I am not in sync with much of what Joan C. Williams has to say in her December 2018 piece in the Atlantic, “The Democrats’ White-People Problem,” but we agree that it would be a mistake for the Democrats to write off the white working class as a bunch of racists:

As of this writing, the results of the midterm elections are unknown, but one thing is clear: Democrats have banked a lot on the prospect that their voters’ anger can outmatch the anger of the voters who propelled Trump to office. Whether or not this strategy wins a given election, writing off an ocean of rural and Rust Belt red is a terrible strategy in the long term.

First (though I held my breath as I waited for the outcome on election night), I thought the Democrats’ midterm strategy was smart and sound. It gave voters in districts across the country plenty of reasons – including a robust defense of affordable, accessible healthcare and an embrace of civility – to vote Democratic. I’d hardly characterize the message as fueled primarily by anger. (Of course activists were angry. But – as one of those activists – I was motivated to make calls, send texts, and canvas neighborhoods to flip one of those now-blue Orange Country Congressional districts more by fear, than by anger; more because my conscience moved me to do something to set things right, than because I was mad at Trump.)

Second, while I agree that writing off rural and Rust Belt regions would be “a terrible strategy,” that’s not the half of it. It would represent a colossal failure of vision and principle. Williams observes that increasing income inequality, chronic economic insecurity, and a middle-class (including blue-collar white folks) that’s falling further and further behind, has convinced many Americans that we have a rigged economy:

Broader measures of income inequality show why many Americans feel so insecure. The economist Raj Chetty and his colleagues at Harvard have documented a sharp decrease in social mobility in recent decades: Virtually all Americans born in the 1940s outearned their parents; only about half of those born in the 1980s will. Simultaneously, the share of national income earned by Americans in the middle of the income distribution is declining.

This dismal picture represents a glaring problem and it cries out for a public policy response. That makes it political. So Williams’ focus on campaign strategy is understandable. And a new report from the Brookings Institution –  “Countering the geography of discontent: Strategies for left-behind places” – begins with a nod toward the midterm results: “The 2016 election revealed a dramatic gap between two Americas—one based in large, diverse, thriving metropolitan regions; the other found in more homogeneous small towns and rural areas struggling under the weight of economic stagnation and social decline.” The report outlines this “epidemic of divergence”:

Big, techy metros like San Francisco, Boston, and New York with populations over 1 million have flourished, accounting for 72 percent of the nation’s employment growth since the financial crisis. By contrast, many of the nation’s smaller cities, small towns, and rural areas have languished. Smaller metropolitan areas (those with populations between 50,000 and 250,000) have contributed less than 6 percent of the nation’s employment growth since 2010 while employment remains below pre-recession levels in many ‘micro’ towns and rural communities (those with populations less than 50,000).

As a result, few can now deny that the geography of America’s current economic order has brought economic and social cleavages that have spawned frightening externalities: entrenched poverty, “deaths of despair,” and deepening small-town resentment of coastal cosmopolitan elites. It is baleful realities like these that caught many politicians, academics, and journalists off guard in 2016 as they poured through post-election red-blue maps. In a very real way, the 2016 election of Donald Trump represented the revenge of the places left behind in a changing economy.

Greg Sargent and John Harwood each highlight the Brookings’ findings as an explanation of why Donald Trump’s campaign of fear-mongering and immigrant-bashing fell short. Harwood quotes Brookings researcher Mark Muro, “The Democratic Party and Republican Party, at this point, really do occupy different economic worlds and represent different economic worlds.” The Trump message doesn’t resonate in the blue world, where a diverse population contributes to a thriving economy. Trump’s words directly contradict Americans’ experience in the most prosperous areas of the country.

Sargent pivots from an explanation of why Democrats did well in the midterms to the reality of an expanding economic divergence: “The broader point here is that big Democratic gains in areas dominated by the new economy also showcase the need to address the problems in areas outside of them.” He then quotes a research fellow at the Roosevelt Institute:

“The economic dislocation outside growing metropolitan areas creates legitimate economic grievance,” Marshall Steinbaum of the Roosevelt Institute, which has studied the impact of economic concentration on these left-behind areas, tells me. “Rising regional inequality bespeaks the need for a broader policy agenda,” one that will “ensure broadly shared prosperity.”

We’re all in this together. It’s a big country. Trump has governed as a factional president, not a national leader. We can’t let that stand.

Areas far beyond our flourishing cities need help: help requiring a federal commitment and resources. There is no way that Republicans – committed above all to lower taxes for the rich – are prepared to enact a meaningful policy agenda to make this happen. Substantial public investments in education, research, and infrastructure (without drastic cuts to the social safety net)? Not likely. Not without a struggle. It’s on Democrats to step up.