"Placeless people, like those highly critical of fly-over folks, develop affinities for ideology and abstractions, as opposed to neighborhoods and cities. The lives of the coastal elites, academics, big-business owners, high-tech innovators, entertainers, and media personalities have led to this because they are so mobile."
The people who came to see Trump in Butler come from a long line of families who were intentionally not mobile. According to US Census data, seven in ten people in Pennsylvania live within just a few miles of where they grew up. The proximity to family, traditions, and a way of life were more important to them than upward mobility and a nice bonus check.
Neither the rooted nor the rootless is "better" than the other.
But too often, the cultures clash, with one spending an inordinate amount of time putting the other down, usually on a widely read platform.
"Most people in places across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, in small towns, rural areas, and some cities, are tied to their places for generations. So, issues such as climate change and globalization are therefore viewed fundamentally differently.” a.co/d/haH5bzc
