Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Named one of the "juiciest political books to come in 2018" by Entertainment Weekly.
An up-close look at the voters of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, who decisively swung the state for Donald J. Trump, and an examination of the role of the President's base as the midterm elections loom.
Luzerne County Pennsylvania, as Ben Bradlee describes it, is a microcosm of the nation. While it boasts its own police, firemen, schools and municipal services, Luzerne has few urban centers and is fundamentally rural in character. And like so many of the 3,000 other counties that resemble it across America, Donald J. Trump won Luzerne County in 2016. But President Obama had carried Luzerne in both elections. What changed? And what does this mean for America?
The Forgotten tells this story, revealing how Trump voters came to feel like strangers in their own land, marginalized by flat or falling wages, rapid demographic change, and a liberal culture that mocks their faith and patriotism. As they explain it, residents of Luzerne felt like others were 'cutting in line' and that the federal government was taking too much money from the employed and giving it to the idle. They felt a loss of breadwinner status, and more importantly, a loss of dignity.
Drawing an unforgettable portrait of Americans caught in a fraught political moment that doesn't seem to end, The Forgotten not only expresses the growing divide between the two political parties, but also the immense forces that powered the election of Donald Trump. America is changing, and the men and women of The Forgotten are the ones who are changing it.
Synopsis
The people of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania voted Democratic for decades, until Donald Trump flipped it in 2016. What happened?
Named one of the juiciest political books to come in 2018 by Entertainment Weekly.
In The Forgotten, Ben Bradlee Jr. reports on how voters in Luzerne County, a pivotal county in a crucial swing state, came to feel like strangers in their own land - marginalized by flat or falling wages, rapid demographic change, and a liberal culture that mocks their faith and patriotism.
Fundamentally rural and struggling with changing demographics and limited opportunity, Luzerne County can be seen as a microcosm of the nation. In The Forgotten, Trump voters speak for themselves, explaining how they felt others were 'cutting in line' and that the federal government was taking too much money from the employed and giving it to the idle. The loss of breadwinner status, and more importantly, the loss of dignity, primed them for a candidate like Donald Trump.
The political facts of a divided America are stark, but the stories of the men, women and families in The Forgotten offer a kaleidoscopic and fascinating portrait of the complex on-the-ground political reality of America today.