I don’t like to slam books, especially those ahead of mine on the best seller list. It might seem like petty jealousy. But one recent release, White Rural Rage by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman, is seriously flawed. For starters, the authors write as if economic class no longer exists or matters. According to this book, all rural white people, or at least most of them, share similar racist attitudes. Class distinctions between bosses and workers, rich and poor, are meaningless.
Hi, my name is Ada and I am a board member of el Tribuno del Pueblo, a national bilingual newspaper dedicated to sharing stories from progressive movements. Can we republish your piece? You can check out our website here: https://tribunodelpueblo.org/home/
While it's not exactly fair to comment on a book I haven't read, there are warning signs.
I started with your link to the poll work by Mike Lux--solid data and practical recommendations. His 2nd item says "Voters in these counties tend to think Democrats lack an economic plan, but they see the GOP as the party of wealthy corporations and CEOs."
Maybe because this research is aimed at Dem party strategists and he is being diplomatic, Lux leaves unmentioned that the Dems do have an econ "plan." Continuing support for the neoliberal belief that The Market knows best. Also unmentioned is how the economics of this abstract entity dismisses devastated communities and destroyed environments as externalities. However, Lux's careful wording implies that for pragmatic reasons, (let alone that it might be fair or humane or moral,) offering some alternatives or ameliorations to the harsh system would be helpful politically. Anyway, the data gathered by this set of polls also very much support your work. And call into question the assumptions and interpretations of //White Rural Rage.//
Next, I read reviews of //Rage// both pro and con on several sites. Including by academics who seem to support the basic themes as well as angry criticisms by conservative rural people and by those on the far left who frame everything as class warfare. I can't say for sure if any of these views are representative of what the book actually says.
The reviews on Amazon that are pro seem to me often to reflect a liberal intellectual bias--they already "know" this Other is ignorant, bigoted, and dangerous, so the book just reinforces their beliefs. Aside from the anger of the con opinions, a few presented logical critiques. Among them comments that apparently another writer, Nicholas Jacobs, whose book //The Rural Voter: The Politics of Place and the Disuniting of America// (2023) is on similar issues to //Rage// said on a radio interview that Schaller and Waldman cherry picked the data he and his co-author Daniel Shea developed and used it for their own ends. A commenter on Amazon who gave //Rage// 3 stars noted that Jacobs did a review on "Politico" 4/5/24 saying that the authors of //Rage// had misused the research done for //Rural Voter.// If so, pretty damning.
I'm left wondering whether there's anything objective to //Rage// at all. The MSM that tends to repeat these horror stories--including the NYT and MSNBC--seem to me to serve as disseminators of "info" that justifies Dem party neglect or outright condemnation. If "those people" are all only uncultured violent bigots, then they're undeserving of any sympathy whatsoever and no need for D econ or social policies that might help them.
Thanks for looking into this. I bought the book but I couldn't get through it. It was making me nauseous. What really freaked me out is that they also start with Mingo County. But they turn it into racism morality tale instead of sticking to the job loss. I had the following in my piece but took it out because it was getting too long: Thought you might appreciate it:
Not giving a damn about Mingo County, West Virginia
Schaller and Waldman are so blinded by whiteness that they distort the political evolution of Mingo County, West Virginia, which I also examined in my recently published book. (It’s uncanny that both our books pay close attention to this tiny county of 22,500 people.)
We more or less agree on the Mingo’s basic political history. It was the center of the Coal Wars in the early 20th century, which pitted the armed guards of the coal bosses against the workers who were trying to form the United Mine Workers union. Support from the Roosevelt administration during the 1930s allowed the union to thrive and brought a middle-class life to miners. The Democratic Party got a lot of credit for this improvement and benefited at the ballot box. But after WWII, coal mining employment crashed, reducing the power of the United Mine Workers, and in turn eventually crippling the Democratic Party.
However, in Mingo County coal production increased again after 1980 reaching a peak of 3,300 coal jobs in 1996. But by 2020, coal employment had crashed to only 300 workers, the largest drop in coal jobs during that time of any county in America.
But that’s not good enough for Schaller and Waldman. They are hell-bent on using white racism, not job loss, to account for the political decline of the Democrats in Mingo County (92 percent white). They write:
“For decades, the county was firmly Democratic, a streak that lasted through 2004 when John Kerry beat George W. Bush there by a comfortable margin. But Barack Obama’s arrival brought a hard swing to the right, and in every election after, the Republican margin of victory increased.”
Let’s be clear at what they are saying. They are saying the election of the first Black president caused a “hard swing to the right.” A closer look at the data suggests otherwise.
In 1996, at the peak of the post-WWII coal jobs boom in Mingo County, Bill Clinton won the county by a landslide with 69.7 percent of the vote.
As coal jobs started to slip so did the Democratic presidential vote. Al Gore in 2000 also did well even as his vote fell to 60.2 percent. John Kerry won again but his vote slipped some more to 56.2 percent in 2004, (13.5 percent lower than Clinton’s).
In 2008, Obama saw his percentage drop to 42.1 percent, and then to 27.6 percent in 2012. In 2016 Hillary Clinton received only 14.4 percent and Joe Biden a measly 13.9 percent in 2020. By then both Democratic voters and coal jobs had virtually vanished.
Did the election of a Black man really bring “a hard swing to the right”? Only if you believe that John McCain, the victor in Mingo County that year, was a rabid a right-winger, a dubious claim.
While the drop between Kerry and Obama was 24.1 percent, there was an even bigger drop (28.2%) between Obama’s first election in 2008 and Biden’s in 2020. And Obama’s percentage in 2008 was about three times greater than Biden’s in 2020. If racism was so fundamental, why does the very white Biden do so poorly compared to Obama?
Maybe the decline has something to do with the Democrats not giving enough of damn about the economic challenges these voters face “deeply and daily,” as Mike Lux put it.
The Democrats held the presidency for 16 of the 24 years when 3,000 coal jobs were eliminated in Mingo County. The governmental response was to leave job creation to the free market. Unfortunately, as free enterprise rushed in to fill the void, two small pharmacies went on a rampage selling opioids, putting out more than one prescription per minute while serving the entire Appalachian region.
You don’t have to be racist, sexist, xenophobic, or homophobic to get angry about what happened to Mingo County’s economy. If you don’t blame some political entity, you’re not awake.
Hi, my name is Ada and I am a board member of el Tribuno del Pueblo, a national bilingual newspaper dedicated to sharing stories from progressive movements. Can we republish your piece? You can check out our website here: https://tribunodelpueblo.org/home/
Sure. But please highlight the Substack link. Many thanks.
While it's not exactly fair to comment on a book I haven't read, there are warning signs.
I started with your link to the poll work by Mike Lux--solid data and practical recommendations. His 2nd item says "Voters in these counties tend to think Democrats lack an economic plan, but they see the GOP as the party of wealthy corporations and CEOs."
Maybe because this research is aimed at Dem party strategists and he is being diplomatic, Lux leaves unmentioned that the Dems do have an econ "plan." Continuing support for the neoliberal belief that The Market knows best. Also unmentioned is how the economics of this abstract entity dismisses devastated communities and destroyed environments as externalities. However, Lux's careful wording implies that for pragmatic reasons, (let alone that it might be fair or humane or moral,) offering some alternatives or ameliorations to the harsh system would be helpful politically. Anyway, the data gathered by this set of polls also very much support your work. And call into question the assumptions and interpretations of //White Rural Rage.//
Next, I read reviews of //Rage// both pro and con on several sites. Including by academics who seem to support the basic themes as well as angry criticisms by conservative rural people and by those on the far left who frame everything as class warfare. I can't say for sure if any of these views are representative of what the book actually says.
The reviews on Amazon that are pro seem to me often to reflect a liberal intellectual bias--they already "know" this Other is ignorant, bigoted, and dangerous, so the book just reinforces their beliefs. Aside from the anger of the con opinions, a few presented logical critiques. Among them comments that apparently another writer, Nicholas Jacobs, whose book //The Rural Voter: The Politics of Place and the Disuniting of America// (2023) is on similar issues to //Rage// said on a radio interview that Schaller and Waldman cherry picked the data he and his co-author Daniel Shea developed and used it for their own ends. A commenter on Amazon who gave //Rage// 3 stars noted that Jacobs did a review on "Politico" 4/5/24 saying that the authors of //Rage// had misused the research done for //Rural Voter.// If so, pretty damning.
I'm left wondering whether there's anything objective to //Rage// at all. The MSM that tends to repeat these horror stories--including the NYT and MSNBC--seem to me to serve as disseminators of "info" that justifies Dem party neglect or outright condemnation. If "those people" are all only uncultured violent bigots, then they're undeserving of any sympathy whatsoever and no need for D econ or social policies that might help them.
Thanks for looking into this. I bought the book but I couldn't get through it. It was making me nauseous. What really freaked me out is that they also start with Mingo County. But they turn it into racism morality tale instead of sticking to the job loss. I had the following in my piece but took it out because it was getting too long: Thought you might appreciate it:
Not giving a damn about Mingo County, West Virginia
Schaller and Waldman are so blinded by whiteness that they distort the political evolution of Mingo County, West Virginia, which I also examined in my recently published book. (It’s uncanny that both our books pay close attention to this tiny county of 22,500 people.)
We more or less agree on the Mingo’s basic political history. It was the center of the Coal Wars in the early 20th century, which pitted the armed guards of the coal bosses against the workers who were trying to form the United Mine Workers union. Support from the Roosevelt administration during the 1930s allowed the union to thrive and brought a middle-class life to miners. The Democratic Party got a lot of credit for this improvement and benefited at the ballot box. But after WWII, coal mining employment crashed, reducing the power of the United Mine Workers, and in turn eventually crippling the Democratic Party.
However, in Mingo County coal production increased again after 1980 reaching a peak of 3,300 coal jobs in 1996. But by 2020, coal employment had crashed to only 300 workers, the largest drop in coal jobs during that time of any county in America.
But that’s not good enough for Schaller and Waldman. They are hell-bent on using white racism, not job loss, to account for the political decline of the Democrats in Mingo County (92 percent white). They write:
“For decades, the county was firmly Democratic, a streak that lasted through 2004 when John Kerry beat George W. Bush there by a comfortable margin. But Barack Obama’s arrival brought a hard swing to the right, and in every election after, the Republican margin of victory increased.”
Let’s be clear at what they are saying. They are saying the election of the first Black president caused a “hard swing to the right.” A closer look at the data suggests otherwise.
In 1996, at the peak of the post-WWII coal jobs boom in Mingo County, Bill Clinton won the county by a landslide with 69.7 percent of the vote.
As coal jobs started to slip so did the Democratic presidential vote. Al Gore in 2000 also did well even as his vote fell to 60.2 percent. John Kerry won again but his vote slipped some more to 56.2 percent in 2004, (13.5 percent lower than Clinton’s).
In 2008, Obama saw his percentage drop to 42.1 percent, and then to 27.6 percent in 2012. In 2016 Hillary Clinton received only 14.4 percent and Joe Biden a measly 13.9 percent in 2020. By then both Democratic voters and coal jobs had virtually vanished.
Did the election of a Black man really bring “a hard swing to the right”? Only if you believe that John McCain, the victor in Mingo County that year, was a rabid a right-winger, a dubious claim.
While the drop between Kerry and Obama was 24.1 percent, there was an even bigger drop (28.2%) between Obama’s first election in 2008 and Biden’s in 2020. And Obama’s percentage in 2008 was about three times greater than Biden’s in 2020. If racism was so fundamental, why does the very white Biden do so poorly compared to Obama?
Maybe the decline has something to do with the Democrats not giving enough of damn about the economic challenges these voters face “deeply and daily,” as Mike Lux put it.
The Democrats held the presidency for 16 of the 24 years when 3,000 coal jobs were eliminated in Mingo County. The governmental response was to leave job creation to the free market. Unfortunately, as free enterprise rushed in to fill the void, two small pharmacies went on a rampage selling opioids, putting out more than one prescription per minute while serving the entire Appalachian region.
You don’t have to be racist, sexist, xenophobic, or homophobic to get angry about what happened to Mingo County’s economy. If you don’t blame some political entity, you’re not awake.