The People Who Teach You to Think

Sometimes the convergence of events can help one gain clarity that they had long lacked. Sometimes several things happen at once, and cause you to remember something core to who you are, or what you believe. It's random, but it opens your eyes to things that are happening in front of you.

Donald Trump is putting together a cabinet that a former U.S. Senator called "the worst ever" to me last week, even before some of the worst picks were announced. Trump's cabinet is a combination of generals, right-wing purists, and billionaires that resembles what you'd expect to see in a third world oligarchy. Billionaires who oppose public education, and support fully automated (robotic) work-forces, working along side military strongmen who made their reputations on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Generally these forces don't assume civilian control of the government, but in the time of Trump they do. This is particularly scary when you cast this against hyper-nationalistic rhetoric, talk of "strong borders," and the President-elect launching personal attacks against comedians, journalists, union leaders, and other super-power nations in the world, all from the comfort of his Twitter account, while his supporters follow up his taunts with threats against pizza shops, union leaders, and Star Wars movies. To be clear, this is not normal, and this is not the America of my youth.

Meanwhile back home in Bethlehem, PA, my college adviser was teaching his final class. I was interested in, and read a lot about politics before I ever met Gary. I can't say that I thought super-critically about these issues and our world before that though. It was under his watch that I learned about things I would never have otherwise even thought about. I read books like "Blowback," that completely altered my view of American foreign policy and thinking on things like the Iraq War, or U.S. policy towards Iran, Saudi Arabia and others. Exploitation of foreign workers and identity politics were things I never had given a single thought about, much less understood, prior to my time with Gary at Moravian. The kinds of "banana republics" and dictatorships that I now draw parallels to in the time of Trump are places I was introduced to in Gary's classes. The lessons of yester-year are suddenly so important, again. Just as important though was the over-arching themes of those classes- to critically examine why things were happening, and not just accept a superficial answer as satisfying. In the aftermath of the 2016 election, I find myself trying to apply that standard to myself, and to the political party that I find myself as a member of now. We're going to need a lot more of that critical thought as we move into whatever the hell tomorrow is going to look like.

The convergence of a frightening future and a nostalgic moment about my time learning under a man who taught me to think comes at a time when I am coming back to campus anyway tomorrow for an alumni board meeting. Not a day goes by where I don't wish I could sit in those classes today, as a more mature person. Many of the lessons I should have been learning at that time are lessons that I blocked out because of a youthful and inward-looking world view. I find myself trying to re-capture that moment in my mind now, and to re-teach myself. I also find myself quite grateful for being given the critical thinking skills that I was given during my time on that campus.

Precisely Why I Worry About the Left's Future

This Matt Yglesias piece isn't about my point, but this is as good of a spot to start as any:

“Nominate a black guy from Chicago next time” did not particularly solve any weaknesses revealed by John Kerry’s 2004 campaign, but it happened that a black guy from Chicago was very talented at casting core progressive aspirations in an appealing light pitched at a wide range of voters. Democrats are finally mustering some meaningful ethnic diversity in their Senate caucus as Cory Booker and Bob Menendez will be joined next year by Tammy Duckworth, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Kamala Harris. I suspect that, somewhat paradoxically, continuing to put forward candidates of color may be crucial to speaking more compellingly to white voters since they can speak credibly about a cross-racial politics without sounding like they are trying to sideline nonwhite people’s concerns.

But the proof of that theory will ultimately have to be in the pudding. The party needs less fear of primaries, less centralized control of House races from the DCCC, and overall more openness to the idea that it’s going to take a range of approaches for a diverse party to win in a diverse nation across a problematic political geography.

The good news for Democrats is that having an opponent to run against is less stressful. Either he does an okay job and gets reelected regardless of what you say (as four out of our last five presidents were) or he fails and you run against his failure. It frees you up to say what you really think. I know perfectly well why Clinton’s campaign thought it was smart to make ads that heavily focused on Donald Trump mocking Megyn Kelly and Serge Kovaleski. But I don’t for a minute think that’s why Clinton or anyone else who poured their blood, sweat, and tears into her campaign think a Trump White House will be disastrous for America.

When in doubt, you can do worse than saying what you really think. And as long as you’re at it, you probably want to elevate your most compelling and credible public-facing messengers to deliver it.

On the morning of Election Day, I thought President Clinton would end up pleasantly surprising a public that grudging accepted her as an alternate to a flagrantly unfit Trump — and I still think that’s true. In terms of the substantive work of presidenting, she was a very solid choice.

A couple of core critiques of this somewhat optimistic view of the future of the party:

1. The key component to President Obama's political success was not his race, it was his talent. Look, this one could get me in a lot of trouble, so i'll try to make it as plain as possible. President Barack Obama is the first African-American President, and yes, that was a motivator for some portion of the population. Let's be honest though, he's the only non-white guy ever to be elected to that office. There have been no LGBT folks, no women, no Latinos, no Asians, no Jewish people, and no any other group, besides white, straight, Christian guys. Did President Obama win in part because of his race? I think the obvious answer is that it had to play a role. It wasn't the main role though. President Obama was not the first African-American to run for President, nor the first non-white, straight, Christian male to run for the office. Jesse Jackson got a lot of votes, but he did not win. President Obama, much like President Bill Clinton and JFK in previous times, was a very, very talented politician. For that matter, so were LBJ and President Carter. Democratic voters want charisma, they want to be inspired in some way by their candidate, they need a connection to them. President Obama was among the most inspiring people to ever run for office. Given the number of African-Americans who have served as Senators, Congressmen, Governors, Mayors, and local elected officials, and his unique status as the only one to reach the White House, clearly he had something more. Yglesias isn't saying he only won for racial reasons, but I think it's important that we understand that the main reasons President Obama won were not race driven, actually. If we lose sight of that, we lose sight of why he actually won in 2008 and 2012, much as the Clinton campaign seemed to do in their oversight of the white working class voter in 2016.
2. The interest groups are not going to let Congressional campaigns become de-centralized from the DCCC. This is a key component to understanding how actual left-wing, professional politics work. The Democratic Party is less of a party and more of a coalition. The Democratic Party is essentially the sum of the coalition partners' as parts. The DCCC acts as a clearing house for all things Congressional campaigns, and in many ways makes sure that our candidates for office are definable as Democrats on the issues. Do we really think that the national party organization can or will allow the local leaders out in the counties to start finding the right kinds of candidates for their areas? Do we actually think that we're going to start nominating pro-life Democrats again in rural areas, or allow the broader "Blue Dog" movement back into the party? Are we really going to allow candidates out of lock-step on the environment, abortion rights, or gun rights to be our nominee? I mean honestly, is there any way to prevent Emily's List from primarying a pro-life candidate in a district where that might be an advantage in the general election? If Yglesias means this less in an ideological way, and more in a tactical way, do we really want that? I realize that the national party can be constraining on messaging and how a candidate uses their time, and locals hate that, but do we want them re-inventing the wheel on targeting or running a field program? Of course not. Until the House Democrats have a different set of leaders, and a totally different dynamic with the coalition partners, I just don't see any way that they are going to loosen their grip on the campaigns.
3. I'm not sure our party can keep it's focus on Trump. Let's just be honest about this, it wasn't 48 hours after Hillary Clinton's concession that the first of the harder-core Bernie folks were saying "I told you so." I hope, and think it's possible, that we can all get back together now and focus on Donald Trump. In fact, I think it's imperative that we do. The divide between supporting the ACA or Medicare for All, or between supporting free college and debt free college is minor, compared to the divide between generally progressive ideas and a President who's nominating an Education Secretary who opposes public education, a Labor Secretary who opposes a living wage, and an EPA Administrator who opposes any form of national regulation to protect our air, our soil, our water, and our health. We need to get together and call this incoming administration for what it is, but I have serious doubts that we can. I'm guilty of this too, re-hashing my critiques of Bernie's movement since the election, in part because we almost have to have an internal debate. We have a DNC Chair's race that will matter to the future of our party. We just had a leadership race in the House that matters too. We have to discuss the pluses and minuses of these candidates, and frankly what they want to do, which does re-divide us. For those reasons, I have real doubts that we will focus our combined efforts in easily on stopping Donald Trump. Remember, it was the first two years of George W. Bush's tenure at the White House where our party was most divided, and took the most legislative and policy defeats. We did not recover in time to elect John Kerry.
4. What do we really think? Who are our most compelling spokespeople? This is a lot harder than what you might think. We just had a very divisive primary process in 2016, one in which most of the combatants still believe they were right. That was essentially a debate between the most progressive domestic-policy nominee we've ever had and the most progressive candidate for President we've ever seen, and yet there is broad disagreement over who should have won, and what we want moving forward. That's just the policy side too, when you dig into who the good spokespeople are moving forward, it gets worse. Sit in any room of Democratic operatives and bring up Elizabeth Warren as a potential 2020 nominee- the divisions over her are evident quickly. You can do that with any front-runner you want, from Warren to Booker, and anywhere you want to go from there. Is Keith Ellison doubling down on failure or the only way to move the party forward? Honestly, the responses you'd get from our volunteer class would leave you confused. We just spent eight years with a Democratic Administration keeping the red-carpet rolled out for one specific candidate in Hillary Clinton, and then we didn't win. This leaves us in some serious wilderness.
5. Unfortunately, a steady hand like Hillary isn't really what our voters want. Hillary Clinton lost because of a combination of factors, but the bottom line was that people who voted for President Obama did not turn out and vote for her in the same frequencies as they did for him. White working-class voters who stuck with the President against McCain and Romney did not do the same for her. African-American turnout was down from both 2008 and 2012, and Trump got a higher share of their votes. Millennials did not give her the same vote they gave President Obama. Our coalition of voters also didn't elect John Kerry or Al Gore, both very intelligent and accomplished men in their own right, or Dukakis, Mondale, and even second-term Jimmy Carter. Democrats need to be inspired. It's not something we all like to admit, but it's part of it. Our candidates have to be somewhat regular people, but also inspiring and lofty, when they speak to us. They have to reach our aspirations. They have to inspire our hopes. I love Hillary Clinton because she's smart, tough, and knows how to play the game, but that doesn't work for our voters. We want JFK, not Adlai Stevenson. We literally have to find someone who can go high against the dark lows of Donald Trump. 

In short, while I think that Donald Trump will be an absolute disaster, i'm not bullish on the future of the Democratic Party right now. I think it's highly likely that we'll spend the next two years "finding ourselves," then run an unelectable candidate in 2020 and handing Donald Trump the White House for two terms. That's horrific, but unless i'm wrong about the things above (which I hope I will be, and do believe I could be), that's the most likely outcome happening. The other possible outcome is that we end up nominating some larger-than-life, Democratic version of Trump figure in 2020, and they win on personality, leaving our party in the exact same actual mess that the other party is walking into right now. I'm not sure that's much better. Either way, i'm not very positive on the future of "the Left" in America right now.

Happy Friday

People Still Beat Computers in Running Campaigns

I was in the office of a prominent DC consultant earlier this week when they told me something startling about the Clinton Campaign I just finished up on- an algorithm decided the schedule for the candidate. In translation, that means the campaign put a set of data into a computer, and it told them where to send the candidate. While I have no idea if that is actually true, it would make a lot of sense. An algorithm determined who was in the volunteer recruitment calls, and who was a likely supporter. If you told me the entire campaign was automated by a computer, I would believe it. The same consultant became about the 15th person to tell me since the campaign ended that the former President was very unhappy with the scheduling, and at times was literally forming his own schedule to hit the road.

I trust data to do a lot of things. I trust data to tell me who to target as my voters. I trust data to tell me even how to target them, in terms of which message and whether or not they were a knock or a call. I don't trust data to tell me what my schedule should be. What does data add on beyond human intelligence in deciding whether you send Hillary Clinton or President Obama to a certain site? What does it say for the campaign's algorithm that Hillary Clinton became the first nominee in at least 30 years to not step foot in Northampton or Lehigh Counties in Pennsylvania during the campaign? What does it say for the campaign's algorithm that she didn't go to Wisconsin at all down the stretch, a state that is always close, and that she lost in the primary? What does it say for the algorithm that the only places it could seem to find in North Carolina for anyone to stop were college towns and larger cities? I don't pretend that I'm smarter than every computer, but I sure as hell could have found Allentown, Toledo, and Cedar Rapids on a map for the candidate.

Old school, human powered campaigns do have disadvantages against data driven campaigns. Modeling and targeting is crucial in winning a campaign. There are certain things that older, less data driven operatives get right, that frankly the brain-trust didn't in this case. I can assure you that Hillary Clinton's chances of victory in this election would have been higher if she had found more than Philadelphia and Pittsburgh on the Pennsylvania map, and maybe had visited Bethlehem once.

But then again, what do I know- I haven't accepted the religion of the algorithm yet.

The Future

Last night I made official what I had already told some people- I will be leaving as Lehigh Valley Young Democrats President at the end of the year. It is not a terribly shocking announcement, I'm only eligible for one more term because of age, and frankly it's a good time to let someone else take charge. I built a pretty nice executive board of 20 somethings, and they are more than ready to run the group for the next decade. I did my job in getting it started.

The only reason this is worth a post is because of the larger signal I guess it sends about my life- geography is no longer a factor. I spent this past weekend in DC, and a previous weekend, and I enjoyed it both times. Before that I spent two months in North Carolina, and I enjoyed that too. Obviously my home will never really change, but I'm realizing the time to stop limiting myself is now. I'm 33. I've spent better than a decade building relationships and making friends, sometimes better than others, and the time to make it count for something is now. While I will remain a resident of Palmer Township, in the Easton area of Pennsylvania, there are new challenges ahead. They require me to free up some of my time and efforts.

Nobody can run everything, nor should they. I declined a nomination to run for my local committee's treasurer, and I will only remain as the strategy and new media committee chairman positions for 2017 on that body. I will remain in my role as a county and state Democratic Committee member, and I will expand my campaign footprint for 2017. I intend to fight like hell against an oncoming Presidency that I oppose. The stakes are high- particularly for my friends who do not benefit from the privileges and advantages that I do. Now is not the time for silence.

I am also 33 years old. The time for direction in life has arrived. While I have enjoyed spending the last 14 years of my life wondering in the political world, it is time to have a career, not just a job. It is time to perhaps do some adulting too. I have other roles, outside of politics, such as my role on the Moravian College alumni board, which I want to put some more serious time into moving forward. I'd like to have a personal life yet, and I'd like to see some new and different places. There is a great big world out there, and there's much for me to learn from it.

The point of all of this is the realization that I am finally free from a life outlook that was entirely based around a singular future campaign, and the constraints it placed on me. I don't know entirely what that means yet, but I am excited to find out. I'm also excited to speak out in my own, independent voice. Lord knows that we need more of them moving forward.

For the Phillies, Inaction for Inaction's Sake

I was a big proponent of the Sixers "Process" over the past few years. Lose game, stock up on draft picks, hope to build a team in-house. Even though the Sixers still stink, I still support that plan, because I'm watching Joel Embiid and Dario Saric now learn the league before our very eyes. I also supported that plan because it's the only rational way to build a great team. Just going out and spending money indiscriminately on bigger name free agents is an unlikely way to build a winner.

I basically am on the same page with the Phillies situation. No player who moved, or didn't, at the MLB Winter Meetings would have drastically changed the Phillies 2017 outlook. Even if the Phillies had broke the farm to go after Chris Sale or Andrew McCutchen, or if they had spent big on a player like Jose Bautista, the Phillies would still not be a playoff team on paper. The improvements this team can make are mostly improvements that will be made by young prospects showing they are ready and can live up to expectations. You have to let the prospects have opportunity, and see who rises to the top of the barrel.

The problem with this is that the Phillies can make measured improvements along the way to put a better product on the field now, without sacrificing that future. In fact, pure math dictates that the Phillies must do this. Failure to do so actually could harm the re-build. The Phillies almost have to make another move or two this off-season, or risk stunting the growth of prospects in 2017.

Take the Phillies numbers game with starting pitching. As is, you can lock in Jeremy Hellickson, Jerad Eickhoff, Aaron Nola, and Vince Velasquez as having spots in the 2017 rotation in South Philadelphia. Jake Thompson, Zach Eflin, Adam Morgan, and Alec Asher all had a substantial number of starts for the 2016 club, and would presumably come to Spring Training to compete for one more spot. Ben Lively, Nick Pivetta, and Mark Appel all had substantial time in AAA last year and are on the 40 man roster. Even Phil Klein is still on the roster and made starts at both levels. That would leave the Phillies with 12 pitchers for ten spots in the major league and AAA rotations. Even if you had a six man rotation in AAA, you have one too many starting pitchers, even if you promote no one from AA to AAA this season. How are the Phillies going to get them all their innings of work? After having all of the pitchers mentioned above in the system last year, do the Phillies have no idea which of these guys they like? The depth is causing a back-up in a deep system.

The same could be said of several other positions. The Phillies have a back-up of depth in middle infielders going into the season, especially if J.P. Crawford has a breakout Summer. With Freddy Galvis and Cesar Hernandez here, Jesmuel Valentin now on the 40 man roster and in AAA, Crawford in AAA, ready to pounce, and top prospect second baseman Scott Kingery in AA now, the Phillies will soon have a back-up of players who play middle infield. The same could be said of their catching situation, where prospect catcher Andrew Knapp will now apparently be the primary MLB back-up to starter Cameron Rupp, while prospect Jorge Alfaro plays in AAA. The Phillies have lots of depth at these positions.

This is not to say that the Phillies should have broke the farm to go after a major player, or that they should have traded Cesar Hernandez, Jeanmar Gomez, or Odubel Herrera just for the sake of trading them. The Phillies could pretty easily have made a move to improve the current ball club and relieve some of the over-crowding in the upper minors right now at several positions. It would not have seriously harmed the plan for the club's future in any way. It would not have harmed the plan of developing a core of prospects as the future team, and then diving into the free agent market in 2018 as planned. It would have made things easier now, and helped them put a more competitive product on the field in the meantime.

By doing very little, the Phillies did very little. I can't think of any other benefits. They will simply have to confront these number crunches in Spring Training. Perhaps an injury or two will strike, and they will have room for everybody. Perhaps not though. Then they'll have to move someone at the last minute. For a team with near limitless resources, none of this makes much sense to me.

Be Honest With the Working Class

Behold Bethlehem Steel. It basically closed when I was a child. The company ceased to exist sometime when I was in college. Thousands of people worked at the place in that picture above, every day. Members of my family worked there. First and second generation Americans made a good life there, as members of the United Steelworkers Union. America was built there.

They don't make steel there anymore. Sure, there is a little bit of steel production still in Bethlehem, but it is no longer the driver of the economy in the city. It hasn't been for a couple of decades now. Even with those losses, Bethlehem is doing great. Crime is low. Employment is high. Quality of life is good. People are not yearning for the plant to come back. Bethlehem is not suffering from a bad case of nostalgia. In fact, while Bethlehem has preserved it's heritage through careful protection of historic structures, the city has moved completely beyond the days of the steel mill.

Nothing angers me more than politicians lying to people who are perhaps incapable of understanding the issues they are being lied to about. Much has been made of West Virginia this election cycle, somewhat unfairly since the state has been "red" for a while, and how it has "fallen in love" with Donald Trump. Much of why West Virginia seems to love Trump more than they loved President Bush, John McCain, or Mitt Romney, has to do with his promises to bring back the coal mines. Much of the same was true in Western Pennsylvania. He went across the Rust Belt, from Iowa to Pennsylvania, and promised to bring back factories, bring back coal mines, and stop job losses. He even ran out to Indiana to tout a terrible deal with Carrier as President-elect. He promised a suffering people the Moon.

I've got bad news for these folks- he's not going to deliver it. No one is. The factory jobs may not be lost to Mexico and China if Trump carries through on tariffs, but they will be lost to automation, or the dreaded robots. If he does slap huge taxes on companies that outsource jobs and try to sell products here, the trade war that will follow would make it impossible for us to manufacture anything here that would sell abroad. If the market doesn't kill coal, it's finite supply and costs will do so. If the depression that would follow protectionism doesn't kill the factories, automation will. The factories aren't coming back. The coal mines aren't coming back either. At best, Donald Trump's de-regulatory policies on domestic fossil fuels will help practices like fracking. At worst, they'll do absolutely nothing for laid off workers.

The truth of the matter is that West Virginia, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Western Pennsylvania have already probably taken the worst of the hit from globalization and renewable energy. The job losses have been significant, and the impacts have been felt. The middle-class way of life that blue-collar workers once enjoyed is gone. Nothing that Donald Trump wants to do will change that. Not protectionism. Not tax cuts. Not de-regulation.

What these people need is some straight talk. They need re-training programs when their jobs leave. They need investments in developing renewable energy in places where the mines once were. They need a commitment to educating the children, so that they can compete in a new economy that is not like that of the glory day in that region. In short, they need to be told that the mines and factories are never coming back- but that there is a plan to make sure they are okay. In short, they need honesty. They are not getting that. That is not something we should be proud of.

Political Self-Awareness, Post-2016

Professional politics is not a place for individualism, as one might obviously guess. You spend your time defending other people's decisions and beliefs, even if they aren't necessarily your's. As a Democratic Party leader on the Pennsylvania State Committee, I spent most of the last eight years defending President Obama. As a former Hillary Clinton staffer of both campaigns, I spent lots of time defending Hillary Clinton. Sometimes it's not fun. Most of the time it is though, because you basically do agree with the people you choose to associate yourself with.

Once upon a time though, I didn't work for anybody. It was 2001, and I was registering as a Democrat, mostly because I was angered by the outcome of the 2000 Election, an election that I felt was stolen. I became even more left-leaning in the post-9/11 world, as I was strongly opposed to the Iraq War. I was a protester in the against the war, but also against the Westboro Baptist Church and other social conservative causes that I found to be offensive. At the time I was a populist, very opposed to NAFTA and other major trade deals, on broadly ideological grounds. I also broadly supported gun rights, more cops on the street, and environmental causes. My politics weren't in a neat little box, but I was definitely a Democrat.

Over the past eight years, some of those beliefs have changed. I don't oppose all trade agreements now. I spent time defending drone strikes in foreign countries. I'm actually more for LGBT rights now than I was then. Tax policy motivates me more than war policies now, and i'm terribly conflicted on my feelings about guns and cops, in search of some sort of middle ground. Time changes people.

I feel liberated on one level though- I spent eight years of President Obama defending him, and awaiting the second Hillary campaign, and defending her, and now both are over. Taking the White House's position on issues like net-neutrality that I only partially understand can be difficult. This isn't to say that i'm going to reverse course on a ton of issues now just because Trump's coming to town, it's to say that I feel free to actually do a "political self-audit" now. Self-examination may be a good thing.

I'll close by stating a few positions that I've found myself changing my mind on. I do not support the drone attack program in foreign nations. I also agree with supporters of the 2nd Amendment that we should fund existing gun laws before passing new ones- so now I'd like to see them back up their words. I still don't support free college education, but I would support absolutely support some sort of student loan forgiveness program that is tied to income. Finally, I 100% support the ending of the war on drugs, and complete legalization of marijuana on a federal level. I'm sure I'll have a lot more, sometime soon.

Newsflash, Again: Trump is Going to be President

I find it utterly shocking and disgusting- Donald Trump was elected President on November 8th. Sure, he got less votes. Sure, he has no idea what he's doing. Sure, he has conflicts of interest. Sure, he makes foreign policy mistakes. Sure, Russia! I could go on. All are perfectly valid complaints.

None matter.

Donald Trump will be elected President of the United States by the electoral college on December 19th. A month and a day later, on January 20th of 2017, he will be inaugurated as the President. That is not going to change. All of this talk of "Hamilton Electors," recounts, and investigations won't add up to a bit of good for Democrats in the end. The recounts won't turn up enough votes, in fact they never had a chance to. The investigations would take years, if they even happen. The electoral college is made up of mostly Republican regulars, or at least the 306 Trump electors are, and they are not going to break from the GOP's candidate.

I see a lot of Democratic activists who want to do stuff now. They have a lot of energy. I understand that. A Trump Presidency is absolutely terrifying. Almost anything being done right now though by Democrats, from the absurd "Civil War," to throwing money at the Louisiana Senate race, to holding rallies and "mourning" parties, is not going to make a hill-of-beans difference for the Democratic Party going forward.

It's time to make peace with reality. Trump will be President. The Democratic Party and broader American Left is not gone for good though, nor is it terminally broken, and all this "blood letting" is a lot of talk about nothing. Donald Trump is terrible, and Hillary Clinton did beat him by 2.7 million votes. All of these realities can be true at once, and all are. It's time to accept that.

Real America

By now, the liberal refrains are pretty clear and obvious. Hillary won by over 2.5 million votes in the popular vote. She won an overwhelming share of our economy, in terms of counties and productivity. She won the majority of demographic groups. She won a majority of our tax base. I could go on and on.

I proudly identify as a "coastie." I live less than 75 miles from downtown Philadelphia and New York. I go to them regularly. I can drive to the beach in a minimal amount of time. I am as East Coast as East Coast can get.

One of the things that is supposed to happen in the globalized economy is that the skills and the jobs end up clustering in the big cities. The truth is that Americans hate that, and it's a huge contributor to why trade is unpopular, and Trump won the election, even though i'd guess that most of these voters haven't thought of it that way. For a lot of people, they wanted to be left alone, in their small towns, mostly left alone from the outside world. I'd call it isolationism, except that is probably making it too ideological. Call them parochial, but people want to exist in the same town as their parents and grandparents, and many of them don't want to be bothered with the big city, the "newcomers," or frankly anything to do with the life that this new economy has brought them.

It's not so much about the factory or the mine, but rather the life that the factory or the mine gave their family's past. It's not about them being racist, necessarily (though it is in some cases), it's about the feeling that their life is being ripped away and given to someone else. It's about feeling like the businesses took away their way of life, and their government is actually encouraging it. It's about feeling as though the very policies they don't understand are the ones tilting the playing field away from them. They don't like the world they're in, and they don't understand it. You can explain it through economics. You can explain it through drug addiction. You can explain it through politics. However you want to explain their situation, you come to the same conclusion.

The reality is that more and more successful young Americans are ending up in and around the big cities. The reality is that the high paying jobs are finding their way there too. There are huge problems there, namely that housing is too scarce for demand in some of these places, and therefore too expensive. There is an underpaid service sector. There is racial inequality in all areas of life, from police relations to job opportunities. There are budget crunches. Life is not all flowers and sunshine in urban America, but the opportunity is there. It's not in rural areas, and those who remain in their ancestral towns are making the conscious choice to do so, and give up the opportunities for higher earnings. This reality is laid bare for anyone to see.

I'm not justifying some of the backward positions that are held in rural America, positions I don't agree with. I'm not saying we should change our public policy to try and bring back the factory we closed 25 years ago. I'm just saying that treating them all as a bunch of racist hicks is an over simplification of an actually complex world within our world. Surely, progressive politics have something to offer the rural and suburban poor in America. Surely we haven't become so cold as to forget them yet.