Last week I read a column by Timothy Egan about books by J. D. Vance and Tara Westover, which he said were “guides to a Trumpland that is terra incognita to most Americans.” Vance grew up in southern Ohio and Westover grew up in Idaho. A couple of days later, I read a column by Jill Abramson saying that reporters should “report the story from the places where the pro-Trump and Trump-curious live.” She didn’t say precisely where those were, but referred to the “heartland” and “rural America.”
These reminded me of an observation I have made before, which is that you don’t have to travel all that far to find places where most people voted for Trump, even if you live in Manhattan or Washington, DC. …
For example, Connecticut is divided into 169 towns: Trump got more votes than Clinton in 81 of those. He won some of them by big margins, getting as much as 68% of the vote. CONT.
David Weakliem, U. of Connecticut