Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse

by Timothy P. Carney

If we come to understand what makes Trump Country Trump Country, we can better understand the plight of the working class and the current economic and cultural splitting of this country. More important, discerning what made some of the country immune to Trump, aside from standard partisan allegiances, will show us where lie hope, mobility, and optimism. What makes some places thrive, but others collapse?

Strong families are the precondition for the good life, and for mobility—the dream, grounded in realistic hope, that no matter your starting point, you can succeed and your children can do even better.

And the same media technology that has helped people choose their own narrow silo has also resulted in an increasingly centralized focus in news and public affairs. From Maine to Los Angeles, those who follow government and the news are following the same news about the same figures. Politics are more nationalized.

You also cannot walk into Fayette County and tell the people to “choose” not to be left behind, to get better educated, to adapt, and to stop being so backward. Something deeper is broken.

Dont be condescending

Studies of individuals found Trump supporters doing just fine. Studies of places found Trump doing well where people were doing poorly. In other words, it wasn’t that economically struggling individuals tacked to Trump; it was that voters in struggling or vulnerable places shifted toward Trump.

The erosion of community is what killed the norm of marriage in the working class. Community strength and social capital are the roots of the good life. Community and steady jobs both offer men the work of being a good employee and a family man—the Joe Adams Factor. Family strength and economic well-being are the fruits.

America is the land of opportunity because America is the land of civil society. The American Dream of mobility is alive to the extent that the American Dream of robust local community is alive.

Civil society and local community are the beating heart of the American Dream. A poverty of social capital defines those who believe the American Dream is dead.

A simple way of asking about “civil society” or “associational life” is this: Do you do stuff with other people? All of these terms, including the idea of social capital, are sociologist-speak for the matter of everyday life: connections, friendships, obligations, neighbors. Alongside informal civil society are the formal institutions of civil society. Putnam charted serious drop-offs in participation in these institutions.

Social scientist Charles Murray, in Coming Apart, found something interesting: The difference between the average poor person’s happiness and the average upper-middle-class person’s happiness could be mostly explained by two factors: marriage and “high social trust.” Add on two more factors—religious observance and satisfaction with one’s work—and you’ve explained almost the entire remainder of the happiness gap.

Here, then, is the great divide in American life: Do you belong to a strong community? Do you enjoy multiple, dense networks that provide both support and purpose? Do you consider yourself a part of many institutions, like a church, a club, or a cohesive neighborhood?

The unchurching of America is at the root of America’s economic and social problems.

Did unchurching cause or result from social collapse?

The class effect on religiosity is not so much a difference in belief as it is a difference in attachment to institutions. The key question here isn’t “Are you religious?” It’s “Do you go to church?”

So poverty itself doesn’t keep people out of church. Social isolation keeps people out of church.

In secular America, civil society is a high-end good that most people can’t afford. Churchgoing people have access to civil society regardless of income.

Car-centric shopping centers might fulfill the immediate need of shopping, but they can murder the more hidden benefits of a walkable Main Street, such as the serendipitous encounters among friends and neighbors that form the bonds of community.

Economic centralization and government centralization (higher-minimum-wage laws and more workplace regulation) dovetail efficiently to bring about a less human place. The lost bonds of community weren’t just nice things to have. As this book has explained, they are essential for the good life.

Europe historically was populated by two types of people. The first type all followed the rules, worked together, and kept order. The second type all liked to go their own way, take risks, and test boundaries. Then one day, the second group all got on a boat and sailed to America.

American alienation is, in large part, due to a hyper-individualism that has taken hold.

Free-market capitalism, the sexual revolution, the isolated suburban home, the ability to escape into technology, the retreat from marriage, the retreat from organized religion—these are all expressions of individuals’ total freedom to go their own way and do their own thing.

In the late 1940s, 90 percent of beer and liquor was consumed at bars or restaurants or other public places. By 1990, the portion had fallen to 30 percent. Neighborhood pubs disappeared at a similar rate over that same time.

Local institutions of civil society allow for more pluralism, more voice, and more human-level politics. Centralized politics raise the stakes and make the ordinary man feel powerless.

Solution is to show up in Beverly, MA.

This is the heart of America’s economic mobility problem, when you think about it: Where you start out increasingly predicts where you end up.

Intrusive can be understood as the opposite extreme from neglectful, with a proper mean somewhere in between. While closely bound communities, particularly religious ones, often err in the direction of intrusive, American society as a whole errs in the direction of neglectful.

You can’t write that chapter when the “solution” is mostly: You should go to church. Also, You should start a T-ball team. You should create an institution, such as a weekly coffee meeting with other old guys in your town. You should attach yourself to a little platoon and volunteer there. You should spend less time watching the cable networks and more time asking after your neighbors.

Local and state governments can help civil society by building towns and cities in ways more conducive to neighborliness and community building. Walkability is a big thing. Mixing residential and commercial development would create real neighborhoods where people can walk to the corner store for a gallon of milk and run into their neighbors. It could allow for “third places” like neighborhood pubs, barbershops, and sandwich shops. Of course, it would also help if counties, states, and cities stopped giving lavish corporate welfare deals to shopping centers that help kill Main Street. Car-centric development was largely a Big Idea by planners with grand master plans, and it has isolated families and individuals from one another.

What the last sixty years in America have proved is that for the middle class and the working class, the options are (a) strong religious communities or (b) alienation and collapse.