Transcripts For CSPAN2 The Politics Of Resentment 20161022

Hes the author of many scholarly articles and books including talking about Race Community dialogues and the politics of difference. Dr. Cramers work asks questions about Public Opinion and why people view the world the way they do. Her latest book, published in 2016 by the university of chicago press, is called the politic of resentment rural consciousness and the rise of scott walker. Her research, based on participating in conversations all around the state of wisconsin, seeks to enlighten us about the political divides in our state and in our country. She finds that Political Attitudes in the rural part of the state are heavily influenced by what she calls rural consciousness, a sense that rural values are distinct and not often respected by urban residents in milwaukee and madison. So i think the way were going to proceed today is that shes going to read, and then were going to have a conversation about her fascinating book. So ill hand it over to you. Thank you so much. Thank you, julia, for agreeing to talk with me about my book, and thank you to the book fest and the Public Libraries and all the corporate sponsors, and thank you to you all for coming tonight. Im going to read from pieces of paper that that ive printed off, because ive sort of condensed part of Chapter Seven of my book. So rather than read just straightforward from the book, its a little bit of this and that from Chapter Seven. And the title of the chapter is called reactions to the ruckus. So what this chapter is, is talking about conversations that i spent time listening to among people in 2011, 2012, so after scott walker was elected governor of wisconsin and during the 2012 president ial race. And i should explain a little bit to say the way i studied, or the way i did my study that is the background for this book was to sample a variety of communities across the state of wisconsin, 27 in all, and then visit or, actually, ask for advice from Uw Cooperative Extension or local newspaper editors, places i could get access to where people met on a regular basis, and it wouldnt be too much of a stretch for me to walk in and say, hi, im kathy from uwmadison, do you mind if i join you this morning. Most of what i was doing was spending time with Early Morning coffee clutches in gas stations and diners, and this will give you a flavor of the types of conversations that i heard. So this is june 5, 2012, which happened to be the day of the gubernatorial recall election, and i was having lunch with a group of women in a Small Community in centralwest wisconsin. Be these are folks who get together, theyre a lunch bunch that gets together once a week. They switch local restaurants, and this time they invited me to join them. And it was my first time meeting with hem. I started out asking them, i just want to know what your big concerns are in this town these days, which is the question i always ask groups when i first met them. They brought when they answered, they brought up the economy, social security, the fact that senators and congressmen have no idea what small, Rural America is like, their lack of trust in politicians, their beliefs that the recall is a waste of taxpayer money and their belief that we need more women running things. Then i asked, well, this is not a loaded question. Do you feel that either Political Party is better at representing your concerns, republicans or democrats . I mean, delores says, probably not. And i say, well, i know its a pretty republican area around here, and beverly says, i dont think so, referring to my question do either party represent your concerns. And i said, well, that really stinks. And beverly says we dont know who were going to vote for if we do vote. I think its going to stay the same way, its going to be sandy says, or get worse . Beverly says, they promise us a lot, but once they get voted in the system . Sandy says, do you want walker or to do more of the things he said he was going to do . And delores said, thats why people are upset. I dont know if anything will change, if anything, if the other party gets in. But barrett, who was walkers opponent in the recall election, is known for not doing a whole lot, you know, for our type of community. As many of you know, he was mayor of milwaukee at the time. You know, hes for the big city, hes from the big city, and hes taken milwaukee right down the tubes. Why would we want him running the whole state when he cant run a city . I think in that way i give walker a lot of credit for standing up for what he believes and saying this is what i told you i was going to do, and this is what i have done. Now, he may not have gone about it the real earth car accident right way, but at least he made an effort to do something ethical. So these women understood themselves as people from be rural wisconsin. Maybe Neither Party represented their concerns, but they sure were not going to vote for barrett because they saw him as a city guy whod not, who did not understand places like their town. Later on in the conversation i had an opportunity to ask bluntly about the rural versus urban divide in wisconsin. I asked them to tell me more about this thing that you talked about today that i hear everywhere in the state outside of madison, milwaukee. People do not feel listened to. They feel as though nobody is really taking into account their concerns, you know . I hear that in this town too, and its sad. And delaware delores said, it i. I heard someone said once and i worked in the School System that you cant expect much of farm kids because they dont excel in the sciences and all of that. And i said, oh, my. And gladys said, i worked with a girl like that. Delores said, i just about dropped my teeth, and i thought the expectations should be the same for these children as it is for any other child anywhere else in the state. And i was getting that from someone who should have known better. And i said, and that was someone teaching here . My goodness. And delores said, yeah, yeah, the local School System who said that. I was not expecting them to do that. I was just appalled. And gladys said, but then some managers will hire farm children before other children because they know how to work. Delores said, they know how to work. On the day of the recall election, these women made sense of the tumultuous politics of their state through their sense of themselves as rural people whose communities are are disrespected, ignored and left to fend for themselves. When you look at the world this way, it makes sense to support a politician who conveys that, finally, someone paying attention to small town folks like you. It makes sense to vote for a person who has taken measures, even controversial measures, to scale back the resources going to public employees. We can lean back and wonder why anyone who can hardly afford to pay for health care, whose local schools are struggling, who teeters on the edge of needing welfare assistance would vote for a candidate who openly pledges to roll back government spending, or we can listen closely and notice that having a world view that rural people are treated unjustly leads in an understandable way to support for a politician like scott walker. We have a politics of resentment when political actors mobilize support for cutting back government by tapping into resentment toward certain groups in society. Ive laid out in some detail how a place and classbased identity like rural consciousness which is an identity of the small town resident combined with a perception that people in small towns do not get their fair share of Decision Making power, resources or respect provides Fertile Ground for resentmentbased arguments to flourish. But what does such mobilization look like . It looks at times like a train. A highperiod train, to be exact. A highspeed train, to be expect. Under democratic governor jim doyle, walkers predecessor, wisconsin had successfully applied for federal stimulus money to build a highspeed rail system between madison and milwaukee. Walker took on the train as a major symbolic element of his 2010 gubernatorial campaign. He portrayed it as an 810 million boondoggle that would create only 55 permanent jobs. He argued it was an excessive Government Program that taxpayers could not afford. He gave people many reasons to support his decision to give back the 810 million to the federal government as he refused to let the construction on the rail system go forward. But he especially focused on reasons that would resonate with those having a rural consciousness. He asserted that spending money on this project would directly take must money away from regiof the tate outside the the state outside the madison and milwaukee metro areas. Heres an example of his talking points from the first debate in the giber that to have yall giber that to have yall primary, and im quoting him directly. If you look at what jim doyle and tom barrett are have put on the table in spending 810 million on a highspeed train line with no assurance it will go to eau claire or lacrosse or anywhere else, its just about those two areas, and its about taking that money, money that will cost the citizens of wisconsin up to 10 million per year according to their numbers, i think it will actually be much more, thats 10 million that doesnt go to fix a road that goes up from west salem, through the cutout, up to black river falls. It doesnt fix streets in la crosse. Thats money thats taken away there our local roads and our bridges and our other Transportation Needs today. The rail system was not the only way walker mobilized rural consciousness in support of small government. He used anticity rhetoric in other ways too. He said that he was taking on political machine down in madison, and i emphasize down this because he was in milwaukee when he said this which is not north of madison. [laughter] but he also said he was taking on the political machine in milwaukee. Walker invoked animosity toward the cities, especially madison, in more subtle ways as well. Take, for example, these remarks about his tenure as county executive made during a question and answer session at the American Enterprise institute, a conservative think tank, on january 6, 2012. Im quoting him directly here. We were able to rein in abuses of things like overtime and other excesses out there by no longer having opportunities where, many our case, some of our state employees could literally call in sick on their shift and then come back to work the next shift on overtime. Or bus drivers, in places like madison, that made 150,000 or more because of overtime. Walker also demonstrated that he identified with shawl town wisconsin small town wisconsin. In an appearance on fox and friends, he said, i grew up in a small town, and asserted that such a background gave him, quote, a little bit of that brown bag common sense. A wisconsinite did not need to look at the world through the lens of consciousness, they could hear walker pledge to take on the political machines in madison and milwaukee and could cheer that someone was finally going to get government to listen to hard working tax a payers like themselves taxpayers like themselves. But for people who had an identity beyond the orbit of power of madison and milwaukee, reminding people of the good values of small town wisconsinites likely had an extra appeal. Thank you. [applause] all right. So now we get to the part where two College Professors from madison and milwaukee talk about this book. [laughter] so the first thing that jumped out at me actually, let me preview first my plan is to kind of talk generally about the book and some questions that i had, and then we can transition into some of the contemporary implications. Im sure thats really whats on everyones mind, but i did want to ask about the book first. So the first thing that jumped out at me was that when you quote the people that you talk to talking about their vision of what madison and milwaukee are like, there was this combination of those places have gone down toilet, but all the moneys going there, and they have all the money and all the resources. And i thought that was a really interesting kind of disjuncture. So i dont know if you want to comment on that. Sure. Well, the way i understand it is people definitely perceive that all the wealth and all the money was going to the cities, the madison and milwaukee metro areas x. There was also a general perception that folks in the cities are messing things up for the rest of us, right . And so part of that argument was that those folks dont understand what real life is like, especially life for people out here in small town wisconsin working is so hard to make ends meet. So i think thats way i understand those two things going together. My followup to that, i guess, the question that was really on my mind as i was reading a lot of these interviews and particularly the parts toward the beginning of the book where people are describing the brain drain thats happening in smaller towns and businesses that are closing. When you go to the gas station to meet for coffee with people, and then the gas station is closed, the question that i had was what was the vision of a good life in their communities that these people had . What how did they envision their communities being both economically vibrant but still retaining some of the character they describe . Well, it was very nostalgic, right in most of the time when people were talking about the good life, they were remembering the vibrancy of their community in the past and the way things used to be. And, you know, a lot of times people had this sense that their community was not going to become that again and that the jobs were going to the city along with the money, and they didnt have a sense of how it was going to turn around. They, you know, occasionally had some ideas like could the State Government have some of it offices out here as opposed to in madison, which is something, you know, thats actually been tried in recent past. But most, most people didnt know, didnt really have a sense of how their community could remain itself, not become citified, you know, to make up a word, and be vibrant in the future. Yeah. So to follow up on that a little bit and talk about the vision of cities, this is very cityoriented b uhuh i promise but i promise ill move on from this. Im curious, one of the things that didnt jump out at me a lot is people didnt talk about crime in the city. I guess im curious what they thought was wrong with life in the city or what they thought would happen if their communities did become sit citified. Well, crime did come at times. I was in the field for many years and still i should admit, you know, through this president ial election ive been curious about the views of many of the people ive met and so have been back out visiting a lot of these groups. But after a while i started asking them, so youre clearly resentful toward the cities getting all the resources, so, you know, have you ever thought about moving to the madison and milwaukee metropolitan area, and usually people would say, are you kidding me . Thats not what were saying. Why would i want that piece of life . Why would i want that lifestyle where people dont know their neighbors, theyre constantly checking their watches, you know, crime came up. And people, you know, in outstate wisconsin, theyre pretty resentful when a starbucks comes into their community. People would say we dont want to become manaqua, right . [laughter] so there were a variety of things aboutty life that people just about city life that people just found distasteful. Right. I mean, i think that to comment on the broader politics of this, one of the the surprise findings in your book is that you say that resentment is distinct from race, that race is part of the story, but its not the whole story. And i think a lot of people see that dynamic as being primarily fueled by race. Yep. So this is probably the most intricate part of the book, right, in that because what i dont want to say, what i dont want people to do is read my book and come away from it and think, see . Theyre all be a bunch of redneck racists. Because that is just way too much of an oversimplification. So so by that i mean when people are talking about those people in the cities, race is a part of that conversation. And especially many our state in our state that is so racially segregated. But to discount all of these sentiments as racist doesnt capture that when people are are expressing resentment toward the cities, part of the time they were talking about people like me, they were talking about the white urban elite, right . And it doesnt, oversimplifying it doesnt capture the way in which race and economics and values and culture are all intertwined. And so i think when we, when we just discount these views as racist, it doesnt get us anywhere near a solution. Because the solutions of not carving up the world into us and them have to involve understanding where these folks are coming from, just the struggles that they are facing in their daily life and fact that, you know, these are good people. To part of what theyre saying may be racist, but we have rampant racism in our cities too. So i thats why i take so much time to say this is not simply racism and, please, listen to what these folks have to say. Yeah. And i want to follow, i want to circle back to some of these themes in the context of the election, but first i want to follow up on a couple of things. And one of them is this theme of work and the urban elite. I i will confess that my first reaction as i was reading particularly these conversations about frustration with bringing in businesses and kind of people wanted their towns to have, to be economically vibrant but not too citified is i felt frustrate with the your subjects. That, you know, the cost of having economic revitalized Economic Situation is that you may have to give up some of the lifestyle that youre describing. I felt really frustrated with that. But e also felt frustrated but i also felt frustrated with the remarks about professors. [laughter] im sure you did too. But this is my context, right . I come from wisconsin, but my mom is from rural kentucky, and her dad was from toledo, and theyre manual laborers, and so the whole goal was for us to go to college and not have to workman yulely, right . Not work manually, not have to do that work. I was raised to be proud of education. And to read people kind of complaining about that this hard work in education isnt morally correct is hard for me to the read. For me to read. It was hard to listen to. [laughter] i mean, yes, because, i mean, im sure you like i think that you work very hard, right . [laughter] and so the conversations i would have about hard work and how, you know, people who sit behind desks all day, they cant possibly that cant possibly be hard work, and be were not, our work doesnt involve kind of using our bodies and, you know, causing injury that is going to make retirement that much more difficult if, you know, when theyre saying if i can retire. Im using up my body, and by the time i get there, you know . So, yeah, it was hard to to listen to. And i, like you, i mean, i was raised by parents who very much believed in education and saw, saw me going to the university of wisconsinmadison as an undergrad as a way of not just getting job skills, but a way of becoming a part of the world and becoming a good citizen. And thats the way ive become a professor. When i teach, im thinking to myself, im not training people to be political scientists. Im training people to think about the world and broader common good. So to hear conversations about education as something to not be proud of or something that is very much sort of instrumental, a means to the an end to an end really made me think a lot. I want to circle back also to to your point earlier about integrating the topic of race in with all these other topics. Ive been thinking a lot about that, because in the study of political of Public Opinion in Political Science, its very much oriented around separating different issues, right . And i was curious whether you think kind of this is, we need to really rethink how and this isnt just political scientists, right . This is how we all think about issues. We talk about singleissue voters, the issues in these columns should go on one of those Voter Education web sites where you click on the different issues. And, in fact, the issues are intertwined. So i was wondering if you think we need a major paradigm shift. I do. I think its incorrect to think about what peoples issue stances are and then predict how theyre going to vote. I think its almost entirely, im overstating this just to make a strong point, i think its almost entirely about identity. Issues matter, but i think much more of whats going on is people making a judgment about whether a candidate is going to understand someone like them, is someone like them, will listen to people like them and really, you know, how they carve up the world into us and them and where this candidate falls. So thats the paradigm shift that i see coming in Political Science and also one that just in the research for this book and in my other books very, that is what i hear. That is what i hear when people are talking about public issues. Okay. Weve got an audience question. [laughter] [inaudible] and the media are encouraging that kind of a split . I mean, obviously, you know, if you want to say government is bad and you [inaudible] and the university is a wonderful way to start. Look at all the money [inaudible] and if we just didnt pay all those professors who are spending most of their time doing whatever, okay, we wouldnt things would be much easier. I think that okay. I think i have to cut you off, because for our tv audience, were supposed to do q a from the mic. So sorry about that. But i want to rephrase the question so that everyone can hear. So it seems to me your question is, is it in the best interests of old decisions and the media to direct politicians and the media to direct people to think about issues in a discreet way . [inaudible] all these evil professors that arent doing their work and, you know, making too much money. Right. I have no idea where the antiprofessor, where antiprofessor sentiment comes from, but i suspect that dr. Cramer knows better than i. Not to put you on the pot. [laughter] you can put me on the spot, its okay. Be your goal if your policy goal is to privatize Public Education including higher ed or to make an argument about why public funding shouldnt go to education, i think it is in your interest to argue that, basically, what we need to do here is give people job training and get rid of all this other stuff like why, why do we have courses in literature . Why do we have courses in arts . Why to we pay people to be political scientists . Because when the students arent going to become political scientists, wheres the job training in that . So i think, you know, yes, the answer to your question is, yes, it is in politicians interests at times if theyre trying to roll back funding for Public Education to talk about education as a means toward a job and not talk about it as a very important common good, a public good, something that we hope for all people as a way for them to understand their own place in the world, to understand the common good, to understand the importance of putting some emphasis on the common good. I mean, those are not kind of technical job skills, but theyre essential to a democracy. And so not drawing attention to the way in which education about giving people the skills they need for a good, stable livelihood, but its also about making sure we all have some sense of how to govern one another in a civil fashion. For a long time to come. Yeah. So this is one of the other questions that i had for you has to do with peoples kind of sense of their community and their Community Identity and their linked fate. American politics hasnt studied this in the same depth that people who study politics outside the United States have studied this. Theres kind of literature on nationalism. Theres a book called imagined communities which i imagine you probably read in grad school just as i did that talks about the development of the notion of thinking of yourself as being part of a political and linguistic community. The linguistic point maybe is not so much part of the story, but i was thinking about that in terms of whether rural residents thought of themselves as being in community, not just as people in their town, but people in other towns. If they thought of the rural state as a kind of collective identity. Thats a great question. I dont know for sure, and im leaning toward saying not so much. I mean, because people didnt talk about themselves as a rural resident. Like, i picked up on their identity as small town wisconsinites or rural wisconsinites through the way they would talk about, you know, people in places like this, People Like Us in towns like this. Theyd say those types of things. So i guess in some respects, yes. And at the same time, i mean, im assuming lots of folks in the crowd have spent some time in small town wisconsin. And you know that thing of when you talk to folks and say, you know, are you from here, and they say, oh, no, i grew up 20 miles away, you know . So theres both, like, very strong local identity and not, not necessarily so much this consciousness of im not, i mean, im not really sure, uncertain if im giving a great answer here, but thats a very interesting question itself. I just dont recall a lot of conversations about all rural or small town wisconsinites. So i want to say one more thing about the resentment point, particularly for people who havent had a chance yet to read the book to kind of tie up the professor part of the program, otherwise ill talk about myself the whole hour. And then i want to ask some more contemporary politics questions. But in terms of the resentment, i think the thing that really jumped out at me was this idea of you havent brought this up of a race to the bottom in your conversations with your subjects. You asked, you know, if youre frustrated that this persons getting these great benefits and you dont have it, why are you not spending this time trying to get it . I felt like thats where resentment is a useful concept, is that the way its described in the book and certainly, correct me if im not reading it right is that people had kind of gotten to the point of frustration where they didnt even care, they werent even thinking about getting more for themselves. They really were just frustrated that these other peopled had this thing that they didnt deserve. And that thats where, like i said, that concept to me had so much value added, and i feel like resentment is thrown around a lot in social science and analyses of politics, but here its really, you know, the concept was a really precise and important meaning. Well, i think using the word deserve is the key, like you just did. So for me, so much of the resentment was wrapped up this these notions of deservingness and hard work. Like, they went hand in hand, right . People were making these calculations about who in the population is deserving and feeling as though im a very hard working person, and therefore, im deserving. I mean, in our culture those two things are so intertwined. And im not getting my fair share, and that fair share seems to be going to other people who arent as deserving as i am, right . Who arent looking like theyre working very hard and just arent, yeah, just arent as deserving as i am. Yeah. So i want to transition to talk about party politics. And first i want to ask you about, im sure youve been asked this many times, how you think these findings travel outside the state of wisconsin, and specifically we have this really Strong Capital p progressive antiparty tradition. And so one of the things that comes up throughout the text is the machine in madison and the machine in milwaukee and its this kind of term of the 20th century antiparty rhetoric are. We have a very strong tradition of that here. My students, actually, at marquette still they very much think about it, think about politics this way. Andi dont think people elsewhere in the United States do. Do you think that informs what you see in rural wisconsin in a specific way . Yes. And i think it came up probably most often when i would just ask people quite bluntly that question, and i think then i read in the excerpt, you know, which party do you think best represents the concerns of people around here. And almost always people would not, you know, skip a beat and say neither. Neither party represents people like me. And i, to be honest, i heard that in all types of places in the state, urban, suburban, rural. So that but im not, at this point many time that is not exclusive to wisconsin, im quite sure. Yeah, no, fair enough. [laughter] there does seem to be a more widespread phenomenon. So ill move into contemporary politics here. There were several things that really jumped out at me with contemporary political relevance, and the first one is that you were talking with a group of people about the 2012 president ial election, and someone said it seems very fishy to me that there are all these precincts in ohio where obama got all the votes. So in light of the recent comments about possibilities of rigged elections and voter fraud, im wondering if you have any reflections on that. Well, thats great to bring up in that, you know, weve been spending a lot of time thinking the last few weeks about rigged electionses and where those allegations are coming from. And i think in this state with the voter id legislation weve been thinking about the evidence behind those claims for some time, right . Were pretty much aware there isnt a lot of fraud in these states, and so those claims are a little bit bewildering. But i think it is great to recognize that those stories have been around for some time and that there, in 2012, in 2008, there were people making claims about elections being rigged, and often times theyre claims about the cities, right . About abnormal turnout in the cities. So its not, its not new to 016, thats for sure 2016. So that excerpt, if im remembering it correctly where you have the snippet of conversation, is a pretty short conversation. Did you, did that person tell you anything about where they got that idea . Im trying to remember that one specifically, but i think that one specifically was well, i heard it from so and so who, im to not sure where so and so heard it. So, you know, yeah, a lot of these stories get passed on from person to person. And i think that was one really interesting thing that i learned in doing this research, that theres this sense that all of those Conspiracy Theory ares come from fox news theories come from fox news. Well, maybe, but not necessarily. And a lot of times those stories about whats going on in the political world are stories that people hear from their friends, from people that they have these conversations about politics with. And so the persontoperson relaying of, you know, the election was rigged is an important force we have to Pay Attention to. Its not just people simply soaking up what theyre getting from the news media. Yeah. And that really jumped out at me when i was rereading it. To speak about partisanship a little bit, what are the major stories in one of the major stories through the book is the way people think about politics, although they tend to think Neither Party represents them, is the way that rural resentment works points them in the direction of the democratic party. But you do have one kind of tense exchange, i think during the recall, between people of different parties. And the other question that i had is does some of the resentment, does it seem like Fertile Ground for candidates like Bernie Sanders that are also, that have a more populist economic and rural message . Yes, definitely. And i think i heard you say it points in the direction of the democratic party, and think you meant republican sorry, yeah. Right. And be ill just explain that briefly and then come back around to say, absolutely, theres its not inevitable that folks who are feeling like theyre not getting their fair share or are going to vote for the Republican Party. So the way it works out is people say, you know, look around at my community. Whatever government is doing is clearly not working for people like me or for this community, so why would i want more government . Like why people say, you know, yes okay to, yes, i value education. People want me to pay more taxes to improve education. Well, i tell you what, that money is not going to come to my community and this school, its going to go to the city. So why would i agree to do that. So thats the kind of reason that goes, you know, helps support republican candidates. But i think what people are hungry for is someone to hear them and to actually respect them and to pay some attention to their concerns. And i think a politician from either party can do that. So, for example, in 2008 when obama ran for president , it might surprise a lot of folks that a lot of these people im talking to voted for obama or at least told me that they did, and they told me in front of their friends, so it wasnt saying, oh, you know, i should probably tell that professor from madison. She probably wants to hear that i voted for obama. But instead for a time, especially until the Health Care Debate and after he got in office, people perceived that he represented something different. He represented a different kind of old decision. Of politician. And people were helpful that hopeful that maybe guy going to change things work. So i think its not about the Republican Party or the democratic party. Its people hungry for a politician whos actually going to improve their lives. Interesting. So the messaging isnt so important, its the, its the sense of the person. Yeah. That is really interesting. So time to transition to really, i think, the main event of 2016. So what are the implications of your work for what weve observed this year with particularly the rise of trump who, as i understand it, is somewhat more popular in the northwestern part of the state than in the wow counties around milwaukee. Thats right, yeah. Well, the trump candidate i is candidacy is, you know, [laughter] yeah. Im very curious how youre going to end that sentence. Yeah. [laughter] im sorry, i really was pausing just because i was thinking and not because i didnt know what to say. I have a lot to say. So he, trump doesnt necessarily represent a small government platform, right . So its not, thats not a the appeal. What i see as the appeal among the folks ive listened to is heres a person whos landed into, you know, into the president ial politics and is saying youre right. I should say this a little bit like youre right you are not getting your fair share, and those people who dont deserve it are. Im mad about it, im as had as you, and im going to do something about it. Im going to rip the whole system apart, and were going to make America Great again, right . So that sentiment of our community was so great at one time, we had so much pride in it and we, you know, want that thing back, that thing where we could have a livelihood, our kids could stay and live here if they wanted to. And so that whole strain of make America Great again really plays well with people as does the providing for people very concrete targets of blame. So whether were talking about immigrants or muslims or nasty women, a the thats are appealing to people who are bewildered by what has happened to their world. Where is it all going. And for someone to come along and say its going to them, and youre right, they dont deserve it, you do, thats the appeal, i think. It resonates. Interesting. So thinking, thinking about this, i told you earlier i wanted to circle back, and theres a lot of circling back because theres just so many ideas here. I wanted to circle back to when you said that its important to listen to peoples concerns and not to dismiss the viewpoints of people we dont agree with as racism. But at the same time, i find it difficult to understand the trump candidacy as anything but racism. And thats not to say there arent other dimensions to it, but i cant write off the things that have been said as anything else. And i think thats also true in a more subtle way when i read remarks about how, about milwaukee, when i read remarks about urban residents, when i read remarks about crime. And so im wondering and so this, i think, is really the big question of the election for, particularly for people who study Political Science, is how do we strike that balance . How do we listen to these concerns without validating the things that are hurtful and harmful to other marginalized people in society . So solve that. Yeah. Well, that i mean, its a great question. But i think as with all of our relationships in which those issues are in play where when one you work with or someone you love, someone you know says something really racist and yet you need, like, you need to communicate, that the way you have to have a relationship with that person, you have to have time where you can convey i am listening to you and, you know, five beats later say and what you just said really disturbs me and heres why. Because it pretends saying that youre going to listen to someone and then have them Say Something racist and say, but see, thats racist, that sucks, thats end of conversation, right . Youre not really listening. I mean, theyll perceive that youre not really listening. So to if i would land in these communities on my first visit and hear a conversation and people would Say Something racist and i would say, you know, if that if you were to say that in my classroom are, i would pull you aside, wed have a conversation afterwards, you know . They would say there a they go again, like, another liberal from Madison Landing and telling us that we dont know what were talking about and that were wrong, you know . So i think that the key is time and relationships which seems kind of crazy as i say it, right . I think thats a lot of really whats off in our politics, is we dont actually have time with one another. Yeah. So this kind of circles into some of my final questions. To lighten things a little bit now that weve gone down the 2016 rabbit hole, i did want the kind of ask just about your experiences in your field work. Maybe what was your favorite conversation, what was the least comfortable conversation . Tell us sure. Tell us about your greatest hits. Oh, my greatest hits. I mean, i had a fantastic time. My favorite conversation, and i might be able to repeat this verbatim, but there was a town in centralwest wisconsin where i had a hard time finding a group of regulars, finding the place where people were going to get together often, every day or once a week. And finally someone admitted to me that theres a dice game going on in this diner on main street every morning, and the first time i went to the dice game i was escorted by a local attorney who clued me in that, yeah, its not only in the restaurant or, you have to walk through the curtain at the back of the restaurant. And so the first time i went, and they stopped playing tice, and it was the end of the dice game they said to me, so, do you know how to play ship captain and crew . And i said, well, yes, i do, because, well, rhodes mary rosemary, my daughter and i, play it with my family all the time. You have five dice, and you get three rolls, and you have a cup, and you have to shake a 6, a 5 and a 4, and the remaining dice determine how high your roll is. So on my third visit, i was playing dice with these folks, and and they were also telling me that there was a horse auction in town x they were joking with me about whether i was going to buy one of the horses. And i said, like, are you kidding me . I dont have a place to keep a horse, i live in madison, you know . [laughter] and they said, well, you know, just, i mean, youll fit right in in madison, thats where they keep all the bullshit. La. [laughter] basically, a all youve got to do is take the back end finish. Cspan people are freaking out. Okay, sorry. [laughter] i think thats the haas exme ty. But then the really crazy part of in this morning was i had brought my little coin purse along and was playing dice with them, and i kept winning and winning and winning. And i was is so uncomfortable ability it because, you know, this is three, four years into how long ive known these folks. And i know full well by now that theres this perception pretty much everywhere in state, outstate wisconsin of people from madison parachuting in, taking all our money and running away with it. So i started joking with them about the fact that i came to listen to them, and i was taking all their money. And just one funny thing after another. And last remark this guy made was, well, at least it wont cost any postage to get it down there now. [laughter] so that was my very favorite conversation. But there were a lot of, i mean, i had a great time. As much as it was hard to hear a lot of this stuff, i had a really great time meeting all these folks. Thats really wonderful to hear. So the final question which you touched on a little bit is you said we dont have enough time for each other. What can be done Going Forward . How can we understand each other better . Oh, thats the 5 billion question, isnt it . And i think it has to happen on so many different levels. So interpersonally, i, you know, i gave a talk once, and i recommended that people like i made a very dumb recommendation. Basically, it was like go to small town wisconsin and pull people aside and say im so and so from madison, im really i understand not everybody can do that, you know . I had a good excuse to do that. But i think when the opportunity arises to listen and not try to get riled up by what you hear, but i say i think it has to happen on so many different level because i think we go up to our political level, our elected politicians, it seems to me that along the line whether its Campaign Finance or redistricting or whatever it is that has caused money to be such a tremendously important and intrusive factor in our politics, it means that our politicians dont actually have time to listen to the people they represent anymore. And that weve gone from a situation in which people were concerned about developing relationships and governing to a situation in which theyre concerned about getting reelected. And i think the way you pend your time you spend your time when the goal is to get reelected as opposed to the goal being to govern is very different. And i think that, too, is part of problem. So part of the problem comes from the elite level as well. Yeah, thats good to hear. Well, ive really enjoyed having a chance to throw all these questions at you. And your work and your search to find to political meaning and go beyond superficial understandings of what people think has really been very influential to me. I wanted to take a moment to see if the audience has any questions. I believe that already i believe youre directed to the microphone in the center of audiotape room. In the center of the room. And i dont have any recommendations for how to get there [laughter] but i think thats what i was told. So its now a race. The person with the best mile time gets the mic. [laughter] oh, i should have opened this up half an hour ago. All right. So you kind of answered this just now in the last question, but when i was reading the book, one of the things that i kept thinking when you would hear people in the conversation say, oh, madison gets to keep all the money and madison gets to make all the decisions was i kept thinking, well, come on, youve got a state senator, youve got a state representative, and because our government is not directly proportional, you actually have a little bit more swing. And thats technically than the people in the cities. So i know there were a few people in the conversations that had been on a school board or a county board or whatever, but im wondering how connected they felt to their representative government, or if they thought, oh, maybe i should, you know, write a few more letters to my congressman or Something Like that. It seemed to vary by community. Is and vary by community in terms of whether i was talking with rural, suburban, urban folks or but also just across more rural communities. So some people seemed to have a pretty positive relationship with their representative or state senator, and in other places people would say, yeah, you know, we went to high school together, but he doesnt give us the time of day now. So sometimes i did hear stories about how something happens when you go to madison. I dont know what it is down there, but, you know, their theyre not, theyre not one of us anymore. So it seemed to vary somewhat. But in general though, you know, again, rural, urban or suburban, i just heard so many folks comment about their sense of distance from government and even in these conversations when wed be talking and someone would, you know, maybe after knowing these folks for two years theyd say, yeah, you know, as a member of the county board, i and it surprised me how even people who themselves were elected officials were often very critical of democracy as it is right now. Thank you. Im a little nervous, because i dont usually do any public speaking. Im from northern wisconsin. Im from a place called homestead which im sure nobodys heard of. Oh, yeah. My father is exactly what youre describing. He dropped out in the ninth grade, probably had dyslexia, actually, and be some mental disorders. Hated teachers. I mean, hated teachers. But lifelong Democrat Voter too. I want to can, you visited and you dropped in and youve gotten some stories. Has it ever occurred to you that have you ever thought about going there and working there and seeing what its like, be a bartender, be a waitress . Because youre to not going to get a better job unless youre or a mechanic, unless you have, you know, youre good with if you can do construction, that kind of stuff. Those are the jobs that are up there. And i think it would give you a much better idea of where people are coming from, because these jobs my dad dropped out in ninth grade, and he still made enough money to provide more our family. Now, i mean, we didnt live great. We were never hungry. And thats not true anymore. Yeah. And so i think that if you went there, i think thats where the resentment is coming from. The thing with the racism is not, its not just that people are other races, its that there arent very many black people or latino people where im from. Its that they are other. They live a life with a scale that other people cant like, that people where im from cant understand. I got straight as. My dad had no suggestions for me. The only expectations for me were dont get anybody pregnant before you graduate from school, and dont go to jail, okay . The scope is not there. Because he couldnt tell me to be a tradesman like him, because he could see, you know, that were going into Clintons America here, were going into nafta, were going into this gutting of industrial jobs, of the trades. And so i think that if you were to go there and to live there and to try to make a living there, youd have a much better understanding of where people are coming from rather than just parachuting in and saying, hey, whats going on. I know you need to do that for breadth, but i think youre missing some of the depth, is all im saying. Thank you. [applause] i think that that is a great even if, i mean, yes, even if i had the opportunity to live in outstate wisconsin, i would still have to be careful to never presume that i understood what it was like to have lived my entire life there, right . And so i think whether im, you know, dropping in to communities around the state or spending several years living in a place, your comments are a good reminder to have humility about i may be conveying what people said, but i still, i mean, ill never be one of these folks. Ill never fully understand what its like to have lived in a Community Like that, grown up in a Community Like that. So thanks for that point, and ill just leave it at that. If i understood you right, there was a lot of resentment toward the educational system and those who teach, but there was also concern among these rural people about the brain drain. And is that a paradox of some sort . Did they ever try to resolve it in your meetings with them . Well, the brain drain is definitely a concern, you know . And that, you know, i had some very Difficult Conversations with folks. I mean, difficult meaning parents who were just openly trying to figure out do they, how much do they encourage their kids to go on and get a College Degree and then probably go and relocate somewhere else, how much do they encourage them to stick around. You know . And get a job if they could in that town. And so the brain drain, people are very aware of the brain drain. You know, i met people who had kind of kept lists of people who had left their community and young people who had left their community and were actively kind of trying to keep tabs on it. And i think i dont know if i would call it a paradox, but it definitely was prominent on a lot of folks minds. Thank you. I want to thank you for doing that research, and and i think that its a great beginning. I think you are just scratching the surface, and i hope that more people who are from there and have a different kind of perspective on it will join into that kind of research, a because i think it will be good for us all to figure some of this out. I want to ask you in any of your conversations there was an inkling about the terrible resentment coming from the breakdown of the agricultural economy. Are there a lot of people who remember when farming was a respected thing and where Food Production was important and see the fall of that, the loss of farms as a government thing, you know . When there were government parody parity programs, and suddenly no one even knows what it means anymore. And the other thing, i wonderedded if you saw vestiges of a preindustrial patronage, kind of thing. For example, in one town if there is one landholder, did you notice people who are landholders feel entitlement, and were supposed to be part of the upper class, and that is snubbed from here on towards the city, the entitlement of land holding is not valuable any place but in their own town. But then, like, the landholder person has a lot of friends, and they help them have work or help them in hard times, and its kind of like, well, its a landholder person, whatever he talks about politics, thats kind of where im going. Im sorry, my head filled up. It was a great presentation. Thank you, thank you. Well, lets see, is so with respect to the change in the decline of the agricultural industry, i mean, i heard a lot of conversations about both the changes in agriculture and the changes in other industries, natural resourcesoriented industries, so whether we were talking about mining or logging. And yes, i mean, quite a few conversations about how government in particular, government regulation was to blame for the decline of those industries. So it varied, well, it varied across communities, but there was, you know, i encountered many people who had a sense that if only we didnt have to abide by osha this or osha that, or if we didnt have to abide by the strict regulations with respect to the logging industry in particular, that it would be much easier to make ends meet doing this kind of work. So, yeah, you know, a lot of blame placed on government in this respect. With respect to the landholders, i didnt want hear that kind of dynamic where a person in the group was someone who people knew was a big landholder and that, therefore, they all sort of looked no to that person as the opinion leader. So that we can actually afford to live here. We cannot afford to live on our local laker lakes anymore. That changes the culture of our community. When landholders came up it was primarily in that kind of way. Good evening, thank you very much for a presentation. I should say im not from wisconsin but i do sympathize because im from illinois. We have a. We have a good share problems on our side too. I always feel a big problem, i guess threat the country is just big money in politics. If you want to know how, no matter what they or governor is going to act, look at their donors. And so that i feel like the donors say now that the discussion is bigcity versus small town, it is [inaudible] us, do we keep given the money ol