Thread by @Pinboard

This article is an instructive example of the fantasyland I see some Democrats living in. It's written by a political foe of Lauren Boebert and interviews people who voted against her, in a city she lost, averring that Pueblo is in mid-backlash against her politico.com/news/magazine/…

(Disclosure: I fundraised for Boebert's opponent). The real story of Pueblo is much more interesting—a deindustrialized Rust Belt city that somehow wound up at the foot of the Rockies, and where a large Latino population consistently votes with low turnout

There are cities and communities like this throughout red state America. Reading, PA is another one that comes to mind. Democrats have assumed that the Latino vote was just theirs for the taking, since Trump was so obviously anti-immigrant. But these places remain unmobilized

Boebert won in part because her base of support is incredibly motivated. She won despite having no experience and contesting a geographically sprawling district with affluent islands like Telluride and Aspen and Durango. I expect her to do just fine in 2022

The country right now is full of dead-end small cities like Pueblo with no plan to how to breathe life into them. The local (and usually minority) population is just expected to vote for Democrats because what other choice do they have? I don't get why there's no plan to fix this

Basically the big metro areas and a raft of wealthy suburbs are doing great, rural America is gutted, there's ghost towns and cities left over from when manufacturing left decades ago, and we have a political system that weights the latter two over the former. There's your crisis

My own list of "how the hell is this in America?" cities includes Pueblo, Fresno, Butte, Huntington, Camden, Farmington, Stockton, Trenton, Bethlehem and Reading, PA, Gary, East St. Louis, Hartford, Flint, Salinas, and that's just the places I've seen. I'm sure you can add others

There's a popular stance that 'economic anxiety' is simply the public face of wealthy white rural racism, but if you drive around, half the country is a wasteland of trailer parks, car title loan places, and dollar stores, and there has to be more to the story than that.

If you're in a hurry, it's hard to find a quicker route for your "Two Americas" think piece than starting in Pebble Beach and driving east to Salinas. Just 23 miles take you from Jack Dorsey's beach house to full on gang wars. Other suggestions welcome!

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