party. So this is quite the partnerships. It’s quite the opportunity for a young scholar like Laney to work with kind of a titan of the field like Theda Skocpol, who, of course, has been on our show before. And also, I know that these books take years to write and to plan. But that happened to I think, come out at a pretty good time when unions are in the news right now the you know, the auto workers and FedEx workers recently, we’re hearing about union drives at Starbucks and Amazon and all these places. So it’s an interesting time to consider the evolution of unions over the years, which is what they do in this book in one specific part of the country in western Pennsylvania.

Chris Beem Yeah, it is a striking moment, right. I mean, we have support for unions higher in the US than it’s been since I think 1965, which is a long time ago. And you know, a lot has changed in the world and in the United States since then. And you also have a Joe Biden, who calls himself the most pro labor president ever. And whether you think that’s true or not, he was the first acting president to be on an active picket line. So yeah, it is a moment for labor in the country. And so it’s a timely topic for us to take up.

Michael Berkman Labor unions seem to be at a peak of influence and impact, probably very much a consequence of high employment and low unemployment, which puts them in a strong position. The screenwriters did I think better than people thought they would. The UAW is obviously holding out for significant concessions, there have been others that we could point to across the country where unions have done pretty well, or where you’re organizing has gone pretty well, Starbucks is becoming unionized in a lot of different ways. And, of course, part of that, as we’re seeing very much the new face of labor, this book is the old faith, of labor. And the new face is much more likely to be to be minority, to be female, and even to be college educated. And it was at the time, when the people that she’s talking about who were in the trade unions, or in the old steel unions, or factoring manufacturer unions were at the peak of their political power and their economic power in the 1950s and 1940s. And early 1960s. You know, I kind of read her book as another story of loss and change. And the challenge that that presents for populations, that groups of people that saw themselves as really ascendant and maybe are not so scented anymore.

Chris Beem Yeah, I mean, so the question that they want to ask is, you know, when you’re looking at this time, when unions were as powerful and as well established, as they ever were in American history, they were also almost exclusively if not exclusively democratic, right? It just was a given that if you were in a union, you are going to vote democratic. And that has, you know, that was part of kind of the idea of what it meant to be in a union, it was putting you up against people who were rich and powerful, and, you know, controlled capital, and who, you know, owned the factories, what have you. And so this was part of their identity was that they were Democrats, and you know, whether or not it is we have to be careful. And Michael, you pointed this out, we have to be careful that when we’re talking about unions, that’s almost too broad a brush to say anything meaningful about, but in terms of these unions, and the place that she’s talking about them, right in western Pennsylvania, manufacturing, steel workers, whatever, they are not largely Democrat anymore, and many of them and in terms of the kind of little pieces of data they have, most of them are now kind of identified with Trump with Q anon with, you know, just kind of an 180 degree switch, right. And so that’s what they’re trying to kind of account for. What is it that changed and what Why is it that we find ourselves in this position?

Jenna Spinelle So yeah, you’re right that this book in this project raises a lot of complicated questions about this region and the people in it and how things have changed and the role that the unions have played in their lives and their communities. I think we will get to all of that with Lanie in the interview, and then maybe we can unpack some of them a little bit further after the interview. But let’s go now to the interview with Lainey Newman

Jenna Spinelle Lainey Newman, welcome to Democracy Works. Thanks for joining us today.

Lainey Newman Thank you so much, Jenna, for having me.

Jenna Spinelle So lots to dig into in your new book, Rust Belt, union blues. But before we do, you know, this question of how the Democratic Party lost support of union workers and blue collar voters in the Rust Belt has been a subject of question for journalists and scholars, many of them over the years, this has been an oft interrogated subject. And, you know, it seems that this is in addition to being an academic question for you, you also have a personal connection to this topic. And this region, I wonder if you could start off by telling us a bit about that.

Lainey Newman I got interested in this question of why there’s been so much drift from the Democratic Party amongst union members, initially, because I had extended family members who were members of the United Auto Workers Union, which, of course, is very much in the news right now. And when I was growing up, these older members have now passed, but they were very staunch, you know, Union men, sort of as we define that term in the book, meaning they were very passionate about being members of their union, they were loyal to their, to their union, and really believed in the Democratic Party and in a working class coalition. And so I just in sort of observing, you know, growing up in western Pennsylvania, and observing the changes that had happened in the region, particularly like culminating in, you know, ended up being 2016, I was just interested in sort of understanding where that identity had gone. And you know, what was left, you know, in its stead. And so, that’s sort of the combination of my, you know, my extended family members. And then also the region that I grew up in my family members were actually up in Minneapolis. But you know, Western Pennsylvania, of course, is one of the real sort of bedrock union towns, I think of the rust belt. And so that those two things sort of what grew into this larger project that I started when I was in college.

Jenna Spinelle And, you know, you interviewed, I believe it was 50, union members, or former union members and leaders for this book, correct me if that number is wrong, but I wonder if you could talk a bit about how you found them. And maybe if you encountered any hesitancy or skepticism for people about being interviewed, given all the media interest, right, journalists from New York and Washington wondering and asking them to talk about what once was, and and all of that,

Lainey Newman I initially started reaching out to whoever I could sort of get in contact with. And at first, I was actually talking to some of the leadership, some of the members of the leadership of large international union. So this is like the very upper sort of side of the Union. And I realized pretty quickly that that wasn’t really the perspective that I was looking for. And though that I did get valuable information from those people, that some of which, you know, there’s a couple of things from that, that we incorporate, but, you know, what I really wanted to know, is how the how the rank and file union members were feeling, both retirees who could speak about their past experience, and current members who could speak about their, you know, current experience with the union and how they felt what importance they attributed to the Union. And so I think, initially, just trying to get in contact with really anyone, whether that was reaching out to locals, you know, directly or there were some people, some older labor, basically just, you know, people who really feel really passionately about labor in Pittsburgh, and, you know, have these sort of communities that I was able to, you know, then groups really, that I was able to get in contact with these informal groups, or, you know, whatever people that would meet up and, you know, get together, mostly retirees, and so I was able to get in contact with some of those folks, and then essentially snowball with different people within that community. Sometimes it was, you know, again, cold calls and cold emails, but a lot of times it was saying, developing a relationship with certain members of the community, and then having those people refer me to others. There were some people who sent me essentially like lists of people who they were like, you know, this is my friend in this logo, and, you know, you can try reaching out to them, there were definitely times where people were resistant, but I think more than anything, people were actually appreciative of someone, you know, being interested in curious and wanting to hear their stories. That was what I found overwhelmingly to be the case. I think it also helped that for at least part of these in some of these interviews, I was a student and so being a young person reaching out, you know, and especially talking to the old folks think that they liked that and a lot of them did open up to me which I you know, Wouldn’t made the book possible, really. And so, you know, when people were resistant, I kind of just accepted that and you know, didn’t push it too hard. But a lot of times people were thankfully pretty open with me.

Jenna Spinelle Yeah. And so you spend a little bit of time in the beginning of the book, kind of defining both what the Rust Belt is and what unions you’re looking at in this context, I feel like that, you know, both of those terms tend to get thrown around a lot in all of this coverage about the changing attitudes and whatnot of this region. I wonder if you could just give us some definitions there. We have listeners across the country and around the world. You know, what is the rust belt? And how are you thinking about what a union is in the context of this project?

Lainey Newman Yeah, no, that’s a great question. I think that one thing that theta and I really care about in this project is, you know, the specificity of talking not only about unions broadly, but really about, you know, different, there’s a lot of variation within the category of unions. And it’s really hard to sort of lump all the unions together and say, and make broad generalizations. And so that’s something that I think is really important. And in this project, we’re talking mainly about industrial or manufacturing unions, or the construction trades, you know, in the industrial Midwest, so the Rust Belt region. And so, the industrial unions are, you know, sort of the broad unions that are organized, at least were initially organized by industry, whether that’s steel or auto manufacturing, or coal, but a lot of these industrial unions have really expanded into other sectors of the economy. So that’s one thing that we explore in the book, the implications of, you know, steelworkers expanding to organize librarians and nurses and, you know, teachers, etc, as you know, faculty, at various universities, and then the craft unions are more sort of traditional amount of the more traditional fields. So in that domain, we’re talking about people with a certain skill set, so like masonry or electrical workers or brick layers, I guess, you know, plumbers, pipe fitters, and so those unions are have, for the most part kept mainly to that specific skill set. And that specific trade, which stands in contrast to some of the industrial unions, those were mainly the unions that we were looking at, in the Rust Belt. Yeah, it is kind of an amorphous term, I suppose. But we look mainly at the region that I think had really had a lot of manufacturing in the mid 20th century had a lot of sort of industrial towns or small cities. So we think that our conclusions can be generalized throughout a lot of the region, whether it’s, you know, even like through Buffalo, New York, but also up through Minnesota, it’s hard to geographically pin it down, I think, a little bit. But you know, these areas that throughout what we consider what we think of these, you know, states that Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois that had a lot of manufacturing, specifically, though, on the local level, the smaller towns and cities that where those manufacturing were headquartered essentially North centered.

Jenna Spinelle And you know, so much of the Make America Great, again, rhetoric and ideology is tied to this notion of what it was like to be both, I would say, a union member, or maybe not a union member, but working in a blue collar job in these areas 40 5060 years ago. So I wonder if you could give us a sense of what life was like for a union member in western Pennsylvania in that period of time? What were their working conditions, their relationship to the union and how the union shaped the other parts and interacted with the other parts of their identity?

Lainey Newman Yeah, I mean, so that’s something that I think we really try to pin down in this research because it you know, what was the starting place, then, you know, that we’re thinking about? And so where have we come? Where have we gone from there? So I think that in the mid 20th century, I think that, you know, the union man, the union family, in communities was very sort of interconnected with other community members with other workers generally lived very near to their workplace, and as did the vast majority of those workers. So when you think about like a mill town, you know, everyone’s sort of in the same general couple mile radius, which stands in stark contrast to today where people are driving in from lots of different places, to wherever they’re working. And the union was connected with a lot of different institutions within those communities. And so whether that was, you know, through sponsoring different events, through relationships with the religious organizations, the churches, in the communities, whether it was directly to, you know, with the family members, or in this case, there were ladies auxiliaries that were organized in You know, connection to the unions, which were mostly white men, though not exclusively. And so I think that the picture and you know, the one that I think, gets a lot of this sort of nostalgia and, you know, the sentimentality from the Republican Party, and even from people who I talked to, in a sense that it was a very tight knit, tight knit community for a lot of people. And it was a way that you could be in the middle class and solidly so without needing, you know, a higher degree or needing some sort of specialization or whatnot. And so I think that that’s sort of what people’s picture, I think that it’s pretty accurate from the documents and from the interviews that we saw.

Jenna Spinelle So yeah. And so what does that look like today, you also write about some of the organizations that have come to take the place of churches and, you know, civil society groups, other things that weren’t union adjacent in the mid 20th? Century?

Lainey Newman Yeah, so I think that, you know, as unions sort of declined in the 70s 80s. And through today, though, you know, we’ll see what’s gonna happen in the next several years. But I think that what happened is that people have still, you know, saw, I think it’s human nature to seek community in some form. And whether that’s online communities, for some people, or, you know, in person communities, there’s still sort of a need for that. And when it’s not being filled by, you know, by local integrated civic institutions, like unions, or fraternal groups, or small ethnic churches, it can be filled in other ways, there’s a lot more sort of isolation now in the sense that people I think, are a lot more individually devoted to family and sort of keep to families. But then I think that, you know, one thing that we’ve looked at a lot is the presence of these gun clubs, which are local ones, we studied our local NRA affiliated organizations, fishing, hunting clubs, Rod, and gun clubs, that type of thing. And these institutions have actually remained in these communities and have actually, you know, grown in the numbers sense this sort of decline of unions. And so we look at how those institutions are actually playing a community gathering role and a social role, really, with clubhouses and you know, bingo nights and stuff like that, which is something that other civic institutions traditionally did. Now, those events are sort of happening under this in this backdrop of conservative influence by the NRA. And so that’s one thing that we look at, I think another thing is, you know, the consolidation of churches, which is a whole separate sort of body of research, but there’s been a lot of consolidation shutting in a lot of these industrial ex industrial towns, these smaller churches don’t really exist anymore. And there’s larger, you know, either mega churches or near mega churches that are sort of more streamline, non denominational, but conservative affiliated, religious institutions, and that’s having a very different effect on people’s social lives as well. So that’s sort of some of the things that we’re seeing. But, you know, there’s, it varies based on the community for sure.

Jenna Spinelle Sure. So you started to mention there the conservative affiliation with gun clubs and mega churches, which gets into some of the connection to the political parties. So thinking back to the mid 20th century, I guess how overtly tied to the Democratic Party were the unions and the other sort of auxiliary organizations that you mentioned. You know, contrast that with the political ties and political influence to the Republican Party that you were just describing in the present day?

Lainey Newman Yeah, I think one of the things that we sort of discovered throughout our research is, union members have and this sort of rings true today to union members have always sort of resisted a top down, you know, instruction or direction on how to vote. So, you know, there’s always been union endorsement by the leadership, and it still is affiliated very strongly with the Democratic Party. But union members even we discovered this really great survey from the 50s of United Steelworkers members. And, and one of the things that most people agreed with was, you know, they don’t really want their they don’t care for the union leadership necessarily telling them how to vote. They appreciated the for the most part, they appreciated the information that would be provided about candidates, but in terms of saying vote this way, you know, from the international leadership that wasn’t, you know, something that they necessarily cared that much about or adhered to, what they adhere to was the sense of loyalty and commitment amongst one another, I think, and a group identity that was formed based on sort of this understanding of mutual commitments and sort of an alliance with who supports us and who will we support in return? earn. And so I think that one of the things that we’re arguing is, it’s much less about, you know, it was, and it still is much less about, you know, official union endorsement than I think a lot of people probably assume. And we see that today too, with, you know, and clearly, you know, Trump understands that there’s a big difference between how the rank and file union membership votes and who the union leadership over in DC endorses. And he’s been capitalizing on that, and even with going to Michigan and, and whatnot. And so I think that’s one thing that we see. Now, I think that in terms of the conservative influences in these regions now, I think that one of the things that we’re talking about is that it matters where these social interactions are taking place. So the fact that they’re taking place, even if people aren’t talking about the Second Amendment, the fact that they’re taking place in these conservative institutions, has an impact. And it matters as opposed to, you know, taking place at a union hall, or, you know, at more of a sort of community, embedded institution that has either neutral or progressive values, such as a labor supporting church, back in the day.

Jenna Spinelle So we’ve been talking up to this point about how the unions have changed over the past four or five decades, I want to shift a little bit to talk about how the Democratic Party has changed in that time. I think a critique that I hear a lot, I’d say, both from the left and from the right, is that the mainstream of the Democratic Party is, you know, in that the same timeframe and the, you know, late 20th or 21st century shifted to focus on college educated city dwelling voters, you know, people like you and me, right, versus people in, you know, more sparsely populated areas are working class voters, the Bill Clinton and the Democratic leadership committee all the way up through Obama and Hillary Clinton, I guess, just to ask it simply like, does that critique hold up based on the research that you’ve done here?

Lainey Newman Yeah, I mean, I think that it does, I think it really does. And it’s something that the Democratic Party in recent years has noticed, and I think tried to, in some ways, address I mean, maybe not as much as not as much as they should, in my opinion. But yeah, I do think that it holds up, I think that there was a lot more sort of emphasis on local and, you know, non urban areas, you know, during this period that we talked about. So in the mid 20th century, and over time, I think that there was a sort of a national sort of consensus maybe, or movement towards really only prioritizing cities. And that coincided with more money in politics. And, you know, this membership to management trend that we’ve seen, which, you know, includes having a lot more sort of top down advocacy and lobbying efforts. So I do think that it’s a fair critique. I mean, you know, as a lot of people have pointed out, Hillary Clinton didn’t go to these places, and Trump did during 2016. And Biden, I think, has made a real effort to sort of remedy that. And he did go to campaign events in western Pennsylvania and in various other parts of the rust belt and in these x industrial areas, but it’s going to take time, I think, and one of the things that we talk about is that these efforts can’t just be the month before an election, you know, this has to be a continued presence. And that’s something that I think, you know, that both theta and I believe, you know, very deeply that the Democrats can’t just show up and say, Look, we’re in your best economic interest. You know, like, if you don’t vote for us, you’re voting against it. That doesn’t work, because politics is about a lot. Political loyalty, and political choices are about a lot more than that. And so I think, you know, there again, I think we’ve realized what we did wrong, or at least some people, you know, and and we’re trying, you know, some, you know, we’re trying to make efforts in that direction. But it’s, I mean, it’s gonna take time, I think, to end a lot more, a lot more of what, you know what we’re doing. So

Jenna Spinelle Yeah, I mean, especially given the, you know, what seems to be a steady stream of both messaging and activities and organizations from conservative identifying organization. So not only are Yeah. So you’re sort of battling that headwind, so to speak, but I wonder if the efforts that you mentioned by the Biden campaign in 2020, if the folks that you interviewed noticed that and if they did, how did they feel about it?

Lainey Newman

Yeah, I mean, so I think the difference, you know, between Biden and Hillary, I think people didn’t notice it and Biden lost less right in the He’s areas surrounding, you know, big cities in the Rust Belt, he closed the margin slightly, and just enough to be able to come out in the states ahead. And so I think that people didn’t notice. I think that there was enough amongst some people, there was enough attention to the issues and his messaging, as you know, being the most pro labor candidate slash president, I think that it has made a difference. I don’t think that for people that have completely lost faith in the Democratic Party that it’s, you know, and believe that Democrats have abandoned labor or banned in these regions of the country, I don’t think that it made all the difference. But, you know, we saw somewhat closer margins and in areas and in these counties where, you know, the margins were in the 20 percentage points, 30 percentage points where the Republicans consistently over the past 20 years have been just running up the numbers, a slightly smaller gap was really important.

Jenna Spinelle So you know, as we’ve gone through the 2020 election, and the insurrection on January 6, the people are still kind of scratching their heads, two plus years later about, like, how people could believe something that on its face, it’s just blatantly false. And you have, I think it’s one of your subheadings in the book is as a lie is better than nothing. So I wonder if you could unpack that for us?

Lainey Newman That was a comment that was very striking to me that when I interviewed you said, Yeah, I mean, I think that what that gets at is a sense that even if we understand that things aren’t going to go back to the way they were, you know, even if that’s the undeniable reality, at least someone is paying attention, at least someone showing up and talking to us, at least someone is, you know, thinking about these issues. And I think that that’s what, you know, the sort of Trump effect was essentially, a lot of people didn’t actually vote didn’t believe that he was going to bring them back steel, as he said, at one rally or, or, you know, a call, but just, you know, basically appreciated that he was paying attention to the, to the issues at all. And I think that one of the things as we discussed a bit ago, the Democrats have sort of, you know, had this pattern of just sort of abandoning these areas and abandoning labor and not not paying attention to what was going on. And so, yeah, I mean, I think that unfortunately, that was a sentiment that many of my interviewees had. And that was felt, I think, amongst working people across the Rust Belt. But I think to counteract that there needs to be the Democrats need to sort of, again, build their relationships in these areas, build back their relationships in these regions. Because if there is an existing understanding that these are lies, you know that and a lot of people do understand that. I mean, there are some people who believed everything, you know, what Trump was saying and what the Republicans were saying, and whatever. But then there’s room there. I think, I think that there’s room there. If since there is that understanding that these, this isn’t necessarily true, this isn’t necessarily going to happen, he’s not actually going to do and deliver on these promises. So I do think that that’s where that’s where Democrats have to sort of step up and get back involved in these regions.

Jenna Spinelle One last question here for you, lady. So I know that the the book is just out this month. We’re recording this at the end of September. But I wonder if you’ve kept in touch with the people you’ve interviewed, if they’ve had a chance to read it if they felt they got a fair shake, or just anything? You’ve heard? All those conversations have continued since you talked to them several years ago at this point?

Lainey Newman So actually, one of my interviewees got the book before I did. I don’t even I don’t know how that happened. But he got it in the mail, I guess. Before I did. And he sent me an email. It’s actually how I found out that the book was even being printed. And he sent me an email and he was like I agree with, he was really excited. And I thought it meant a lot to me. And he said he was he wanted to send the book to his union leadership, which was great. And so that was one instance. And when I finished my thesis, I also sent my thesis to one of different interviewee in the mail, I just sent him a copy of it. And he also loved it. And I had interviewed him and his son actually, both of whom were Steeler workers, and he read it and then gave it to his son. And so, you know, I think that’s honestly the best feedback that I’ve gotten is from, you know, the people who feel that I’m that we’ve represented their experience, accurately and, and, and in a way that is meaningful to them. And so that’s been really, really great. And I’m excited, you know, hopefully in western Pennsylvania, and we have, we have a couple events, they’ll come out and we’ll get to visit again.

Jenna Spinelle We will link to the book and perhaps some of those other things coming up in the show notes and hope for Folks will pick it up and check it out for themselves. Lee Newman, thanks so much for joining us today.

Lainey Newman Thank you, Jenna, this has been so much fun.

Chris Beem All right. That’s that was really interesting. Michael, this is kind of your, you know, your wheelhouse. What do you think about the argument that, you know, union members have become Republicans? And I mean, let’s start with that claim. And then we’ll go on to their argument about why things changed.

Michael Berkman Well, these kinds of union members have become have been more likely to become Republican, but it’s certainly don’t think it’s true in the public employee unions, or of the teachers unions, which are still critical parts of the Democratic coalition, certainly teachers for that matter of public employees. So certainly, it’s true, I believe about and data seems to support that. These trade unionists, maybe manufacturing unionists, or at least workers, because let’s keep in mind how much of these industries that were unionized at this time when they’re at their peak are now non unionized. So the auto workers in Tesla, are not unionized. And the auto workers that are down in Tennessee, where there are a lot of plants are also not unionized, but they are workers. But we’re talking here, I guess, about people that are very much specifically still within unions. And unions that are a declining proportion of the overall union population and a declining proportion of the overall population. But yeah, I mean, well, Ronald Reagan did pretty well with them. Ronald Reagan spent a lot of his campaign up in Macomb County, Michigan, you may remember, and Donald Trump clearly did very well with them. And we’re at least in these in there in those parts of the country. And Joe Biden and Fetterman of Senator Fetterman have made inroads, I think, at least in this state, but you know, I think if you look down at this party system, 10 years from now, I think it’s very possible that states that we think of now as such battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, they may not be, you know, they may just go Republican as this sort of pattern continues. But the Democrats are seeing ascendancy in southern states that actually don’t have a whole lot of unions in Georgia, in North Carolina, which I think will be very much in play 10 years from now, Texas, which could be in play 10 years from now, depending on how voting rules go. And these are states with large African American populations. Democrats do extremely well in their urban areas, and a lot of their messaging and a lot of their policy ideas are oriented towards these regions of knowledge workers, African Americans, not necessarily abled as much as they used to be to speak to these older union industries.

Chris Beem You know, I completely agree with that. I think that this, you know, the takeaway from this book, is not necessarily I mean, I suppose if you were a union executive, you would take the point that if we want to sustain unions and sustain their political, economic cultural power, we have to attend to Union individuals as members and create, seek to create these kinds of this, or maybe, maybe not create, restore these institutions, whereby people have a sense of identity and connection. But I think you’re right, that the, the takeaway here is a story of one, one slice of our society, were the foundation of identity, meaning community, have all kind of eroded in some significant ways. This I mean, it really is just kind of a restatement of some of the stuff out of Robert Putnams famous book Bowling Alone, right, where there used to be these institutions, not just unions, although unions are essential to that, but about ethnic churches and about bowling leagues and about, you know, clubs like Shriners and Kiwanis and whatever. And, you know, it’s not merely enough to say, well, they’re gone. And now what we’ve changed is to note that there is something significant that has been lost not just in terms of politics or culture, but in terms of just, you know, the human need for these things. And if you don’t get them at this face to face community level, you’re going to try to find them elsewhere. And so if you don’t have a union hall where everybody knows your name and where you go for parties and retirements and golf outings and saplings and everything else, then you’re gonna go try to find it in, you know, Fox and Friends, or some kind of online group or, you know, a big organization like the NRA or something like that. And it’s not it’s that is a way of creating community, but it’s not the same. And it’s not as doesn’t serve our very human needs as well.

Michael Berkman Yeah, I mean, but I mean, these are communities that in many cases had been sort of hollowed out. And so it’s, you know, they, other areas of the country, I think, have really quite vibrant civic lives and organizations that hold people together, you know, I sometimes feel like, this country spends a lot of time talking about what, you know, white people have lost, and not very much about what may be gained and what we might be developing and what we might be building in many urban areas in the United States and many areas of growth in the United States. But this, you know, I definitely see this in the context of other stories of loss and related grievance, you know, and, and it’s not surprising to me, that they would attach themselves to a candidacy, referring to Trump in particular, that’s built upon grievance and, and on capitalizing on the sense of loss that people feel that.

Chris Beem The thing that I want to, you know, leave our listeners with is that you know, this book if it does nothing else kind of speaks to the importance of connecting with your fellow human beings face to face carrying out with them and doing stuff that not isn’t even necessarily political.

Michael Berkman Yeah, I mean, I agree with that completely. And I really see this as the strength of this book much more so then which party union members support because I think that’s a larger story about the party coalition’s but this kind of micro look at what has happened in these areas, how it affects people, how it affects their sense of identity, how it affects how they inter relate with one another and then with the political system that I think is really, really interesting kind of micro look that I appreciated the the opportunity to hear about.

Chris Beem So thanks to Jenna for a terrific interview. Thanks to Lainey and Theda Skocpol for really interesting and book with really innovative research. I’m Chris Beem.

Michael Berkman I’m Michael Berkman. Thanks for listening.