Trump's Democrats. Stephanie Muravchik
1984. Trump lost the popular vote. Nevertheless, he managed to win some of the most loyal Democratic communities in the nation.
It has been observed that the 2016 election widened the gulf that separates red from blue communities and exposed disturbing new social fissures in places where many had thought there was solid ground. Less noted is the fact that Trump’s ascent opened a new divide between some of the most loyal blue communities, pitting the party’s highly educated metropolitan centers and college towns against small communities populated by white working- and lower-middle class citizens. In the former places, Trump is a reviled character, seen as the worst president in American history, maybe even a fascist. In the latter places, Trump is often regarded as the best president anyone can remember since John F. Kennedy. The polarization of Democratic communities shows that Trump created a political fault line even deeper than partisanship.
Studying Trump’s Democrats
This book sheds new light on the political chasm that ripped the Democratic Party apart in 2016 and considers what it means for the future of the party and of American democracy. We do so by presenting evidence from our ethnographic study of three long-standing Democratic communities that voted for Trump: Ottumwa, Iowa, which had been consistently Democratic since 1972; Elliott County, Kentucky, which, as we mentioned, had never voted for a Republican president in its history; and Johnston, Rhode Island, which last voted Republican in 1984. These places have been so faithful to the party that they mostly ignored conservative and populist movements that are often regarded as harbingers of Trump’s ascent, including the Tea Party movement and Ross Perot’s candidacy in 1992 (see chapter 1, “Three Democratic Communities”).
| TABLE I-1. Demographic Profile of Case Studies | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Johnston | Ottumwa | Elliott | |
| Economy | commercial | industrial | agricultural and extraction |
| Geography | suburb | small city | rural |
| Population | 29,332 | 24,550 | 7,508 |
| Region | New England | Midwest | South |
| Latino (%) | 7 | 11 | 0 |
| College Grad (%) | 22 | 18 | 8 |
| Per Capita Income | $33,113 | $21,165 | $13,436 |
| Ottumwa represents 71 percent of all county voters. | |||
| SOURCE: Demographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau. | |||
Why these three? Primarily because of their diversity (see table I-1). Not only are they in different regions of the country, they also represent varied social geographies: Elliott is rural, Johnston is suburban, and Ottumwa is urban.4 Their economies are different as well: Elliott’s has been traditionally dependent on coal and tobacco crops; Johnston’s is integrated into metropolitan Providence; and Ottumwa’s is centered around a large meatpacking plant. And while each place has suffered from economic stress, the magnitude and timing of these strains have varied. Elliott’s coal economy, for example, was hit hard by environmental regulations during Obama’s second term, while Ottumwa’s decline began decades earlier when its meatpacking plant’s corporate headquarters left town.
These communities are also different ethnically. Elliott, for example, has experienced essentially no immigration, while Ottumwa is now home to a significant population of immigrants, mostly from Latin America. Johnston is somewhere in the middle, having enjoyed a moderate influx of immigrants in recent years. The dominant populations of each community also descend from different European nations. Johnston’s are heavily Italian American, with a large minority of Irish background. Elliott’s are of Scots-Irish descent, while Ottumwa’s are mostly German, British, and Scandinavian. The variety of these cases gives us additional confidence that our general findings characterize other Democratic communities that admire Trump, and not just the places we studied.
Despite their considerable differences, however, Ottumwa, Elliott, and Johnston have other characteristics in common. Their citizens are overwhelmingly from white working-class backgrounds. Few adults have college educations, and their incomes are modest. And, of course, they are all one-party towns.
Our fieldwork was conducted over three summers, beginning in 2017 and concluding in 2019. We spent approximately six months in the field, or almost eight weeks in each community. The first case—Johnston, Rhode Island—was done together. Subsequent cases were done individually: Muravchik did fieldwork in Elliott County; Shields in Ottumwa. For the sake of readability, however, we use a royal “we” when presenting our findings throughout the book. Except for some of the local politicians and civic leaders, we disguised the identities of the people we spoke to.
We began each case by interviewing local elites, including politicians, journalists, clergy, business owners, union leaders, sheriffs, and other civic leaders. These elites know their communities well and helped us see them from different occupational perches. And because local elites are well connected, they introduced us to many “regular” citizens as well.
As we studied these communities, we paid attention not only to what local citizens said about Trump, but also to what they said about their lives, their hometowns, and the people around them. And we were interested in what they did as well as in what they said.5 This social immersion allowed us to observe differences between the social, moral, and political norms of the Democratic communities we studied and those familiar to us and many of our readers. Thus, in addition to conducting formal interviews with ninety-five people and engaging in countless additional casual conversations, we also observed voters in their everyday life—in churches, bars, town council meetings, coffee shops, and homes. We were especially interested in identifying the local social centers in each community. In Johnston, for example, it was a local coffee shop. In Elliott County, it was the Frosty Freeze and the Penny Mart.
We did not approach our interviewees with the same slate of questions. In the case of local elites, for example, we were interested in understanding their particular domains of knowledge. Local sheriffs could speak to their towns’ honor cultures and gender conflicts; business owners wanted to talk about consumer preferences for American-made goods; and Democratic politicians provided us with insight into local party politics. Thus, to a great extent, we tailored our questions to each person. Our questions also changed as new theoretical interests emerged from our observations and interviews.6 Because each community is put together differently, people in each place often wanted to talk about different topics. In Ottumwa, where there has been considerable immigration of late, the locals were eager to discuss it. But in Elliott County, where there is almost no immigration, we spent little time on the topic.
The distinct history and sociology of each community also meant that we had to approach people somewhat differently in each place. Elliott presented special challenges. We were not the first pushy outsiders to come snooping around the county. For decades, observers have descended upon the Appalachian Mountains only to describe and treat the people who live there with haughty disdain.7 Paula Dunn, a retired teacher with a quiet and dignified manner and a flair for art, turned to us early in our research there and asked pointedly, “Now, you’re not going to go away and say that we’re barefoot, toothless hillbillies, are you?” Thus, while residents of Ottumwa and Johnston often seemed to enjoy offering their two cents about the state of their town