What do unions do? Theda Skocpol and Lainey Newman argue in their new book Rust Belt Union Blues — Why Working-Class Voters Are Turning Away From the Democratic Party that an overlooked aspect of being in a union is the identity and personal meaning that unions provide. Unions, as Skocpol and Newman view it, are institutions that are potentially liberating rather than repressive. As jobs and unions disappeared in the industrial heartland — their book focuses on western Pennsylvania — the social and political vacuum was filled by alternative institutions — gun clubs and megachurches — that pushed former Democratic voters to the political right.
Political choices, Skocpol and Newman point out, are driven not just by policy issues or macroeconomic trends, but by “dense networks of interpersonal and community-level ties” that influence how workers and voters see themselves. For complex reasons, they found that the mostly male working-class whites in western Pennsylvania came to regard the Democratic Party as focused primarily on urban issues. At the same time, workers there felt that Democrats had lost or surrendered the ability to speak a language that appealed to their values and economic plight.
