In Battle Creek, Michigan, a town famous for making cereal, Sue Lunz is sitting with her husband, Jerry, 82, at the McDonald’s. They have both spent their whole lives in the town. Both retired from lifetime jobs for Kellogg’s – he in a factory, she in an office job.
Sue is soft-spoken yet firm, telling me one of the more quietly damning things I have heard from a voter: “I am 73 and I am glad I am not young now.”
I push back, suggesting everyone would like to be young and have a long future, but she is thoughtful and serious. “Me and my husband have had a good life. We could get good jobs with benefits straight out of high school. My daughter and her children cannot do that. They have to work weekends and are always anxious and worried. I wouldn’t want that life.”
Both four and eight years ago, Battle Creek voters put their faith in Obama’s call for a hopeful and equitable future. Last November, they went for Trump’s promise to return to a past greatness.
Sue went against that shifting tide and voted for Hillary Clinton, but without enthusiasm. I ask her about Trump, and her tone shifts to frustration. “People who voted for Trump didn’t do a bit of good for themselves. But when the higher-ups see it, maybe they will wake up to what has been going on.”
In places like Battle Creek, you see and hear a lot of despair. The good jobs, ones that could be turned into careers, have been replaced with an economic version of the Hunger Games. Magnifying it is the sense that “higher-ups” – the collection of distant political, economic and thought leaders – don’t see the anguish, don’t care about it and are partly responsible for it. It has made many nostalgic for a better past.
At the next table are Gary and Joyce Kronz, both 74. They were born in Battle Creek, met in junior high, dated in high school and then married. Their parents worked in the cereal factories and Gary did as well, as a packing repairman, while Joyce raised their two daughters. He got laid off in 1999 with no benefits. “It is hard to live without benefits.”
They both voted for Trump, despite having voted for Obama before. When asked why, they give a variation of “things had to change, we need jobs again”, then explain further, speaking as one, completing each other’s sentences.
“You could walk into a factory job with only a high school diploma, but now Battle Creek is dying. What are people going to do when all the factories are gone?” they say. “Kellogg’s used to have 10 times the employees. They let this town down. They used it, got what they wanted and still moved jobs overseas. The factories were the backbone of this town, and they are breaking it.”
With the economic backbone broken, with hope in the future dimming, faith has become more central as a source of community, solace and hope. It is a “if you won’t value me for my work, I will find another place that values me” response.
I run into Gary and Joyce again at a weeknight service of the Overflow Church. Despite the weekday, the church is filled, with almost everyone casually dressed, some having come straight from work. The sermon is preceded by prayer requests, which brings a listing of people’s frustrations, anxieties and pains. One man, after mentioning a recent health struggle that has sapped him physically and economically, is surrounded by others offering up help.
In the hallway, Alexandra Barnes, 41, is sitting beneath inspirational posters. She is a single mom of two kids and is currently struggling paying the bills. “I don’t get enough child support, jobs are hard to come by, and my son is going through complications. What do I do to get by? I come to church and I pray. The church has kept me alive.”
About 350 miles to the west, Dubuque, Iowa, also voted for Trump after having twice voted for Obama. Like Battle Creek, it is a smaller, mostly white town once reliant on manufacturing with a downtown that feels anachronistic and drained of energy.
In Dubuque, you also hear a constant refrain of nostalgia. Jerry Ehlers, 84, a lifetime resident, is quick to identify problems and solutions. “We had good-paying jobs. Then they started what I call FDL – ‘Fuck Dubuque Labor’ – and now we don’t have much. Of course I voted for Trump. I don’t like how the country is going. Tired of our jobs going overseas.”
In both cases, the nostalgia isn’t confined to elderly people. Richard Lowe, 27, is studying at the local community college to “better himself”. He didn’t vote, but he notes: “All my friends voted for Trump. We need to turn what the rest of the world thinks of America around. Be strong again. We need jobs. American people sick of being taken advantage of.”
Faith is also central in Dubuque, with Sunday given over to the churches. The Dubuque church of the Nazarene, a small congregation, is led by Pastor Leah Barker, aged 30, who only left Dubuque to study at a Bible college.
The church is simple, with music led by a man on guitar and hymns loaded from YouTube. The prayer requests become a group conversation, a Sunday morning therapy session. Some are dramatic, asking to pray for a neighbor’s death; most are mundane but no less important. A middle-aged man mentions his car getting fixed: “It only cost me $400. I had expected it to be more. Praise the Lord for that. I am on a tight budget and anything more would have broken me.” This evolves into a few minutes of conversation about who in town is the cheapest and best mechanic.
While many working-class white people shifted heavily towards Trump, working-class minorities didn’t. For them, a despair brought about by inequality has long been an ugly constant. So has finding solace in faith. Yet they don’t have the luxury of being nostalgic.
In Battle Creek, Jerome Patterson, 62, is driving past as I approach a church in the black part of town. He stops to warn me of the unchained and unleashed dogs in the neighborhood. He has been living in Battle Creek since 1972, except for time in the army. He is happy to talk, but initially won’t let me take his photo. “Shit, no! Black men don’t trust pictures for good reason. The police and reporters disrespect us.”
I ask him about politics and Trump. “Most of the men I know didn’t vote. Nobody had the spirit this time. Trump or Hillary? Doesn’t make much difference. Things out here gonna stay the same. We had high hopes for Obama. But nothing changed. Blacks here didn’t end up being helped by him. I mean, he might have tried, but his hands were tied by both parties. Lots of us are just so frustrated. Nobody had the spirit.”
He pauses to repeat, before leaving: “You have to understand: nobody had the spirit this time.” He points to the church. “Now, Sister Jean, she has maintained the spirit.”
Pastor Jean Smith, 80, welcomes me to a small Thursday night Bible study, where she is lecturing a few kids. Originally from Beatrice, Alabama, she has been in Battle Creek for 62 years, 21 of them “working on Kellogg’s factory floor”.
I ask her about politics and about her faith. “I supported Hillary not because she was a woman, but because her policies were for working families and children.
“Am I surprised Trump won? No. Do I think he is a racist? Ha! I know he is. Am I scared of Trump? No. We here are not going to suffer because we are under the blood and the Lord is with us. You can call me stupid for thinking that for all I care.”
She continues: “As long as we stand together, we will be OK. I have been through the Ku Klux Klan. As a child they called me a nigger, told me to get off the streets. I wasn’t scared of them then, and I didn’t lose my dignity then because I had the Lord. I can deal with the Ku Klux Klan and I can deal with Trump.”
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