Talking UNION with Heartland Politics

Had an enjoyable conversation last week with Monmouth College political scientist Robin Johnson about the story told in Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood for his "Heartland Politics" radio show and podcast. 

The show now airs on WVIK, the NPR affiliate for the Quad Cities on Iowa/Illinois border: Davenport, Moline, Rock Island, and Bettendorf and our conversation can be heard here. 

The Quad Cities are classic Midlands country, in American Nations terms, and even have a cameo in Union, when the historian George Bancroft, former President Millard Filmore and a crowd of dignitaries arrive in Rock Island in 1854 as part of a junket sponsored by the new Chicago and Rock Island Railroad. They meet a non-descript railroad attorney during a Springfield, Ill. whistle stop on their way home and pay him no mind. They guy's name was Abraham Lincoln.

But I digress. Please: enjoy the show. 

I was last on air in Iowa this summer on Iowa Public Radio's River to River and was on Robin's show back when it was still hosted on KBUR just across the Mississippi -- thus the change from "K" to "W" in call letters -- to talk about what American Nations had to say about the state of US politics.

Talking UNION with Iowa Public Radio's "River to River"

This has been the launch week of my new book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, and, it being a pandemic year and all, I've spent a lot of my spare time doing radio interviews, including with some of our country's excellent public radio stations.

One of my favorites was with Iowa Public Radio's statewide hour-long interview program "River to River," which you can hear here.

I've been lucky enough to appear on the show a few times in the past, including to talk with them about American Nations and about American Character, the precursors to Union.

Union went on sale in stores across North America Tuesday. I have virtual events coming up over the next week or so, including one sponsored by Gibson's in Concord, New Hampshire at 6pm on June 6th and with Washington D.C.'s Politics & Prose on June 28, where author and NPR veteran reporter Tom Gjelten will be interviewing me about Union (register here.)

Launching UNION virtually June 16 with Longfellow Books and MWPA

Despite the pandemic, my new book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, goes on sale this coming Tuesday, June 16 and the good folks at Longfellow Books up here in Portland, Maine and the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance are hosting a virtual talk and signing at 7pm that evening.

You can register for the Zoom-driven event here, and can also order books in advance (or in real time) from Longfellow, now the city's oldest indie bookstore.

I'll talk a little about the book and how I came to write it, open up to questions from all of you, and (afterward) sign and/or personalize copies from anyone who purchases them. (The store will them ship them to you.)

For some prepub reviews of Union, check out this post (Library Journal, American Scholar) and this one (Kirkus, Booklist.)

I'll also be doing virtual events with Gibson's Bookstore of Concord, New Hampshire on June 24 (at 6pm, details here) and with Washington D.C.'s Politics and Prose on June 28, where author and NPR veteran reporter Tom Gjelten will be interviewing me about Union (register here.)

A few additional programming notes to kick off next week:

Mainers: I'll also be your guest Monday, June 15 on Maine Public radio's "Maine Calling," from 1 to 2pm Eastern.

Iowans: Catch me on Iowa Public Radio's "River to River" on June 16 from 9 to 9:30 Central.

Louisiana peeps: I'm on Baton Rouge NPR affiliate WKRF's "Talk Louisiana" at 9:45 Central on June 16

Wisconsiners: I'll be your guest on Wisconsin Public Radio's "Central Time" from 4 to 4:30 pm that same day, June 16.

Talking American Nations with KBUR's "Heartland Politics"

Recently had a conversation with Monmouth College political science professor Robin Johnson about America's regional cultures and their implications for the Midwest generally and the 2016 election results in the Upper Mississippi Valley in particular.

Our talk aired on this week's edition of Johnson's program "Heartland Politics" on KBUR in Burlington, Iowa, right in the heart of what I've called Trump Democrat country and with a broadcast area encompassing a swath of eastern Illinois (where Monmouth is located) and parts of northeastern Missouri. You can hear it again Tuesday morning at 0930 Central Time or right here online.

For more on voting patterns in the 2016 election, see this piece and this one.

From U.S. cities, some lessons in protecting liberal democracy

This year's presidential election has exposed a long festering crisis: that tens of millions of Americans are ready to endorse a candidate who has pledged to use extra-constitutional means to solve the country’s problems, including the jailing of his opponent, an erosion of first amendment protections for the press, and ethnographic tests for federal judges.

Authoritarianism now has a sizable constituency in American politics, one that won’t be going away on Nov. 9, regardless of who is president-elect. The next president and congressional leaders will still preside over a country that is politically polarized, with differences that are geographic even as they are ideological, but the risks of inaction have grown.

In the new weekly print edition of my old journalistic home, The Christian Science Monitor, I have

the cover story on how we move forward and shore up our liberal democracy. This is the topic of my most recent book, American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good, but it's been reinforced by what I've seen on the ground as I've travelled the country this year for POLITICO, observing successful innovations of various sorts in cities from Utah to New Hampshire.

The story -- which appears in the print edition dated Nov. 7, but went up online yesterday -- explores how people can balance the individual freedom and the need to build and maintain the social and physical infrastructure that allows it to exist.

It's been a few years since I last wrote for the Monitor, but I'm a past Eastern Europe, Balkan, and Global Affairs correspondent for that paper, having written hundreds of stories from dozens of countries between the early 1990s and 2010 from bases in Budapest, Zagreb, Washington, South Texas and Maine. It's nice to be back in its pages again after a long hiatus.

[Update, 12/31/16: This story prompted editorials in both the Des Moines Register and the Roanoke Times.]

Talking American Character with Iowa Public Radio

I had the pleasure of returning to Iowa Public Radio's hour-long interview program, River to River, on Thursday, talking about how to balance individual liberty and the maintaincence of a free society in the American context. It's the subject of my new book, American Character, and the answer often eludes us because we're a balkanized country, as per my previous work, American Nations.

In any case, the interview is now up online. There's even a brief plug by host Ben Kiefer for my recent Politico Magazine piece on how Des Moines transformed itself.

Later this month, I'll be speaking with south Florida and Greater Utah public radio stations about the same.

Talking with WNHN's Arnie Arnesen about Manchester's Millyard renaissance

I had an enjoyable conversation about my Politico Magazine piece on Manchester with Arnie Arnesen, former Democratic gubernatorial and congressional nominee from New Hampshire, who hosts "The Attitude," a politics interview show on Concord's WNHN that's syndicated nationwide via the Pacifica Radio Network.

That interview -- about how New Hampshire's largest city turned a massive, largely vacant 19th century brick industrial complex into a 21st century knowledge industry hive -- can be heard today at noon in the Concord area, at various Pacifica affiliates from Vermont to Hawaii this week, or via podcast download right now.

We also chatted a bit about Des Moines, the subject of my previous "What Works" series installment for Politico Magazine, where I'm a contributing editor.

"The Attitude" can be heard this week on stations including KPFT (Houston), KNSJ (San Diego), KAKU (Maui) and KHOI (Ames, Iowa). Check your local Pacifica affiliate for listings.

How's a city boost its reputation? A case study from Des Moines

This weekend, the Des Moines Register published a long read exploring how the city's boosters succeeded in changing the national media narrative on their once-boring, now-cooler city, which my piece for Politico played a role in. It's likely of interest to anyone charged with urban "branding".

Reporter Matthew Morian talked to Matt Lauer, Al Roker, and myself. The takeaway -- aside from my contribution that Iowa, unlike say, Maine, hasn't had to wage an unproductive post-colonial cultural struggle with its a former hegemon -- is that a place wins the PR battle when its people actually believe and have internalized the message the official boosters are trying to get out there.

The caucuses have passed, but if you're curious to know more about Iowa and how its cultural history and geography effect its political behavior, try this piece as well.

Meanwhile, on to New Hampshire.

Talking with VOA about Iowa's "socialists"

Happy Iowa Caucus Day to all you political junkies out there. In honor the day, Voice of America has this piece exploring why so many Democratic caucus goers in the Hawkeye State say they have no problem with socialism.

Reporter William Gallo asks them and me about the phenomenon, and gets a similar answer: the legacy of early Euro-American settler groups casts a very long shadow. "“To a lot of people, what Bernie Sanders is suggesting is a completely foreign idea,” one resident of (very Danish-American) Elk Horn tells him. “Whereas to Scandinavians, this is something that in the old country, it’s been this way for a while.”

For more background on the ethnographic legacy in Iowa and why it matters to the rest of the American political map, please consider my recent Politico story on such, or if you're up for a book length treatment, American Nations.

How "dull" Des Moines got its groove

I'll be writing a bunch about urban innovations in U.S. cities for Politico this year as I help spearhead their What Works series. My first effort -- on how Des Moines, Iowa transformed itself from dull to cool -- posted Friday. Short answer: it took a generation, a lot of cooperation and a long-term vision, and the execution was more akin to setting up the conditions for a chemical reaction than working one's way through a checklist.

I'm humbled at all the attention for the piece: 30,000 Facebook shares in the first 24 hours, media coverage in Iowa, and even this Des Moines Register article on its "takeaways."

Whats next month's installment? Hint: it's Manchester, New Hampshire. (Yes, there's a certain geographic pattern to be detected here.)

Oddly enough, my last piece for Politico was also from Iowa, on what makes that state tick. It's something of a companion piece to the Des Moines article, as it explains the Midland ethos (as per American Nations) that's at the root of the Iowa advantage: an almost uncanny ability to cooperate, undercutting the need for strong government steering.

Talking American Nations on C-SPAN, Dec. 22, 8 pm ET

C-SPAN filmed my American Nations talk at Iowa State University earlier this fall, and now they've scheduled it for broadcast.

So, drop everything, cancel Christmas, and tune in to CSPAN-1 tomorrow, December 22, at 8 pm Eastern for an hour and thirteen minutes of riveting television. [Update, 12/27/15: C-SPAN rebroadcasts the talk Sunday, Jan. 3 at 4:45 pm Eastern.] [Update, 1/6/16: it also broadcast on at least two more occasions on Jan. 4 and 5.]

[Update, 12/23/15: the talk is now on CSPAN's homepage for asynchronous viewing.]

This was my most recent American Nations talk, but there are a whole host of events coming up this winter surrounding the publication of the book's sequel, American Character. I'll be announcing them here and, eventually, at my website's speaking tour page.

Iowa matters, for reasons that predate its existence.

Over at Politico magazine today, I have an extended take on why Iowa still matters in American politics, where it of course holds the first voting in the presidential nomination process.

The argument, powered by the American Nations model, is historical, ethnographic, and cultural. Iowa is the only state entirely dominated by the Midlands, the key "swing" region of American politics, and exhibits its proclivities and priorities in their most unadulterated form:

[The big reason] Iowa deserves to keep its spot as a American political capital: Despite being home to just 3 million people, about 2.9 million of whom are white, Iowa is the state most reflective of the nation’s most vital swing region—a culturally diverse, politically moderate swath of the country that transcends state boundaries and has proved decisive in American politics for the better part of two centuries.

Ever since the first Euro-American settlers poured into Iowa in the decades leading up to the Civil War, the state has been an ethnological mosaic, a place where cultural diversity was not only expected and tolerated, but where no one group was expected to dominate. In this way—neither an Anglo-Protestant-led “melting pot” (as in the New England-influenced northernmost tier of the country) nor hierarchical, post-plantation society like the lowland south—Iowa exemplifies a vital, often ignored, and politically consequential American regional culture that I call “the Midlands,” which is central to American presidential politics.

I enjoyed reporting this piece, which took me across 800 miles of Iowa roads, occasioned delightful conversations with longtime Rep. Jim Leach, journalistic titans David Yepsen, and others, and even got me back to my grandfather's hometown -- Primghar in Obrien County -- for the first time in 36 years.

[Update, 12/4/15: Thanks to the Aspen Institute for placing the piece at the top of their Best Ideas of the Day list at Time.]

For those of you who may have just discovered the American Nations Map and want to know more, read this for a cogent summary or, if you’re really in a hurry, go here.

Talking American Nations at Iowa State, October 6

For those of you in Iowa or covering the campaigns, I'll be speaking on American Nations at Iowa State University in Ames on October 6th.

The talk -- at 8 pm in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union -- is part of the university's National Affairs Series: When Values Are In Conflict, with co-sponsorship from ISU's Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication (which, I was surprised to learn, is not named for Portland Press Herald managing editor Steve Greenlee.) It's free and open to the public. Details are here.

Can't make it? Don't despair: C-SPAN is taping the talk for future broadcast. [Update, 1/6/16: C-SPAN has broadcast the talk several times and has it available for viewing at their website.]

I was last in Iowa a year ago, speaking at Simpson College. Iowa Public Radio did this interview with me.

[Update, 10/16/15: Thanks to all who came; enjoyed the event. Here's the campus paper's coverage.]

Jack DeCoster, Maine's most infamous businessman, gets jail sentence

Austin "Jack" DeCoster, Maine's most infamous businessman, is going to jail for his egg company's role in a 2010 salmonella outbreak that may have sickened as many as 54,000. For many of those who've followed his sordid career, the biggest question is why it took so long.

As I detailed in Tuesday's Portland Press Herald and, in 2011, in Down East and the Portland Phoenix, DeCoster has repeatedly violated all manner of laws and regulations: labor, environmental, workplace safety, public health, immigration, contract, and animal safety. Here's the nut from the Press Herald piece:

"Over the past half-century, Jack DeCoster’s companies have paid millions in fines and damages for everything from faking trucking logs and knowingly hiring illegal immigrants to environmental contamination, animal cruelty, workplace safety problems, and the exploitation of workers, including the alleged rapes of female employees by supervisors and the terrorizing of workers housed in squalid, crowded, cockroach-infested company trailers at his Maine farms."

He's always had enablers, though. As recently as 2011, his local state legislators -- Dale Crafts and Jeff Timberlake -- were trying to pass a law to weaken labor protections on his Maine farms; it almost passed because a number of people gave false legislative testimony in regards to his recent record in the state. (I learned while reporting at the time that there's no penalty for lying to Maine lawmakers, even for attorneys and lawmakers, because nobody does so under oath.)

I'd link to the articles I wrote at the time, but the new owners of Down East and the Phoenix no longer make their archives available online. (And, while on the topic: what happened to the Phoenix archive? Is it damaged? Do the owners care?)

Jack and his son, Peter (who also got three months), have the right to appeal the sentence, but have already plead guilty to charges. Their company is paying almost $7 million in fines for their role in the outbreak.

Weston Andersen, 1922-2015

My grandfather, Weston Neil Andersen, died Sunday at 93. Born in rural northwestern Iowa and raised during the Great Depression, he was a disciple of the father of industrial design, Donald Dohner, and friend to the Budapest-born ceramicist Eva Ziesel. He moved to Maine in 1952 and built the stoneware line that bears his name with his London-born wife, Brenda, whom he met while serving in the 8th Army Air Force, in a Kensington ballroom, during an air raid.

His obituary is in today's Portland Press Herald.

For those who knew him, there's visitation tomorrow, March 6, at Hall's in Boothbay, Maine. Further information at the end of the obituary.

Talking American Nations with Iowa Public Radio

Let the 2016 presidential speculation begin: I'm speaking on American Nations in Iowa tonight. The event -- part of Des Moines' World of Words Festival and the Iowa History Center's speaking series -- kicks off at 7pm at Simpson College in Indianola. It's free and open to the public.

For those who can't make it: in anticipation of the talk, I had this enjoyable and extended conversation with Iowa Public Radio's "River to River" program yesterday. The Des Moines Register's emeritus editorial page editor, Richard Doak, joined the conversation in the second half.

Talking "American Nations" in Des Moines, November 11

For those of you in Greater Des Moines, Iowa, I'll be presenting on American Nations at Simpson College in Indianola on November 11.

The talk, which is also part of the Wonder of Words Festival that kicked off today, starts at 7pm at Hubbell Hall in the Kent Campus Center. It's presented by Simpson's Iowa History Center, who I thank for their interest in the book. It's free and open to the public, and I understand I'll be signing all of my books after the event.

For those interested in the Iowa angle, Richard Doak -- retired Opinion pages editor of the Des Moines Register -- wrote this column on American Nations and Iowa last year.

American Nations continues to receive attention from around the country. Here's a roundup:

The emeritus editorial page editor of the Des Moines Register, Richard Doak, had this column Sunday on Iowa and the American Nations, and approved of most of the state being assigned to the Midlands:

"Middle class. Moderate. Standard American. Yes, that describes some of what we like to think of as Iowa characteristics. We might add traits such as a strong work ethic and a certain mind-your-business standoffishness softened by a help-your-neighbor instinct. [...]

And so Iowans share a common culture that overrides regional differences. Woodard calls it the Midlands culture. We might call it Midwestern or just plain Iowan.

Whatever, we should celebrate being the “most American” of Americans. And we should work to stay that way and not tolerate the polarization that’s tearing the rest of America apart."

In the Tribune-Star - on the border of central Indiana and Illinois -- there's this OpEd from Indiana State University sociologist Thomas Steiger. He concludes:

"My interpretation of Woodard’s essay is that we can pretty much culturally divide ourselves with how we answer this question: How do you view “human nature?” Are humans inherently good and “perfectible” or are they inherently “bad,” prone to violence and we must be eternally vigilant lest our neighbor take advantage of us. It’s not whether humanity is or is not like this, it’s what we believe because we act on those beliefs.

We will find the evidence to prove our cultural beliefs. We will form policies and institutions that reflect these basic assumptions, hence, forming culturally separate “nations.”"

Meanwhile, Bill Track 50, the state politics junkie site, had this plug. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch picked up Reid Wilson's essay from the Post. And blogger JayMan had some fun superimposing the American Nations map over Canada's census results for reported ethnicity by census district.

How does Jack DeCoster get away with it?

For those who've been following my coverage of the infamous egg magnate Jack DeCoster -- and proposed legislation to deny his workers the right to collective bargaining here in Maine -- my story for Down East has just posted over at their website.

As reported here yesterday, the bill in question has lost a key supporter, labor committee co-chair Sen. Chris Rector (R-Thomaston), who is upset that his committee was given less than candid testimony in regards to the DeCoster companies' safety record. The bill was scheduled for a full vote in the Maine House today, but at last report appeared to have been pulled from the line-up.

For those who like to study source materials themselves, there's the August 2010 Food and Drug Administration site inspection report for one of the DeCoster's Iowa farms implicated in the nationwide salmonella outbreak; the Congressional hearings on said outbreak; and Maine Public Broadcasting's report on worker's allegations at DeCoster's Maine farms from this past April 2011.

[Update, 5/25/2011: An additional update to the piece: Mercy for Animals' director of investigations, Daniel Hauff, says DeCoster spokesperson Chris Grimbilas is misinformed about events in Texas (which he put forward as evidence that his companies got the "short end of the stick.")

"No charges or arrests have ever occurred for any Mercy For Animals investigator, as we follow all laws, including recording laws, and use our real information when obtaining employment at factory farms and slaughter facilities," Hauff said.]