Portraits of ‘Forgotten’ America
By Katharine B. Stevens
BLOG
November 6, 2017
Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election illuminated growing political, economic, and cultural polarization in America. Shocked pundits and political analysts have struggled to understand how Trump’s unorthodox candidacy so successfully appealed to non-urban, working class Americans, especially among those without a college degree. Now contending with Trump’s unexpected presidency, many living in coastal cities and the Beltway are just starting to acknowledge the long-widening, multidimensional divide separating them from the roughly 47 million adults and 13 million children who live outside metropolitan regions.
Some have bluntly concluded that Trump galvanized support because the Republican Party is “filled with idiots.” In the eyes of so-called “elites,” Trump voters were too ignorant to discern which candidate would actually serve them best.
But these voters aren’t idiots, even though some may find it easier to think so. Tired of stagnant wages and dwindling opportunities, millions of lower-income, rural, and small-town Americans voted for the candidate who paid attention to them and spoke about their lives with respect, pledging that “the forgotten . . . will be forgotten no longer.”
While coastal cities have boomed, these long-overlooked communities have faced years of diminishing employment, increasing isolation, and a downward spiral of social dysfunction. Opioid addiction has skyrocketed. As economic and social well-being has deteriorated over generations, the lifespan of middle-aged whites without college degrees has shortened for the first time in decades — caused by sharply increasing “deaths of despair” due to drugs, alcohol, and suicide.
Children growing up in these hollowed-out communities are more likely to have underemployed, less-educated parents. They are poorer than their urban and suburban counterparts and more likely to live in deep poverty. About 80% of the 708 counties with persistent child poverty — defined as child poverty rates of at least 20% for the past three decades — are in nonmetropolitan areas.
In 2012, one in six young children living in nonmetropolitan communities had a diagnosed mental, behavioral, or developmental disorder, with higher rates among children living in small rural areas (18.6%) than those living in urban ones (15.2%). The number of babies exposed to opioids in the womb and born with drug withdrawal symptoms (low birth weight, seizures, breathing, sleeping and feeding problems) has grown fastest in rural communities; rising by 750% in less than a decade. Soaring numbers of children — from New Jersey to Florida to Ohio to Missouri to Kentucky to West Virginia to Tennessee — are becoming orphaned or entering foster care because of their parents’ addiction to opioids.
Restoring strength to the “forgotten” parts of our nation requires understanding them. Yet few urban Americans visit these struggling communities, let alone listen to the people who live there. And that’s exactly what one photojournalist believes is necessary to begin solving the problems that rural and small-town America confronts.
For the past five years, Chris Arnade — physicist turned Wall Street banker turned photojournalist — has been traveling the country, documenting the everyday experiences of the Americans long overlooked, even mocked by the rest of us. His reports from the Rust Belt to the Tennessee Valley and beyond have gone viral on social media, sparking thought-provoking discussions on these communities and the lives of the people who call them home.
This upcoming Monday, November 13th, Chris Arnade will give a keynote address at AEI, presenting his latest photography and sharing what he’s learned. Listening to our fellow citizens isn’t a partisan issue; it’s a human and American one. Few of us are doing so, though, so we’re fortunate Arnade is listening to them for us.
See Also
Event ~ July 17, 2019
Report ~ April 8, 2021
Event ~ November 13, 2017