Why is america so trashy

The conservative-liberal divide or the Republican-Democrat is just as pronounced in many cases. An informed electorate is essential to a functioning democracy. But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive.

Support from our readers helps us keep our work free for everyone. If you have already made a financial contribution to Vox, thank you.

Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows. Sean Illing When did you conduct the interviews for this book?

And where? Robert Wuthnow The research was done between and , and we talked to people in every state in the country. Sean Illing Most people assume that rural America means white America — is that a mistake? Sean Illing Fair enough. Robert Wuthnow I make it very clear in the book that this is largely a choice. Sean Illing What I hear from many of the people in your book is nostalgia for a bygone world or a world that probably never really existed in the first place.

Next Up In Conversations. Delivered Fridays. Thanks for signing up! It has since associated the Statue of Liberty with a meaning that Laboulaye never intended. Last month, a poll by Ipsos found that an overwhelming majority of people in fourteen countries, on six continents, support the protests that erupted across the United States after the murder of George Floyd. Russia, the fifteenth country in the survey, was the only place where a minority—about a third—backed the demonstrators.

The flaw, he said, is reflected in the American obsession with the stock market as the barometer of national health—economically, politically, socially. Europeans, he added, are no longer so envious. A second poll , released last week by the European Council on Foreign Relations, reported that public perceptions of the United States are increasingly negative in virtually all of the European nations surveyed.

In France, the country that backed the American Revolution and later donated the Statue of Liberty, forty-six per cent of the people polled said that their opinion of the U. Criticism is now focussed on American practices at home. On June 16, , I was in Soweto, then the black township outside Johannesburg, when the first mass uprising against apartheid began.

The white minority government had just announced that children would henceforth be taught in Afrikaans, the language of white settlers. Black children poured out of schools in protest. Police opened fire. Hector, who was thirteen, was the first to die. Over the decades, Antoinette and I have stayed in touch. The wall-to-wall coverage of the Adele story and of other apparent outrages reflects a simple demographic and economic truth: There are six times as many Americans as Britons, so English-language publishers around the world are keen to serve the U.

While Black Britons are underrepresented in publishing and the arts, the same is not true in the kinds of professions toward which middle-class immigrants push their children.

Katwala also stressed that British-born people from a Black Caribbean background are four times as likely as Black Americans to have a white partner, and those from a Black African background are twice as likely. The majority of mixed-race Britons are themselves in mixed-race relationships. I grew up Irish Catholic and did Irish dancing. Where are the boundaries? Being part of the dominant group always leads to shortsightedness: an assumption that your laws, culture, and taboos are universal, the default state of humanity.

Our polling stations are church halls and elementary schools, our ballots are strangely shaped pieces of paper, and the staff are largely volunteers and retired people. Many Americans living in affluent, white-majority districts will have had the same smooth experience. That voting takes so long in some parts of the United States is, itself, a political issue. The situation reminds me of the caustic headline that The Onion , a satirical website, runs every time a mass shooting occurs in the U.

For that reason, internet discussions of social justice usually treat the widespread presence of guns, and high murder rates, as a given. From here, that omission looks weird indeed. From April to March , there were only four fatal police shootings in Britain. They need to shake hands with a Muslim, or talk soccer with a middle aged lesbian, or attend a lecture by a female business executive. We must start asking all Americans to be their better selves.

We must all understand that America is a melting pot and that none of us has a more authentic American experience.

If we pin this election on coastal elites, we are excusing white working-class and rural Americans for voting for a man accused of violating the Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent apartments to black people. If we pin this election on coastal elites, we are excusing white working-class and rural Americans for voting for a man who called Mexicans rapists, drug dealers and criminals. If we pin this election on coastal elites, we are excusing white working-class and rural Americans for voting for a man who called for a complete ban on Muslim immigration.

I have friends and acquaintances who are Trump supporters. These Trump supporters do not understand that many minorities believe the people who voted for Trump endorse his racism and bigotry — that those voters care more about sending a message to the political establishment than they do about the rights and welfare of human beings. And, of course, people on the coasts could stand to meet more rural and exurban people, to understand why they are anxious about a changing world and less economic opportunity.

But rural and exurban people need to see more of America. People do not understand the depths of how little rural America travels and sees other people and cultures.