Reddit mentions of Chasing the American Dream: Understanding What Shapes Our Fortunes

Guys, stop down voting Prince. We're having a discussion. He isn't doing anything wrong.

Anyway.

> But this shit backs up the fact that Trump won the election and it goes well in parallel with research like Case-Deaton.

Except it's more complex then that. On the one hand, you've got this demography study showing that Trump tended to do the best in areas particularly hard hit by economic decline and various public health crisis. On the other hand, there's analysis like this that indicate that racial resentments also played a big role and this article, which makes a good case that the real core of Trump's support isn't the homeless drug addict(who, to be blunt, is likely so alienated from the political system they don't even vote at all), but the petit bourgeois in suburbia and exurbia.

More broadly though, with regards to the issues of economic instability and declining health that many American communities are facing, I just don't find Arnade very useful compared to other works I've read. Books like Chasing the American Dream and Dreamland paint a much better picture of these issues without going into heavy handed over-dramatization.

That's my real issue with Arnade. It's not his intention, which I think comes from a good enough place. It's his method, which I think leaves much to be desired, particularly with regards to how he frames his subjects and the communities he goes to.