Southeast Ohio Hits the Big Time

George Packer has an interesting piece discussing the white working class in Ohio. It was an interesting piece, made more so because it spends a great deal of time in the area surrounding where I went to college, Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. Packer doesn’t dwell at all on the fact that there is a solidly Democratic county in the middle of the area Packer discusses heavily in his piece, extremely conservative Southeastern Ohio. I would have liked for him to discuss the dichotomy a little more, but I guess that’s getting away from his focus on the working class and the working poor.

It’d definitely (in part) an image of Ohio I recognize. One of the things that it really brought home for me was the degree to which people simply parrot back things they hear on television. “Not ready to lead” is this year’s “flip flopper.” It’s not that these people are dumb or can’t think for themselves. They simply don’t consider it. Thinking for yourself is difficult, and if you’re struggling to put food on the table, I can see why coming home and browsing a candidate’s position papers on his website doesn’t seem like an attractive option – assuming, of course, that you even have access to the internet.