host: we are joined by stephanie

ternullo, author of "how the heartland went red." she is also an assistant professor government at harvard university. your research and recent book focuses on how -- states' political identity and behavior. what pronto you to study that? -- prompted you to study that? guest: i was interested in trying to better understand and explain white, working-class politics. as you know, the white working class is an important part of the electorate, partly because they are a big portion of the electorate but also because of their geographic distribution. i felt often when we talk about this group, which we do a lot, election season, we tend to talk

as if they were a monolith. i had this intuition that there was a lot of heterogeneity there and we could better understand where we have come from in american politics and where we are going. to do that in my book, i found these similar white, postindustrial cities in the midwest that had once been part of the to my credit coalition but now vote differently. one -- the democratic coalition but now vote differently. one turned to the right in 2016. another is still voting democratic. in the 18 months leading up to the presidential election, i spent months living in those communities and collected hundreds of hours of interviews with community leaders and residents to understand what was shaping their politics.

i talked to folks with and without college degrees. what i found was place was helping explain why people were thinking about politics differently and why in each community different kinds of people were thinking the same way. that conformed to another intuition, which was the narratives people tell about their lives are important for their politics. social scientists are bad at guessing with those will be. often we think people are voting the wrong way, not in their self interest. there is hubris in that approach. i hoped by spending time in those communities and listening to people i could better

understand what other forces are shaping the narrative. local organizations that structure community life are important for helping us tell stories that make sense. host: those towns he visited were in minnesota, indiana, and wisconsin. can you tell us about them and those community forces that shape their clinical direction -- political direction? guest: i talk about churches and unions. these organizations have been central to civic and political life across the industrial heartland. this was true in all three communities i studied. that has changed a lot. churches and unions are in decline in the u.s.. decline has been uneven across geography.

i argue local contexts are important for understanding politics in the heartland because different communities have different organizational resources. they have different leaders. that matters. to make that more concrete, take the example -- the community i studied in indiana. there are still active churches. they coordinate with each other and nonprofits and governments to address -- address social problems as they come up, particularly hunger and homelessness. residents in that community feel they do not need more intervention from the federal government. for them, the republican party make sense. in the wisconsin town i studied, it is still voting democratic. it still has politically engaged

unions, which is rare in 21st century america. these unions are electing those who support organized labor and think of themselves as part of a community that has been disadvantaged by big structural economic forces. they believe more federal government redistribution will help them. for them, the democratic party make sense. the community is an outlier because is voting democratic when other largely white postindustrial cities have turned to the right. i think that community tells us something about the power and per carotene -- precarity of the labor movement in shipping politics. its decline probably explains a

good part of the reason why a lot of the industrial heartland has turned to the right. that was clear in the third and final community i studied in minnesota, where both unions and churches are still present but struggling to provide that role of community leadership i saw in indiana and wisconsin, so folks there feel their community is dying and under threat of extinction. as republicans under president trump articulated this narrative of immigration and socialism and china as a threat to that sort of small town way of life that folks value, that narrative has resonated. host: you wrote the strength of labor activism correlates with support for the democratic party and that has them look asian's

for democrat efforts -- has implications for democrat efforts to make inroads. guest: i think there is power to the organized labor movement. it is precarious because of organized labor's decline. the power comes from this historically and politically contingent link between unions and the democratic party born during the new deal era. it is contingent. unions have not always been a progressive force in american politics. when they began, they were the domain of white men and often viewed women and immigrants and people of color as a threat. so i think that is not the most effective form of working-class political organization. if you think about the 99% to the 1%, that divides the 99% and

it gets smaller and less powerful. more important for contemporary politics is if the labor movement worked over represented the white working-class, i do not think it would have home in the democratic party. democrats have not always been a friend to organized labor. that began with fdr and his response to the great depression and they have failed to live up to their promise of supporting organized labor in the decades that followed. those links between democrats and organized labor have historically been strong but it has studied working-class

mobilization and a version of the democratic party willing to support organized labor in that mobilization and support the democrats under president biden have made that a priority. host: with former president trump picking as his vice presidential nominee j.d. vance. senator vance made a direct appeal for these so-called working-class voters during his acceptance speech at the republican national convention. [video clip] >> president trump's vision is so simple and powerful. we are done catering to wall street. we will commit to the working man. we are done importing foreign

labor. we will fight for american citizens and their good jobs and wages. we are done buying from companies that hate us. we will get it from pennsylvania and ohio and across the country. we are done sacrificing supply chains to global trade and we will stamp more and more products with that beautiful label made in the usa. host: was this messaging effective? guest: it was probably effective for certain people in certain places. i will take you back to that minnesota town i described where

they expienced this widespread civic decline. they had this acute crisis. they lost their largest employer. their population declined. that is devastating and terrifying and makes people feel like they're community is dying. i showed up at the ymca to swim one morning and older men ask what what are you doing here? i have never seen you here before. i said i'm studying this town. he said, you want to know what it is like to live in a dying town? that was omnipresent. this idea that there is a party out there listening to that feeling of threats and trying to articulate a narrative that appeals to that sort of fear i think is effective and in a lot of ways senator vance is good at conveying and dark it -- articulating that narrative

because he lived it. the town he grew up in experienced that kind of postnuptial crisis so he can articulate that narrative the challenge with senator vance as a running mate is that was not always the narrative he told about his own life. he has argument that something like the culture of poverty is going on, making people lazy and unambitious and that is one of the reasons for the challenges in those communities. he has switched to this other narrative about immigration and socialism and china and that seems to be more effective. it is not what he was always saying, so in a lot of ways he learned more than i learned during my research, which is

narratives people tell about their own lives are what matters, so he changed to articulate this new narrative. in that way, he is an effective and savvy politician. host: we want to take her questions about working-class voters. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. let's start with mark in las vegas on our line for democrats. caller: hello, professor ternullo. i have two questions. one is on demographics. in these small towns with a shrinking population, i imagine they skew older. i would like to know their claim that they do not want or need federal money, how many of them

are on social security and medicare and how much of their roads are supported by the federal government and how much of the regulations are protecting their water. how do we break through to them this idea of self-sufficient? the other is how much they are into the propaganda for right-wing radio like j.d. vance feeding them the story that really does not accord with reality? guest: two things here. one of the things i try to do in my research is take people where they are at. when you talk about the fact the federal government is supporting all of us in our lives everyday,

whether through roads or social security or medicare, that is true. when elizabeth warren was candidate, she made this claim that schools and roads, we were all benefiting from and giving back into this civic and federal government tied together, but when you meet people in their everyday lives, and a lot of scholars have made this argument , those forces often are not visible to them. what is visible our churches and nonprofits. often people are participating in that local civic society and policy in ways that make us feel they are doing everything possible to take care of each other and they can see that and not the bigger version of

society and politics that is less visible to people. we have to take seriously that those things matter and it is not useful to point the blame and say how can we convince people to think differently. every week they are going to church and volunteering sunday afternoons and wednesday evenings. that is a big part of their lives. we are not going to convince people to think differently about this lived experience. the second thing you asked was about propaganda on the right. when i will say is we are all susceptible regardless of partisanship to listening to the news, to our friends who already agree with us. that does have a polarizing effect on american politics because it makes us lean even

further to the right or left. i do not think that is particularly just true folks in these communities or republicans in general but i think those messages resonate most when they are already picking up on something that we believe and have experience in our own lives so that is why i think senator vance's message now can be effective because it resonates with people who are terrified by this massive loss they have seen around them. host: let's hear from jess in nebraska. caller: i grew up in a small town not far from middletown, ohio. in the 60's and early 70's, the

town was booming. it did not take but two to three years and politicians sold where armco steel was and it turned into a ghost town overnight. many people went from prosperous to nothing. that is where the trouble began. people got lazy. it turns that way because people do sometimes bad things. that is not what he was saying at all. that is just something you observe because you're probably on the other side. whatever.

guest: i think that in "hillbilly elegy" senator vance does talk about the decline of armco central to what happened in milltown and other communities to it. but he does also in several occasions talk about how he observed that other families were not teaching their kids to be ambitious, that they were teaching their kids to be lazy. he talks about welfare cheats he sees around him and people making bad decisions in their lives. and he credits his grandmother with giving him a kind of ambition and safety to behave to philly on his own. -- differently on his own.

when communities have experienced loss on the level of the 1960's that you described, it can be hard to make good decisions. this is where senator vance has arrived on his politics. we have to provide the kind of economy and community in which folks can make decisions -- good decisions and teach their kids working hard and going to school and building community is worthwhile. host: we received a question on x. i live in indiana. what city did you study? guest: i have -- i get this question all the time. i anonymized the communities in

my book to prevent identities of the folks i spoke to for being revealed so they would feel comfortable talking to me. host: let's go to lives in new jersey on our line for democrats. caller: i read vance's book. i have family ties dating back to right after the american revolution in part of appalachia and outsourcing of jobs and such in the last 40 years. when i have seen is the republican party captured the votes of these folks by a common nation of culture wars, claiming they were going to work for the

middle class and outsourcing the high pay union jobs in this area and those that have a pension and 401(k) and do not earn enough are desperate for jobs to contribute to 401(k). churches will call themselves a mensch alkyl -- evangelical, but they are not regular churches. this is more a label than reality. i think this got put on steroids with reaganomics and that is why we are seeing such disparity and it is leaking out from the areas

that expanded in the 80's. host: i want to let stephanie respond to those ideas you brought up. guest: what you're talking about here is that a lot of the challenges those communities are facing you're suggesting were caused by, the republican party, yet they seem to be voting for the republican party today. other folks might say those challenges were caused by democrats. you are also putting your finger on a key piece of the challenges those communities are facing which is the decline of organized labor. i have talked about unions as a political force but they are also an economic force.

we have evidence there one of the best tools we have to combat the worst ills of capitalism, to mitigate economic inequality and provide things like you were talking about. investing in unions is good policy regardless of politics there. that could help these communities. caller: gary p in texas. i have been listening to c-span a lot and this lady speaking about how the republicans take over the rural areas. i would like her to do a study on how big the government is, how they have their finger in every piece of the pie.

this is not what the country was founded on. it was founded on a small national government and the states would do their own thing. the guy talking about social security, the u.s. government formed national security. if they mismanage it -- i'm talking about wives who get benefits now. we need to put everything in a pot called welfare so we know exactly how much welfare we spend in every department of the government. let's talk about how big the government is. joe biden is a big government guy, big spender. let's let the states start doing stuff. guest: thanks for sharing that point of view. i heard a lot at that point of

view when i was doing my research. i think you are putting your finger on something that is salient. we were a country founded on minimizing the control of the central government but we have also made choices over time, particularly during the great depression to shift that power to the federal government. the federal government has grown . as a country, we have slowly come to make building on those choices over time something that can be debated and we can talk about the sources of power and spending but i think if you do

that there will be policy trade-offs. if we allow local governments and state governments -- we might then worry that states with fewer resources swap able to provide the same -- will not be able to provide the same estates with more resources. i live in one of the highest gdp states. if we shifted the onus of income tax at the state level away from the federal level and states where ministering these programs, i would worry people in my state will get great benefits but people in alabama would not. that is a way i would have. you are raising important questions we can and do figure out when we hold >> next on q&a, our 2016

interview with j.d. vance about his book "hillbilly elegy." then king charles the third speaking to british parliament. later, donald trump's remarks at than republican -he republican national convention, where he accepted the nomination. >> president biden is ending his 2024 presidential campaignnd endorsing vice president harris. he made the announcement in a letter, which reads in part it has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president, and while it has been my intention to seek reelection, i believe it is in the best interest of the party and my country to step down and focus solely on the duties of president for the remainder of my term. tune in tomorrow for our washington journal call in program. we will get your reaction to president biden's decision to

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