Reaching Out to the Voters the Left Left Behind - The New York Times

Thomas Edsall -whose trenchant analyses appear only in the Times online - employs his usual relentless presentation of facts to explain things like:  why our little fishing town in Maine cast more 25% more votes for Trump than it did for Mitt Romney four years ago.  As the graph above shows cities have surged while small town america has declined economically.  Of course it's not all economics - fuel is low and the price of lobster is high.  But Mainers (the whitest state in the country) were likely not repelled by Trump's racialist rhetoric or his depiction of Black urban neighborhoods as war zones.  And his simple barroom talk didn't jar them the way it did many of us. - GWC

Reaching Out to the Voters the Left Left Behind - The New York Times
by Thomas Edsall

The devastating recession that began at the end of 2007 and officially ended in June 2009 was the most severe downturn since World War II.

The political, social and even medical consequences of this recession have been duly noted, but even so the depths of its effects are only now becoming clear. One we’re still learning more about is how the rural, less populated regions of the country (known among demographers as nonmetropolitan counties), which already suffered from higher than average poverty rates, recovered from the recession at a far slower pace than more populous metropolitan counties.

The fact that people living outside big cities were battered so acutely by the recession goes a long way toward explaining President Trump’s victory in the last election.