Thanksgiving in Trump country

“People just want to work.” That’s a refrain I heard again and again while talking with my family in Upstate New York over the Thanksgiving weekend. I was there to enjoy the holiday with them, but I was also there to answer a question that many political journalists didn’t come close to resolving during the campaign: What drove so many middle and working-class people to support President-elect Trump?

Upstate New York isn’t technically in Appalachia, but it exhibits many of its demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Overwhelmingly white and working class, it’s a place where firearms and church play a dominant role in most people’s lives.