By Patricia Lee Sharpe
Here's the DNC homework assignment: Take a closer look at the factors that drove a once solidly Democratic labor force to vote in ways that seem to be self-defeating. Feel your way in, too. Empathize. Then and only then will you understand why so many white workers trended toward Trump and have a chance to reverse the flow.
Details vary from area to area, so generalizations are difficult, but you have to start somewhere. Try this: the latest issue of the non-ideological bimonthly High Country News (“for People Who Care about the West”), which treks deep into the Idaho mountains to see what’s happening in the world of forest workers. I’m not talking about armed militias here. I’m talking about ordinary guys whose jobs have disappeared thanks to the intersection of powerful external forces. The title of the article is “The Changing Face of Woods Work.”
I’m tempted to summarize, but the story is too complex for glibness or easy answers. You’ll have to do your own wrestling with it.
HCN is real journalism, reliably researched, well-written, worth dipping into from time to time even if you don’t live in the West.