Something We Never Had

The black and Latina women who migrate to the coal region leave behind traumatic histories—stories of early childhood abuse and neglect, poverty, extreme neighborhood violence, and drug abuse. Upon arrival, these women face accusations that they are unfit mothers, have poor work ethics, and are undeserving of government aid. They nonetheless fight to get a fleeting shot at opportunities for their children that they themselves never had. These women encounter multiple predatory institutions waiting to take advantage of their optimism. Through small, everyday acts of civic engagement, they hold the police, their neighbors, local businesses, and schools accountable for their loved ones’ futures. Living a life of emotional turmoil, relationship flux, racial hostility, and poverty, however, leaves these women emotionally raw, deeply distrustful, and physically depleted. They can devote themselves only to their immediate kinship circles, determined to heal themselves on their own.

The Coal Miner’s Granddaughter

This chapter documents how white working-class women mourn the loss of their subordinate roles as wives and mothers, even as they are victimized in those roles. Living on the edge of poverty, struggling to afford heat, housing, health care, and food for their children, white women wage their political battles within the context of the fragile and aggrieved working-class family. Some women reject the social safety net in the belief that suffering is good for the soul. Condemning their own family members for their inability to rise above pain serves as a way to feel validated, in control, and safe. Some women cut themselves off from family members who have hurt them by deciding that dependence makes them vulnerable, and isolation is the safest way to survive. For others, the impossibility of personal trust in the family simply renders impersonal trust in democracy unimaginable.

Conclusion

This chapter considers whether affinities built around shared pain might serve as a bridge between working-class people and their broader communities, restoring connection and resilience. “Class” as a mediating identity between individual troubles and collective action is not working as it once did. The challenges of a sharply divided and deeply unequal postindustrial society in which the “working class” is no longer white, no longer male, and sometimes not even working underscored the thesis of this book. In the coal region, without these kinds of routines and interactions, people are largely on their own to connect their experiences up to politics, which often makes their political worldviews seem fractured, contradictory, or incomplete. Building robust public forums that counter self-insulation, and where pain and solutions can be shared openly, could provide a vehicle for collective mobilization.

Introduction

The introduction examines why disadvantaged groups are the least likely to participate in American civic and political life. This chapter moves away from the idea that working-class people act against their own self-interest. Instead, it is based on the premise that if we want to understand how their self-interest works, we must begin with how people imagine the self. Drawing on the life histories of Bree, a Trump-supporting waitress who lives in chronic pain, and her boyfriend Eric, a black man who was just released from prison and who revels in conspiracy theories, this chapter reveals the ways working-class people create imaginative bridges between personal suffering, distrust, and disengagement. It demonstrates how individual pain management has become a necessity in an era where family and community ties are fragile, trust is nonexistent, social safety nets are limited, and opportunities for mobility are scarce.

Democracy Denied

This chapter examines what unites working-class people across race, birthplace, and gender: their disenchantment with mainstream social and political institutions, and their decision to disable themselves as a larger political group. The people in this chapter retain a sense of connection to “the people,” as opposed to the American government, which they unapologetically dismiss as fraudulent. But they firmly believe that their “vote means nothing” because inauthentic politicians will say or do whatever they need to in order to attract donors and stay in power. Instead, they embrace self-help mantras and conspiracy theories that promote individual over collective efficacy. What they have in common—distrust, a focus on self-efficacy over collective efficacy, and a dismissal of larger social concerns that do not seem to affect them personally—raises serious questions about the shared identities, alliances, and values upon which any kind of political mobilization might rest.

In Search of Redemption

The coal region, like other rural areas across the United States, is a new destination for racial and ethnic minorities in search of jobs, safety, and affordable housing. This collision of race and place opens up the possibility of new kinds of selves, relationships, and politics. This chapter uncovers conflicts over the meaning of place that divide the longtime white working-class residents from the newcomers. Black and Latino men critique poverty and racism with a sharp, unforgiving clarity. Recasting the coal region as a place where their own shameful pasts can become their children’s bright futures, they magnify the positive effects of pain in their lives and stake a claim to social inclusion and self-worth based on hard work and tenacity. Even though they assume control over their own futures, these men speak of a malevolent “they” making political decisions beyond their control, leaving their powerful political critiques unspoken.

Forgotten Men

This chapter examines how white working-class men cope with their inability to sustain the masculine legacy of provision, protection, and courage that they inherited from their fathers and grandfathers. Some white men struggling to provide for their families put dignity, fairness, and economic justice for workers at the center of their politics, criticizing politicians who have failed to fight for workers’ rights. These men feel frustrated by the lack of social recognition for their persistent struggle, personal integrity, and generosity toward others. To compensate, they exclude racial minorities, immigrants, refugees, and nonworkers from their vision of collective bounty. Among other working-class men, particularly those who have never known a social contract between labor and business, hard work and self-sacrifice remain at the center of their identities. Glorifying their own suffering, their harshest scorn is reserved for those who succumb to dependence. A few men detach masculinity from wage-earning, stoicism, and aggressiveness, searching for new foundations on which to anchor the masculine self.

Fracturing and Revival

This chapter examines how the decline of the American Dream is lived and felt. It traces how three families attach meaning to their suffering, assign blame for it, and imagine a way out of it. The Lorino family blames politicians for offering government “handouts” to gain votes yet shielding their own daughter from the growing pains that might have made her strong enough to resist heroin. Although they are critical of corporations that place profit over workers, they turn to outsider candidates as a last-ditch effort to stem the tide of political corruption. The Adams’s, who have been disabled and out of work for years, fantasize about violent white supremacy to restore their family legacy. Finally, the Hunters, a newly arrived African American family with a history of trauma, drug abuse, and poverty, attempt to transcend the concerns of the outside world, turning safety and happiness into a matter of perception, rather than one of social change.