The Rust Belt Midterms

Wasn't expecting that!

I lived in Ohio from 1997-2022. For the first stretch, I was arrogant about my powerful vote. Not only was the state the swingiest (“as goes Ohio, so goes the nation”), but elections often came down to votes in my county (Lorain, then Cuyahoga). That I lived in a place of such import to national politics—Steve Kornacki at the board talking about my district— and yet so little otherwise covered in national news, or written about in books, was a large motivating factor in my founding of Belt Magazine and Belt Publishing. Look at us, I wanted to say: this is an important place. Read us, I asked: we have much to tell.

That specific mission—to bring attention—changed in late 2016. Suddenly, everyone was looking at us. White men in diners were relentlessly profiled; thinkpieces about “what happened to the Rust Belt?” proliferated. Podcasters kept talking about “Trump Country” as if it were a singular, deplorable monoliths, as if there was something meaningful they described as “people in Ohio” full stop. And readers started looking more closely at Belt, too—now two different organizations, the magazine a separate non-profit, with me no longer involved day-to-day, and the press, to which I was focused full time, expanding. In December 2016, the New York Times featured one of our books, asking, of reading it: “could there be any more urgent more national task?” An editor at a Big Five press asked me to put together an anthology to help the rest of the nation understand this suddenly unfortunate and important place, the Rust Belt. Of that book Booklist wrote: “Timely . . . [the collection] paints intimate portraits of neglected places that are often used as political talking points. A good companion piece to J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy.”

Belt, which always had an underlying political motive, founded and suffused by a desire to tell stories of and analyze the region’s progressivism, past and present, to complicate and shrug off any easy narrative pundits might try to shroud the region in, to simply fill in the many blanks and gaps that the second half of the twentieth century and early twenty-first created in books about it, as many publishers deemed books about the region unimportant or unworthy or unprofitable, carried on, giving our opinions and perspectives in books we published that were either directly or indirectly commenting on politics and political culture. We published memoirs by candidates. We published anthologies about Blacks in the Midwest. We published a polemic against Hillbilly Elegy. We delved deep into disinvested cities like Flint and Gary and Akron and Dayton. These places matter, we said by so doing. These places may not be like you assume, we insisted. The people who live there are not as have been portrayed, and have their own stories to tell.

This desire to publish complicated representations of the Rust Belt (and the Midwest, but mainly the Rust Belt) in the face of, first, a lack of national interest, and then increased, often misguided national attention, became such a core part of how I approach acquiring books, and explaining our mission, that it almost slipped beneath my notice, less an overt effort and more a given, somehow atmospheric.

And then, suddenly: it changed.

Last week, I cast my first ever ballot in Pittsburgh. To wake up the next day to find myself a resident of a place with a very progressive congresswoman, two Democratic senators, a Democratic governor and a flipped (or almost) state legislature was, well, confusing! And fantastic! It had been so long. And what enormous contrast from what I was just a few weeks ago, a resident of Ohio, where folks like me awoke on Wednesday to a place now bloody red. No longer the swingiest state, Ohio is now, as someone put it, “basically Indiana”. And yes, its new senator is the guy people keep mentioning in books by and about Belt. Devastating.

Ohio is now at odds with its northern and eastern neighbors. Not only is Pennsylvania suddenly solidly blue, but — I mean— Michigan! What a wondrous thing happened there! And Wisconsin (just part of which is in the region) did no go too gently. All of these states, politically, are different this week than they did at the beginning of last. So too might we add New York (parts of the western are in the Rust Belt). The narrative of the region has shifted; trends are diverging. It’s fascinating.

I have read the requisite number of analyses, and listened to probably too many podcasts offering explanations for the results in these states and their districts. I have some theses and theories. But I don’t want to sign onto any now. I want to think more, and read more, and listen more. (And I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!). In many respects the results vindicate much of what our books have been arguing, implicitly and explicitly, from the jump. In others they shift the ground under them; half of our anthology about being a leftist living in a red state is now a period piece of sorts.

These midterms prompt me to wonder how Belt also might shift as did the electorate last week, in terms of acquisition at least. I find it a wonderful new challenge, a fun intellectual puzzle. I did not expect to be having these thoughts this week, just as no one expected to have those results last week. Electorates shift. Things change. So do presses. We have new stories to tell. I’m excited to find them.

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I’m teaching an online class in January to help those interested in writing non-fiction books with ideas and proposals. Check it out! Tell your friends!

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Book Recommendations

Mysteries, mainly by British women I spent the summer anticipating a big move, and the fall having made one. Unsurprisingly, my leisure reading has turned to mysteries, with their comforting plots and generic expectations. I read all the Vera Kelly books, which have a fantastic setting and detective, and perfect for anyone interested in US/Latin America relations in the ‘60s, and a few Agatha Christies, and some Kate Atkinson’s I hadn’t read before ( the new one is really good!). Most recently I found Ann Cleeves; I read two of the Vera ones and am on my second Shetland one. My favorite thus far as been Raven Black, again for the excellent setting and interesting detective.

People on Twitter (also other places!)

These academics who study books and publishing and have taught me so much:

Dan Sinykin
Leah Price
Laura McGrath
Ted Underwood

People in Publishing I Admire

Meg Reid
Derek Krissoff
Eric Obenauf

Best Site To Relentlessly Check This Week

Twitter Is Going Great!

Best Thing To Do Right Now

Click on this Sale! :)

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