In the wake of the presidential election, Humans Of New York, an immensely popular Facebook page with 18 million followers, has spent time in Macomb County, trying to understand the plight of those working class voters who flipped from President Obama in 2012 to Donald Trump in 2016.
Macomb’s blue-collar voters gave Trump a huge margin in the county that led to his surprising victory in Michigan and, consequently, the Mitten State played a huge role in Trump’s capture of the presidency.
HONY is not a political site but instead has gained a big fan following by engaging in a documentary-style, sociological approach to its subjects, typically with an accompanying emphasis on photography.
“For the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting stories from Macomb County,” the site, created and led by Brandon Stanton, reported on Facebook. “I didn’t ask anyone who they voted for. Very few of the stories even touch on politics. And while the series cannot presume to be representative of an entire region, hopefully it will introduce you to a few of the people who live there.”
The HONY announcement generated a far-flung reaction as the media and the electorate debate why Trump captured the White House due to Macomb, Michigan, as well as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
“Many pundits have pointed to this shift as representative of a greater movement among America’s white working class,” HONY wrote.
Journalist Steve Frye writes that, in reaction to the HONY project and the forthcoming reports from Macomb, an extraordinary thing happened. Without seeing the results of the research, 3,500 people nonetheless commented on the Facebook page, and most of those remarks were civil and substantive.
Here are a few examples:
- Abhi Nair: “Precisely the kind of antidote we all need to an otherwise divisive and rhetorical election cycle that focused on ‘us versus them’ versus getting to know each other.”
- Leslie Ó Brian: “The problem is: as white males, we ‘know’ them, their experience, their lives. They (the media) make next to no attempt to understand anyone else’s struggle. This election was absolutely ‘us vs. them’ from their perspective. It was not support of Donald Trump.”
- Steve Barnes: “(This is) exactly why what ‘Humans of New York’ is doing is a good thing. It really wasn’t hate for most — it was about survival, with this economic recovery helping only some. Hopefully some understanding (as to) why many voted for Trump will become clear, rather than the simplistic answer of ‘It’s just hate’. The Rust Belt, which voted for Obama twice, didn’t all of a sudden become racist.”
- Kelly Lowhorn: “I work in Roseville and the black guys that work with me all voted for Trump. Like him or not, he appeals to the average working man no matter what race.”
- Danielle Nicole Rogers: “You are on the brink of reviving journalism as it could be. Thank you for getting it! You’re about to capture what the mainstream media has been missing for years — the varied voices of America outside the liberal — and Republican – bubble. Beyond the coastal cities. Keep on keeping on.”
You can find out more about this story from The Oakland Press here, here, here, here and here.
