Chandler: Were there any specific cities or towns you visited that made you think that the rise of Trump was more predictable than most people thought?
Arnade: There are so many stories. I think it was during the week of the GOP Convention when I went down to Cleveland. I didn’t go to the convention at all—I spent half my time in a poor, working-class black neighborhood and half my time in a poor, working-class white neighborhood. There was a working-class, white bar I spent two days in and that’s where it really struck me: This man is really resonating. This message is really taking hold and really hitting people. What sociologists and others have long talked about when you go to a poor, working-class black neighborhood is that there is this code of honor, this demand for respect. That same thing was taking place in the white bar I was seeing. And Trump was fulfilling that respect. It was all about respect, regaining respect.
I think that was something I wasn’t seeing in the press at the time. I think the general story was, “Well, these are just racists.” And the people I was talking to, they didn’t strike me as racist. They might be supporting someone whose policies a lot of people find as racist, but on an individual level, that wasn’t what was motivating them. And then I started paying more and more attention wherever I went.
It was the morning breakfast groups I wrote about at McDonald’s. How many times can you sit at a morning breakfast group and find yourself defending TARP [the $700-billion bank bailout signed by President Bush in 2008] and realize that maybe you’re the one who’s wrong?
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