Three carefully reported articles from non-metro PA that should be read together. They offer radically different takeaways, but by listening carefully to diff voices capture the same reality: very real currents moving in opposite directions, w/gender & esp generation key divides
First, from @JuliaTerruso a really thoughtful account of aging white men continuing to move away from the Democratic party in Carbondale, as union jobs & allegiance forged 2 generations ago fade, & messages about "far left" extremes resonate... with some inquirer.com/politics/penns…
But note the civic stalwart aging moms rejecting the Trump msg... & the 20something daughter sad about political division but outspoken on racial injustice: “My heart hurts for the minorities in this town because I don’t feel like they’re treated properly." 
Read it alongside @TimAlberta's dispatch fr Scranton: which among other things does a great job of reflecting in its interviewees, just how much of the Rust Belt "working class" (white & otherwise) is made up of health care workers today... politico.com/news/magazine/…
Among the brilliantly observed subtle details here: 16 yr old Jerry, quietly on his smartphone on the porch of a Scranton duplex, is clearly inhabiting a different world of political information than the 50-80 yr olds around him politico.com/news/magazine/…
That 2 thoughtful reporters reach opposite conclusions just means each is doing their job well & "Lackawanna County" isn't the right unit of analysis. Scranton is the dot getting bluer in @JMilesColeman's map below; Carbondale is in the green circle to its right, getting redder
Here's a long thread fr me in the wake of last November's (county/municipal) elections, explaining why focusing on countywide totals can lead you to misunderstand the currents underway: some of them decades long & ongoing; others new but critical to future
And here's an article in which I got to spend 6000 words (thank you @mtomasky) explaining why that fractal quality of America's political geography really matters for the social-organizational processes slowly remaking ex-industrial regions' politics today democracyjournal.org/magazine/57/ru…
I feel like this—written 6 months eg a lifetime ago, in a different universe—has held up pretty well regardless democracyjournal.org/magazine/57/ru…
Recognizing the spatially-concentrated internal diversity of Rust Belt/rural regions that look "largely white" at a distance is critical to understanding the range of places where #BlackLivesMatter protests have been held since May: & why they matter
Which leads to the 3rd article that should be read alongside the two focused on the presidential contest/ Lackawanna: this, from Lebanon PA, which captures all kinds of dynamics critical to shaping electoral trends over time, yet are rarely covered as such whyy.org/articles/voice…
That's Lebanon PA in the yellow circle: a 2/3 Hispanic school district, today, in a county that's ~92% non-Hispanic white.
Read about Michelle Cotton—who grew up Black in racially divided Lebanon PA & could not previously find allies to join her in collective action speaking out—& about how this time was different. Because, young people. whyy.org/articles/voice…
This story—of young, Black, new-to-organizing leaders stepping forward alongside high school friends whose own experience with race has been different, but who are now trying to be active allies—has played out in place after place, including some very white, very PA small towns
... generating this map: Over 400 separate protests in support of #BlackLivesMatter & against police brutality & structural racism, held in over 230 separate PA communities, over the course of just 5 wks this spring
Lackawanna (still) has twice as many registered Dems as Republicans. Lebanon county (still) has the opposite. But the divergent generational trends look quite similar in all this reporting. (And in Upper Bucks county too!👇)
Lackawanna & Lebanon are both "Middle Suburb" counties, by @AmCommPro's taxonomy. On aggregate such counties swung toward Donald Trump in 2016, but across the 2012-18 stretch diverging internal trends cancelled each other out here, as seen in senate stats americancommunities.org/in-pennsylvani…
Across the last decade, both Lackawanna and Lebanon saw about twice as many Dems change their registration to R as vice versa. Younger voters are not flocking to the Dem party in either: mainly, they are much more likely than their elders to reject partisan registration entirely
That's the context in which the fact of 20 yr old self-described introvert Paige Hall stepping forward to organize a #BLM protest that drew hundreds in Lebanon PA—& the *near-identical* stories from scores of communities across the state—becomes visible as a momentous development
And while I'm diving deep into PA to tell this story, data suggests the same pattern's played out nationwide, as @EricaChenoweth @djpressman & I wrote here. Young people & independents: far more diverse by class & race than other recent waves of engagement washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/…
.@alanna_s_elder captures what that looks like at a granular level: Lebanon co-organizer Abigail Bragunier working to be a nursing assistnt w/college out of reach; Paige Hall "pushing through" to survive. Yet both inspired to organze for change: even in the face of online threats
Having stuck with me thru this long thread, go back & reread @JuliaTerruso & notice how amid the Trump-voting former Dems in Lackawanna Terruso shows us Brittany Babcock, #BLM flag hung proudly, who has just registered to vote for the 1st time age 26, to vote against Donald Trump
