The entire piece was about why people in these small, high-poverty towns support Trump’s tariff policies, not how they voted. You’re welcome to buy our data like everyone else. Then you can make an informed decision about it.

Half the population of Bedford Co is in 2 townships, Hopewell (median income of $95k, poverty rate of 5%) and Bedford Twp ($80k income, 4.5% poverty rate). Hyndman is $62k and 11%. So yes, there are hundreds of towns in the U.S. more like Hyndman than most of its own county.

Because it was a personal intro to a much longer writeup I do for clients every week. Mark simply posted a few screenshots from it, I guess because he agrees with it. Our company has more data on this stuff than literally anyone in the world, ever. You’re barking up the wrong tree here.

Sure. And I alluded to the root cause of that in what I wrote.

Well, given that my entire company exists to gather and study political, demographic, and economic data, rest assured I factor it into every point of view I have (hence why people like Mark Cuban trust it and share it).

A) Where and when did I extrapolate from Hyndman to the "entirety of Red America? I've never done that. B) I also never claimed Hyndman & Bedford had vastly different politics, only different economic circumstances.

1 I've spent half my life (still do), own a home, and will retire in Hyndman. I'm confident in my authority on the matter (as is Mark C); 2 Conflating Hyndman (pop 850) with Bedford (pop 47k) is data malpractice; 3 Reading select screenshots of an email prologue and calling it "a report" is absurd.

Again, how is acknowledging why they support tariff policies “rewarding their worst impulses?” I’m certainly. It saying it should change our evaluation of those policies.

This thread went far afield of what I wrote about - the impact of globalization on their local economy. Empathy here is saying: I understand why you feel screwed over by a system you didn’t control and why you support tariff policies I personally believe are asinine. What’s wrong about that?

Because that’s how empathy works. And this group of people has clearly shown the power to elect an authoritarian into office. So we can ignore and revile them and keep losing, or figure out economic policies that work for everyone.

Yeah you’re right. I wanted to edit it five seconds after I posted it. I meant that 78M total people voted for Trump (which is less than the # of blacks and Hispanics in the U.S.).

For sure. My very white family has been in Hyndman for 4 generations - I can’t relate to the prejudice in the least and I’m sorry you were affected by it. Exclusion is one of many complex reasons these towns are failing. I was merely writing about globalization as one of those reasons.

Listing and stack-ranking the long list of people who are to blame for the situation was never my purpose, if only because there’s no objective, quantitative way to measure it.

I think I said as much in the same paragraph you’re quoting.

I’ve never asked anyone there who they blame for the lack of infrastructure or credit for its eventual arrival. My guess is their Republican representatives blamed the other side, then took credit when it happened, so that’s what they believe.

There absolutely is deep underlying prejudice in these places, passed down for generations with little opportunity (education, travel, etc) to gain real empathy. If that’s enough reason for us to not empathize with their economic plight, ok. But it doesn’t get us any closer to fixing anything.

I’ve spent half my life in Hyndman since childhood (and still do). The other half took me to college and a lot of professional success (hence “up and to the right”). I’m quite confident my friends and family there wouldn’t be offended by my perspective or the notion that I’ve earned one.