One of the lessons I think is just showing up for each other, right?

I get every time I talk now and I've been on tour for about two weeks, like I get this

Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a woman in the front row in the Q&A, she goes, help, how do I get through Thanksgiving?

And I say, first of all, like, do go. You don't have to stay forever, but go. And, you know, remember what it is.

We're not just our politics. Remember who we are as people. Celebrate the things that you revere in your family, whether it's our feisty mom or who was hilarious and, you know, playing guards, drinking beer, eating food, and fishing. You know, I went fishing with my brother when we, you know, have this really difficult conversation and now we're close

again. So we've got to keep throwing stuff on the wall and seeing what sticks because it's our

family.

Hello and welcome to why's this happening with me, your host, Chris Hayes.

You know, at this point, what are we, 10 years into the, unfortunately, the Trump era of American politics, which I think is what kind of you have to call it.

You know, there has been so much reporting, social science, punditry discourse about the kind of

realignment that's happened whereby particularly white working class voters who once tended

towards Democrats have moved towards the Trump era Republicans, particularly acute in post-industrial states, particularly

acute in rural areas, that you would think that like there's nothing left to be said about this.

It is very well-trod terrain.

And so when I saw there was a new book by the really excellent journalist Beth Macy on this topic. My first thought was like, I feel like

I've kind of read this before, but Macy's just an incredible reporter and a great writer. She wrote

Doapsick. We had her on the podcast to talk about that book, which is a really remarkable book.

And this latest book is, it's both memoir and reporting and her unique ability to sort of move between

those two modalities she's a top flight reporter and a great writer and she also grew up in a

rural post-industrial county in urbana ohio in a poor household that was troubled in many ways and

difficult but she also had a great childhood in a lot of

ways that she talks about in the book and went back to her hometown to revisit it 40 years later

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