Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse (2020)   By Timothy Carney

Conservative author Carney (commentary writer for the Washington Examiner) has researched community stability to understand why certain demographics voted for a candidate whose message was "the American dream is dead".  He asserts that the American dream is not wealth but social capital: that is, those institutions of civil society, that connect us, eg, the kids' soccer team, the book club, the local church.  Carney notes that Trump led in rural areas and sectors where people were civically disengaged" - unemployed, divorced, poor, or unchurched.  He tapped into their frustration.  Thus, Trump's support came not only from areas where factories were closing, but where churches were closing.  Carney asserts that place determines more about how a person votes than how well individuals are faring.   Differences between places are not only wealth and education but of health, hope and opportunity.

Carney harks back to the US in the mid-1950s - a time of greater equality, good jobs for all (white and blue collar alike), 90% of adults married by age 30, most attending church, many opportunities to participate in community (bowling league, labor unions, local athletic club).   By the late 1950s, however, Europe is back on its feet (after the war) and producing its own steel (and other manufactured products) to compete with the US and bring prices down and inventory up.  Yet Pittsburgh, for example, adapted both to foreign competition and environmental regulations and regrew a strong economy thought jobs in finance, health sector and retail.  It is not the manufacturing failure Trump liked to tout, but a white collar success.  So where do Trump's claims come from?

Carney believes that symptoms of poor well-being include

1) A retreat from marriage.  The well-off and well educated and those with the most stable jobs (even factory jobs if pay is decent) tend to produce more marriageable men.  Asserting that community/social capital sustains marriage, Carney says "the erosion of community is what killed the norm of marriage in the working class" (p 86).

2) Social disintegration.  When a factory closes (e.g., Youngstown Sheet and Tube in 1977) it's not just the thousands of jobs - but also the grocery store, gas station, restaurants and barber shops that lose their business.  Many Trumpers wanted to bring back the past (e.g., Little League, parades, shuttered churches) - while those with strong communities, like wealthy Chevy Chase MD and religious Oostburg MI, still have those entities.

3) Society's collapse is largely about church, America's preeminent institution.  Traditionally, churches have provided great benefits to members in caring for others (helping to provide food, serve as a community center, etc) but that government overreach has made church irrelevant and people attend less because govt provides for these needs.  Not only those who were helped - but also those who served - attend less as they feel they are no longer needed. 

Carney also feels that the "gig economy" (Uber drivers, grocery delivery persons, etc) adds to loss of community as there is no common workplace and we thus feel isolated.  "When you strengthen the vertical bonds between the state and the individual, you tend to weaken the horizontal bonds between individuals", he states.

In chapter 10 "The Alienated" Carney asserts "the story of how we got Trump is the story of collapse of community, which is also the story behind our opioid plague, labor force dropouts, retreat from marriage and our growing inequality."  Why do vets like Trump?  They are lonely and missing the camaraderie of active duty; Trump rallies seemed to agree with them that the American dream is dead.  There is a human need to belong.  Take away church or clubs or college - and Trump fills the void.  In Trump country - even if expressions of religiosity are high - churches are empty.

As to "elites" - the liberal elites practice what we [conservatives] preach.  They value work as a good in itself, they have fewer sex partners, they get married, they have kids, they get involved in their kids' lives.  But they lack the courage to preach what they practice.  They are selfish.  They want to keep the secrets of the good life (go to school, get a job, get married, have kids, get involved in your kids' lives) to themselves, per Carney.  

But it is the secularization of America, Carney feels, that is most responsible for the rise of Trump.

* * * * *

While I can appreciate, as Carney asserts, that there are areas of economic and social collapse where people felt left out and that they had a sympathizer in Trump, I believe this is just part of the picture - especially with regard to the role of church.  I have never felt that the local church is there to provide economic relief.  True - my church has chipped in to fill someone's oil tank (and not necessarily for a church member),  the ladies of the church have brought a month's worth of suppers to hundreds of families whose mom is recovering from surgery or just gave birth, church networking has led to many job opportunities.  A friend's church (in the inner-city) provides a free food pantry and laundry facilities for those in need - still church is about worship and fellowship rather than providing food and financial recovery, and I do not feel that govt programs like SNAP or HUD have usurped my church's role.

In blaming the elites for keeping the secret to success (go to school, get a job, get married, have kids, get involved in your kids' lives) to themselves - these are not "secrets" but long held principles.

Finally, most of my Trump-supporting friends DO attend church, they live in thriving communities, they are lovely people who say Trump's anti-abortion stance is the appeal, and that it outweighs the words and behavior I find so antithetical to Jesus' call on our lives.  Scripture advises us to reach out to the foreigner, to those in prisons, to the widow and orphan; to forgive, to avoid adultery, to reject lying, to honor one another...

January 9 2021

The National Road: Dispatches from a Changing America (2020) 

by Tom Zoellner

As a journalist and consummate traveller who has criss-crossed America dozens of times, Zoellner has seen changes in the national landscape - which he chronicles in this book, which is part memoir, part travelogue, and part journal in a work reminiscent of Steinbeck's Travels With Charley.

Zoellner feels Americans move less today than any time within the last 50 years; we are  more settled - or perhaps more set in our ways?  He says there are "winner cities" (e.g., Portland, Austin, DC, San Francisco) and cities that have faded as manufacturing has moved to Asia and as farming has become more corporate (e.g., Cairo, IL and Gloversville, NY).

In the chapter "The National Road", Zoellner describes the first interstate highway; commissioned by Thomas Jefferson in 1806, it ran from Cumberland MD to Vandalia IL and is now lined with Dollar Stores and Walmarts (following its predecessor Woolworth's).  He includes some interesting retail history in this chapter.

"Hoop of the World" derives from Black Elk's description of the world, along with Zoellner's attempts to climb the highest peak in every state, and some of the adventures and people he met.

"Late City Final" recalls Zoellner's first news job in a small town paper, and he laments the demise of newspapers "whose disappearance came in tandem with the unprecedented spread of lies in high places" (p 123) amid the rise of the internet.

Other chapters highlight more changes across America.  While only a select offering of the current state of our country, The National Road is a fascinating read.

January 7, 2021

The Indomitable Florence Finch: The Untold Story of a War Widow turned Resistance Fighter and Savior of American POWs (2020)

By Robert Mrazek

Florence Ebersol is the daughter of a successful ex-pat American farmer and his Philippine wife; age 7 Florence is sent to Manila to a church-run boarding school, where she is an outstanding student who goes on to work for the US servicemen's club and marries an American seaman, Lt "Bing" Smith.  But Japan bombs Pearl Harbor and America, along with the Philippines, is drawn into the second world war.  Only 6 months after their wedding, Bing is killed while rescuing another sailor.  Florence determines to aid the war effort and is hired to work in military intelligence.  When the Japanese take over Manila and Florence's boss Carl Engelhardt is captured, Florence finds work with the Japanese agency controlling oil supplies and transport.  But while conscientiously doing her job by day, Florence conceives a way to steal and sell oil shipments using the funds to aid POWS who, for the most part, receive no or little food from their Japanese captors.  Following the Bataan death march and fall of Corregidor, conditions worsen and Florence is arrested.  She never confesses her role and survives the torture, weight loss, and horror of the Japanese occupation.  For American POWs, the conditions worsen and few survive.  Gen Douglas MacArthur has promised "I shall return" from Australia to his beloved Philippine islands, but his return with a conquering US army will take years and his victory will follow unimaginable destruction but the Japanese.

The author, a former NY congressman, also tells the parallel stories of Carl Engelhardt (with access to his diary entries) and Japanese businessman Ozawa, Florence's boss at the oil depot.

Florence is an inspiration.  She died at age 101 in Ithaca, NY - where few neighbors ever knew of her important role in saving lives during WW2.