What the national media gets wrong about 'red states' and the working class

To break down the walls that divide Americans, we must first understand them. In the essays of “Bone of the Bone,” journalist Sarah Smarsh It combines memoir with political analysis and a critique of journalism to reverse these cultural divisions.

The labels “red state” and “blue state” have always been inaccurate, he says. Worse, calling large swaths of the country “Trump country” suppresses voices of resistance, especially those of the white working class.

What is missing from most of the reporting, Smarsh argues, is the tradition of journalism that has earned him awards and the admiration of President Obama. “Real history has two intertwining strands: the specific and the universal,” he writes. His stories reveal truths about the economic structures and political decisions that lie behind the individual stories of those whose lives are affected.

In recent years, much of the reporting on the American working class has been pretty clumsy, including in coverage of Donald Trump’s 2015-2016 election campaign: national journalists failed to understand the terms with which they labeled the supposed billionaire’s supporters. As Smarsh writes: “The problem starts with language: Elite pundits often misuse the word ‘working class’ as shorthand for right-wing white guys wearing tool belts.”

As many local newspapers have gone dark in the internet age, much of the country has far less reporting by journalists who know local communities intimately. Instead, we have national publications like the New York Times that send a correspondent for a day or a week, parachuting into a community and, too often, reporting primarily on people whose views fit a preconceived narrative.

During the 2016 presidential primaries, while national journalists seemed to be constantly reporting from some Ohio diner full of disaffected white men, an ethnically diverse working-class coalition 26,450 Kansans overwhelmingly supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will be the Democratic nominee, far more votes than Donald Trump received in the Republican race (17,062). Two years later, Kansans elected a Democratic governor. So why have the national media and the Democratic Party not focused on Kansas and other similarly diverse states? Because by depicting the working class as a monolith, vital stories and organizing opportunities are ignored.

The misunderstanding of Kansas politics continues: in 2022, when Kansas Voters When an overwhelming majority of women voted to protect abortion rights, many in the national press were shocked, but quickly moved to examine how women’s anger over the loss of bodily autonomy had influenced even such a “conservative” place.

Smarsh, who lives in Kansas, knows better, writing that “there was never a Trump country,” but instead, “like many ‘red states,’ Kansas is a rigged, dark-money place, where election results can have more to do with who votes and what votes are counted than with the character of the place.” Drawing on local expertise and including the stories of individuals helps inoculate journalism against such mischaracterizations.

Smarsh’s ability to weave together stories, including aspects of her life, places her in the tradition of working-class journalism exemplified by Studs Terkel, Barbara Ehrenreich and others. Writing about those whose work is essential but whose humanity is ignored has allowed Smarsh to expose the internalized class biases and fears of many Americans.

That’s why “Bone of the Bone” resonated so much with me. As a working-class kid, I grew up around many of the issues Smarsh describes. Now that I’m an adult and a writer, I see that many journalists who cover working-class life don’t have relevant life experience and haven’t made the effort to understand the lives of others.

The deep empathy that animates Smarsh’s prose is matched by a rigorous intellect committed to uncovering and explaining the structural causes of our current cultural moment. His 2014 essay “Poor Teeth” neatly separates a convenient elitist myth from the painful reality of poor Americans.

In the United States, “bad teeth” are often the result of lack of access to dentistry, which is not covered by health insurance; lack of nutrients in early childhood; lack of access to fluoridated water; and eating cheap calories or junk food, which Smarsh says she craved as a child “to produce dopamine in a difficult home.” Paying for braces is unimaginable for many Americans. Smarsh writes that she was lucky to have her permanent teeth come in straight, though she spent years with tooth and jaw pain that her family could not afford to treat.

Contrast this with the shorthand of many media representations, in which not having teeth is seen as a symptom of moral depravity, a lack of self-care, possibly a methamphetamine addiction. It is one of many comforting narratives that the “haves” tell each other about the “have-nots,” such as when they pretend that type 2 diabetes is due to bad choices, or imagine that poor nutrition is the result of impulsivity rather than affordability, or assume that health care is available to anyone who works for it. Smarsh’s essays (One of which quotes me) conveys that she is fed up with such superficial and lazy rejections of inequality.

Smarsh was the first in her family to graduate from college, and her experience refutes right-wing propaganda that holds that a college education brainwashes students into liberal views. For her, it was the stark inequality during and after college that changed her politics and made her attuned to social injustices. She felt deeply the injustice of “excelling on campus while paying my own way and then graduating in poverty due to a lack of social capital” while “less capable children of wealthy people access prestigious internships and lucrative jobs.”

In “How Arguing With Trump Voters Is Working for You,” Smarsh shares the story of Megan Phelps-Roper, granddaughter of Fred Phelps, who founded the Kansas-based company hate group Westboro Baptist Church. Phelps-Roper grew up in a community dominated by her bigoted grandfather, whose virulent hatred of LGBTQ+ people fueled the group’s creation. repulsive protests and attracted national attention. Smarsh writes that Phelps-Roper's childhood and restricted upbringing meant that her ability “to evaluate information had been completely perverted.” In an interview, Phelps-Roper told of friendly strangers who “had grace with me when it seemed like I didn't deserve it,” people whose willingness “to suspend judgment long enough to have those conversations with me completely changed my life.” She later quit the hate group.

In the “dismiss them” tone used in arguments about national divisions, reaching out to someone like Phelps-Roper would be considered an impossible task. But it is possible to reach people, Smarsh insists.

He argues that a combination of factors has eroded opportunities for Americans to understand each other. Millions of people live in parts of the country that suffer from economic inequality, state-imposed educational restrictions and electoral interference. Elected officials in these areas do not represent the views or interests of the majority of voters. And yet when outsiders slap labels on them like “Trump country” or “red state,” they ignore existing solidarity and opportunities for greater empathy to develop.

Attributing monolithic characteristics to diverse individuals fuels anger on both sides. The presumption of those living in a privileged environment alienates those who do not and fosters the right's goals of dividing and conquering the country.

Blaming the people of “red states” for their problems is simply a modern version of “let them eat cake.” After such rhetoric, revolutions usually follow.

Lorraine Berry is a writer and critic living in Oregon.