Stories that revealed america. So, chris is the first guy ive had on this page with a phd in physics and he used a phd in physics to go into finance and when he had this job in finance, he had gone for a walk during the day and i will abridge the story because it is in the book. The walks got longer and longer and he ended up at hunts point it isnt as close to the financial district. And there he was exposed to what he called the back row of america. Drug addicts, drug dealers, prostitutes and convinced him that he needed to figure out what was going on across the country. So, from maine to bakersfield california, he traveled the country to talk to people and again come he wasnt doing the same sort of going around the country trip that a lot of people do. It was the drug addicts, drug dealers, prostitutes, the homeless, a formerly homeless, veterans, people who hated the immigrants and all of that. But then recently if you follow twitter, youll know that he has visited the most Affordable Group of old which is conservatives. But hes gone far lower visiting the tax cutters. But again i do recommend this book and i want to start with the most in the discussion here is introspection into the mindset now here we are at eei almost all the scholars have advanced degrees, here we are in washington, d. C. To the arguably wealthiest in the country and the most educated region in the country so i want to start with i am a catholic and they are most directed at the audience you talk about the denigration of the frontrow of the non credentialed meaning. In other words people finding meaning outside of degrees and a nice house. So can you talk to us about what you found around the country in that regard lacks to the degree my book is political or sociological but i would say is i divided the world to frontrow and back row and people who live in the bronx and those in portsmouth. People who dont go to college or as they go to college to go to state school or Community College. The contrast of that is my prayer life and i spent 20 years as a bond trader is what i call the bond trader people who look different and come from all over the world, come from all over the u. S. But share a common theme in that theyve been through the same institutions, harvard, princeton, yale, post graduate degrees, internships, maybe moving to new york city or dc but only certain neighborhoods and only certain ones in dc. And they run the world. We set the rules and run the law firms and the academies and universities. One of the things weve done is define a very early on which it is we onlisthe only look at mats and in particular how much you get, how much economic capital. Those that find meaning in more traditional ways and things you dont need a resume for. Where the value of living in the same neighborhood, the value of the friendship you form in the neighborhood. I always laugh when i think about it started hitting me when i was visiting people and they would interview them i remember telling somebody they had been born 20 miles down the road 68, 78 so youve lived in this town all of your life. Im from a mile outside of care cairo. There is a lot of value in place and another thing that matters that doesnt require credentials is religion faith and a third is race. These are things that effectively you can walk, things that give you meaning and value that we cannot quantify. We cant measure it at all so i think that over time have assumed dont have value because we cant measure it so we tell people just move. Go from a to b. The way we think about the world is a narrow framework of only one thing that matters and that one thing that matters is a resume, education and how much money you make. It is a measurablis immeasurs harder to measure where youre from, community bond, state, etc. And that is something that ive seen admitted. When she saw the book, she really didnt like it and none of her friends did because it was emphasizing things that were so vague White Community bonds and they were looking for other ways to measure success or value or anything like that also the strikes of people is arbitrary. There was an article that had the headline loyalty is tom and people constantly talk about the accident of where they were born and we can say, you and i could say it is unfortunate that the accident can determine your outcome but the accident of where they were born doesnt seem like an accident or something to be swapped off. It seems unwise, inefficient. We devalue them because we cannot measure them and again, we are a quantitative bunch of different though. Thats how we think about the policy. When i think about the whole moving, going back to where i disagree with all the conservatives i think it is awful and the way we think about the frontrow and free trade, it is a tradeoff. We cant measure the losses. On a spreadsheet the losses look like a factory gone in milwaukee. But in real life, it destroys communities which destroy families and have kids born out of wedlock but then also more than that it takes away peoples meaning. That was their center of the universe being able to live and stay there for having downtown bars and that i think you can measure it. It is the way to measure the fact that the effects of the free trade has not been sort of distributed evenly across the country. When the factory shuts down, a lot more happened than just the money flowing in. The other thing was the iteration of the solution was just to move. It comes from the right by the way, it was so offensive like not only is the pragmatic but people dont necessarily want the money to move and youre asking them to sell their assets. This is the question i have been around talking about alienated america is sure that these people move. You spend more time talking to people and you look around and its hard to see. You and i both move to places where we have the best job opportunities. New york, dc. Its hard to say if you care about this person in a town where there are no jobs and drugs are running rampant and its almost like why would you. What i would say to them is doing speaking to them isnt so much the policy people that assume moving is easy and also assume it has no cost. I referenced this all the time, but in the bucket is a perfect example. An africanamerican woman i met a mcdonalds in east la who was staying in east o east la to goe local communion Community College and she was staying there to be her moms translator. Her mom is a first generation liklike a lot of older immigran, she does documents for her mother. Like why do we think, why should we think that that is the right decision in my mind in many ways. Why should we expect people to be able to sell their assets at these low prices and also both have value and it is elitist because they dont require money to have those. Those are things that they are gifted at birth. And to take those away from people is essentially extraordinarily elitist. So if i am here and people know me and bracket and part of it is in 20 years ive put in work and ive had jobs and ive been involved in ive written about and that helps you to get these credentials and give meaning to your known for having been around for whatever it is that a one of the words is tribalism and i think its important as it has become such a negative word we know what you mean by that but after i read a column about how the fishermen are wanting to leave and a just caring about that and he described his group of friends and how much they were going to lose because they were old constantly traveling to the rest of europe and enjoying the food from the rest of europe and he was describing the tribe as you described it learning as much as we could. Our community was global so in other words the frontrow diatribe seemed to try to think that the bush tribalism and tribalism is actually necessary is my argument coming and i dont know if you agree, people need to want to belong to tribes. The way that i phrase it is people need to be a valued member of something larger than themselves. If that is a church group, if it is a law firm, a Bowling League people need to be a valued member. The frontrow view talk about we are at the end group the cool kids and they set this up and no one in the end group likes to see themselves as being part of the end group like i dont have privilege, what are you talking about. I dont have an apartment, that isnt privilege. So, the title of my biggest dignity because when youve taken these things away from people, when you take them on credential innings and make people think the figure in a rat race to build a resume and give money, that is humiliating looking for dignity and there are many. It is a doubleedged sword. It can be positive and you can find dignity and i see in the pigeon keeping you find dignity as a member of the community or raising familracing family but o the undignified ways we would rather. There is negative consequences to that and i think some of it youve seen politically these days they are very much long resume. The argument i make in the book is a big part of the phenomenon is people seeking to belong. The framework that i use is belonging to something and my argument is that in the suffering parts of america what is lacking a. So i looked at a lot of these places and i saw the pool closed down, the church that is closeparen, the factory closed down and you still get food stamps and disability or unemployment and whatever that adds up to a. Sometimes it is just wearing the red hat these people dont belong to anything and they are seeking to but its a bitter irony i think for a lot of the political left and there is a handful of liberal writers i thought they were a more secular country cant we all get along because the they wouldnt have t ththe just additions but if they belong to the church which is the most successful for the working class and the middle class then more people were going to belong to things that in one way or another will cause more strife or not leave them towards happiness that is my argument. There are variations. The. Its not my strong point and socially comfortable saying this to someone as an eval of agnostic it doesnt have the levels of despair that the others have. And the reason being is the church is there. If both regulates and provides people a sense of place. All of the church has been a big loss and in many cases its capitalism plus religion in this tugofwar you dont go too far because youve got those religious rules. Capitalism without religion is a disaster. As he put it he didnt know his abcs and he said he always felt dumb, never felt he had meaning and as he put it grant t if you cant read, you know, if you have the wrong views its hard to find meaning. I want to move on. I will come back to make it. We had the same experience. I think surprisingly youd use the phrase of people that were left behind in dignity there was an interview on fox. Com where there was a professor are doing something similar to what i would argue and the interviewer interjected and said these people havent been left behind. Theyve chosen not to keep up with. I think something about the white workingclass voting for donald trump especially in the republican primary has created a situation where a lot of people would otherwise look at people suffering especially if they lost their jobs due to free trade and have sympathy but its left to people saying you are responsible for your own suffering which by the way is a lot of what you hear from the right about urban blacks. A did i see the group of people suffering the social ills if i will never blame these qualities i will blame the political structure that updated. I wont call them racist. I think you have to look at the political structures to see the decisions without the individual level and the group level. The left has always rightfully done that about urban neighborhoods. When the right says welfare in all thosandall those things, lat get a job. Addicted to having kids, violence, crime and that the left is a wakeup to look at the situation they find themselves in an neighborhoods facing immense obstacles because of racism. I think that they would do the same to the working class and in some cases they do in many cases, they dont. When they look at the problems were the choices made a its like these people have privilege. With a family that had done a lot of wrong in their lives. I forget the context that i basically said something about privilege. Compared to the kids in milwaukee. A its uncomfortable because it makes people in my party feel a little bit like they have the privilege of it means connecti connection. In college i read homer and read greek and a few things i absolutely loved. But you met some of my older brothers who one of them went to a much Better College and i did and maybe he learned calculus or computer programming. But what helped him as he went to jail and when he dropped off he had friends who went to get a job and that education isnt just who you meet in college but its also learning the code, how to interact, how to speak, not to get a tattoo. All these things like are not nt exclusively talk t to u. But u. U absorb them and its what they were able to pass on a standardized test is a code of behavior and its connection and that is the nature of our privilege and accepting that is uncomfortable. We are the cool kids. We set the rules both culturally and economically and with that comes of these memberships that you dont really know you have. I think to me the bigger issue is and there are two of them. One, we talk about the connection. There was an africanamerican gentleman in the project the prn cleveland because of a full scholarship at vanderbilt back in the 70s. I wish someone had told me it was about making connections. When he got there he studied in also have to make up he had a lesser education say he spent all the time reading the books into fatal came out. To me what is the most frustrating about where and education divides people is it really allows the way to silence the voice of a. This whole idea this is wearing very much contrary to people on the right which is this whole kind of expertise so that you are not allowed to speak on something unless you have a resume that allows you to speak on it. And then from the left youre not allowed to speak unless you know the proper words to use. Its frustrating because of the issues that are particularly topical right now that the r. Language sensitive, i found that the working class has a lot to say about it and it isnt as negative as the educated class would assume. They are pretty understanding of getting to this new place. They are going to be pounced on and called uneducated, dom, sexist, so they just give up. So for me it is very frustrating to its to actually let people speak to their own so i try to put as much of the book and the dialogue as possible to let them speak without the jumping into protecting them. I really enjoy that part of the book. If there is a part i wish that you drill down on more it is a contradiction between your boat and alienated america which i wrote about how the affliction of the suffering parts of the country wit was a lack of thingo belong to a lack of places to get connected and i dont mean connections at connections to your neighbor and sense of belonging. But its even in the rubble people were finding these connections come even if you have a picture of an amazing sight to the gig if you know much about the, i am the mcdonalds guy. It itheres not much to show physically. For the same reasons a lot of people pupeople wouldnt go into mcdonalds but i started hanging out over time. They went to mcdonalds over time because of the free wifi but most importantly you could just hang out there so i started spending a lot of time there hanging out and i started seeing friendships forming and the communities there and morning groups and people who go there before their weddings. [laughter] its basically the town center is one of the few places its like the town square people are playing dominoes and reading and everything. I need to people and they cant believe it. I was seeing so Much Community to the point i was in denial and take them out of mcdonalds and take a photo of them. A and then i realized mcdonalds was a story handed to me i always say think about what it was formed as entirely for transactional in and out so the way i say is evidence of two things. People are that desperate in the community so you give people these franchises are. I dont see it as different than what you saw. I see it as i think maybe we went to different places where there wasnt anything but sometimes they mcdonalds. Going back to my title, thats belonging and a desire for dignity it is evidence of that. People have romantic relationships. Part of my argument is the lack of trust in other words you go into a town and they will talk about the outsiders whether it be immigrants or the Political Class or china destroying their town but then i also think that theres less social trust. Different places are going to be different and theres going to be poor places where people leave their bikes on the front yard that you are talking about people in the street corners with guns, guys getting shot at by washington lobbyists. Even in selma the problem is the police dogs, the main threat to their life it is going to be the fact that the social fabric has broken down so much that what they are engaging in for commerce is going to be warfare. Drugs and so i think i have a different view on this. I spent a lot of time in drug houses and with drug dealers and so it wa it wouldve been if tho down but i also spent 20 years in wall street and soul of the things go down so to me its simply their legal system. If you screw me over in wall street im going to layer up and it will all be very pleasant and they dont have that option. I spent a lot of time around drug dealers. Its the option you have so you go with the option you have. Im not encouraging. Im just saying i would reframe it as looking at it as a functional system. The outside system isnt functional for them they are going to create their own functional system. Its like what i find fascinating is the opposite which is even in the most destitute situations, people form rules in order to. I find it fascinating people self organize. When people are deprived of if they seek it more. Sometimes it will be something that we might think is better for them. I want to make one more point on that. Theres also owning the stigma. Eventually they will say yes that is me. Thats what they do is own the addiction. You start owning the stigma. Use a url of the one privilege you are about to end its fine to have ethnic identity, racial identity as meaning in that and i sometimes wonder if it comes from the loss of ethnic identity. They say knowing just american. The lack of ethnicity and religion in people seeking some other form of identity. How i saw it flipped on its head in a negative way. Talking about the Cultural Capital and majorities. If you identify as polish no one would hold that against you. I think that we still have these difficulties because people would say there are the days when they beat up the polish kids with the jewish kids but i do think that whiteness is replacing other identities. Frenchcanadian ameri