This story originally in Politico:
There is a mountain of writing and reporting on how white working class anger led to the rise of Trump.
I set off, however, in search of anger.
Anger that fomented in the fallout of the Great Recession and our nation’s first Black President. Anger that formed over the past 20 years as income inequalities grew and homes shrank as the world became globalized. Anger that has just started taking shape as the pandemic ravages lives and jobs while political leadership does seemingly little to help.
I set off for Georgia in search of anger, and I found it.
I found poor rural Whites who saw Trump as a savior; reflecting the best of what America had to offer to anyone who simply worked hard enough. I found a deep disillusionment with the system nearly every member of the inner-city carried. But within those misguided hopes & broken dreams I found stories that lay bare how truly dire conditions were; more dire than I possibly have could have imagined.
Good, hard working people who had lost teeth because they simply didn’t have access to dental insurance. Good, hard working people who couldn’t afford Christmas presents as they knew that without any help, they were to be evicted by the end of the year. People who had done nothing wrong that found themselves trapped in debt, trapped in a broken criminal justice system, trapped in the streets. Trapped.
I went looking for answers in Georgia, and instead found a warning. A warning that if we do not heed the cries for help in this nation our moment of reckoning will be much bigger Trump.