there good manufacturing jobs really disappear. let s discuss this now with chris arnade, a writer and photographer, who drove across the country to talk to trump voters. j.d. vance is also joining me and political contributor van jones. welcome back to the show to those who have been on. chris, i don t think you ve been on but thank you for coming on. thank you very much for having me. you traveled a hundred thousand miles through what you called trump country meeting and photographing american voters. what did you learn from the people you talked to? i had originally intended to my travels were dedicated to talking to people suffering from addiction and focusing on poverty and so i was going to places where basically hope was leaving and that s where i saw addiction entering but i also saw in those places the trump voters and i saw his message resonating with people in those same communities.
their voices have not been heard, that they are underrepresented in this government. they have problems with addiction as chris said. but many people of color feel the same way. they re underrepresented. they had a problem with crack addiction in the 80s and 90s and no one listened to them. why aren t these twos groups talking, van? what s the holdup for why can t they get together and discuss this? that s part of the tragedy of trump is that really, you have underdogs in red states and in blue states who have very similar problems. democrats have let down the urban poor. republicans have let down the rural poor. there s problems with overincarceration, undereducation. we should be working together. people who say that guy knows what it s like to be black in america or to be hispanic in america. you hear that. you feel like you don t have a voice. this time why is it different for you than it is for me? when we had the crack thing they sent in the police and demonized us.
now there s heroin and everybody s feeling sad and sorry and let s do something about it. those differences are there. the tragedy of trump is mixed in with all the good he s saying about let s get jobs is marbled in all this toxic stuff that is anti-muslim, anti-black pro effort, anti-mexican. it s preventing what could be a real common pain should lead to common purpose but we re not seeing that right now. i think the character of trump s campaign has something-to-do with that. chris, what make of the analogy i just made? look, we re a segregated country. and that s not a good thing obviously. so much that happens in this country takes place in a racial context. and i would say that yes, i spend an equal amount of time in black communities as a did in white communities. i started this project on addiction in black communities.
leaving and that s where i saw addiction entering but i also saw in those places the trump voters and i saw his message resonating with people in those same communities. what i saw was america extremely frustrated, feeling left behind, communities destroyed and people were humiliated. you say that the i thought this was interesting that the real divide in this country isn t necessarily between blacks and whites or rich and poor but between what you call front row kids and black row kids. explain that to us. well, firstly, i would say that there is a huge divide in race. we segregate ourselves. we re a segregated country. but beyond that, the second divide there is education. i m a front row kid and i think a lot of people who are
with that. chris, what make of the analogy you just made? look, we re a segregated country. and that s not a good thing obviously. so much that happens in this country takes place in a racial context. and i would say that yes, i spend an equal amount of time in xwlak communities as a did in white communities. i started this project on addiction in black communities. ab-i would say how that frustration in those communities gets manifest, how it gets surrendered is different between a white community and i black community. that s unfortunate. talk to us about that. what is that? that s where a lot of the racism comes in. and i ll put it in a different way. being white allows a trump voter to overlook the ugliness of trump s language. does it mean that every trump voter is a racist?