We're Still Here

The economy has been brutal to American workers. The chance to provide a better life for one’s children—the promise at the heart of the American Dream—is slipping away. In the face of soaring economic inequality and mounting despair, we might expect struggling Americans to rise up together and demand their fair share of opportunity. And yet, the groups who stand to gain the most from collective mobilization appear the least motivated to act in their own self-interest. This book examines why disadvantaged people disable themselves politically. Drawing on in-depth interviews with over one hundred black, white, and Puerto Rican residents in a declining coal town in Pennsylvania, We’re Still Here demonstrates that many working-class people are fiercely critical of growing inequality and of the politicians who have failed to protect them from poverty, exploitation, and social exclusion. However, the institutions that historically mediated between personal suffering and collective political struggle have not only become weak, but have become sites of betrayal. In response, working-class people turn inward, cultivating individualized strategies for triumphing over pain. Convinced that democratic processes are rigged in favor of the wealthy, they search for meaning in internet conspiracy theories or the self-help industry—solitary strategies that turn them inward, or turn them against each other. But as visions of a broken America unite people across gender, race, and age, they also give voice to upended hierarchies, creative re-imaginings of economic justice, and yearnings to be part of a collective whole.