Episode 79: How the Heartland Went Red

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Episode 79: How the Heartland Went Red

Guest: Dr. Stephanie Ternullo - Assistant Professor, Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Author, "How the Heartland Went Red: Why Local Forces Matter in an Age of Nationalized Politics"

Scott Aaron Rogers

May 04, 2025

Transcript

Episode 79: How the Heartland Went Red

Guest: Dr. Stephanie Ternullo - Assistant Professor, Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Author, How the Heartland Went Red: Why Local Forces Matter in an Age of Nationalized Politics

Full show notes at https://hoosleft.us/

Find our guest at https://stephanieternullo.com/

Order her book at https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691249704/how-the-heartland-went-red

Welcome to the HoosLeft Podcast, a show about Indiana politics, history, and culture from an unapologetically leftist perspective. My name is Scott Aaron Rogers, I’m recording from Bloomington, I’m a working class white guy, and I’m (sometimes reluctantly) a Democrat.

Once upon a time, that was automatic. Thomas Jefferson, and later Andrew Jackson, built a party aimed at representing the common man. And listen, I know that comes with 47 metric shit-tons of racial baggage that I hate to just gloss over, but for the purposes of this conversation, it is not a stretch to say that working-class white voters made up the base of the Democratic Party for over 150 years.

But, beginning in the late 1960’s and culminating in the Reagan Revolution, white working class voters abandoned Democrats. Now, this group constitutes the base of the Republican Party, particularly the Trump MAGA wing of the party. How did that happen?

Conventional wisdom chalks this up to racism - a backlash to the gains of the Civil Rights Movement, but deeper inspection reveals far more nuance. My guest today embedded herself in multiple working-class Rust Belt communities - talking to local leaders and regular folks alike - to find out what motivates them, what drives their voting habits, and why towns with ostensibly similar profiles might vote differently.

Stephanie Ternullo is an Assistant Professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. She received her PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago in 2022.

Her first book, How the Heartland Went Red: Why Local Forces Matter in an Age of Nationalized Politics, was published in 2024 and shows how place intersects with race, class, and religion in shaping the rightward turn across the industrial Heartland. It draws on a comparative study of three White, postindustrial cities during the 2020 presidential election to argue that we can best understand the reddening of the American Heartland by examining how local organizational contexts have sped up or slowed down White voters’ turn toward the right.

Dr. Ternullo’s research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, American Journal of Sociology, Studies in American Political Development, Social Forces, Perspectives on Politics, and Social Problems, and has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Social Science Research Council.

In this conversation, we will dive into her book, looking at the misrepresentation of working-class concerns, relational vs. ideological politics, Democrats’ moral blind spots, the decline of institutions, media nationalization, and elites as a unifying opponent.

Before we jump to the interview, please consider supporting HoosLeft with a paid subscription. This is an independent media project; I don’t paywall content; and I don’t rely on advertising. Only individuals like you sustain this endeavor. So please, if you find value in my work, go to HoosLeft.us and subscribe at the paid level - it’s only $5 a month, or $50 a year, to help me write more, research more, and organize more. Not ready for long-term commitment? You can throw a one-time contribution in my hat on Cash App or Venmo. I would like to dedicate my full time to you, this project, and Indiana’s future; but I need your financial support to do so.

Can’t help financially right now? That’s okay - there are other ways to help grow this community - by liking and sharing on social media, commenting, leaving reviews, providing feedback, and forwarding articles to your people. We are building a community of Hoosiers dedicated to making this state, and its government, work for all of us, not just the elite few.

Follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, YouTube, and TikTok at HoosLeft, and I’m personally at scottrog78 on Instagram, Threads, Twitter and Mastodon. Tell the others. Let’s build a radically-democratic Indiana together. Thanks again.

Now, here is my conversation with Stephanie Ternullo.

Things We Talked About:

Capital Flight Away from the Heartland: https://jacobin.com/2020/01/capitalism-underdeveloped-rural-america-trump-white-working-class

On the “Voting Against Their Interests” Trope: https://www.athensnews.com/opinion/commentary/voting-against-their-interests-is-a-trope-that-must-die/article_540b1aa8-5c2f-11ec-adda-b3f9f32bcec5.html

Trump Upends Republican Orthodoxy on Trade: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/g-s1-39118

How the Parties Realigned Since the 1970s: https://time.com/7173651/democratic-party-alignment-history/

Was Biden Really the Most Pro-Union President? https://onlabor.org/is-joe-biden-the-most-pro-union-president-youve-ever-seen/

Springfield, Ohio an Immigration Success Story: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/09/27/springfield-ohio-trump-immigration-midwest/

Americans Want BOTH a Tight Border AND Pathways to Citizenship: https://goodauthority.org/news/surprise-unlikely-immigration-consensus-in-america/

The White Working Class Move to the Right: https://escholarship.org/content/qt1cq9k81z/qt1cq9k81z_noSplash_685838fcb3383944915e0cb8ecd364c7.pdf

My Previous Interview with Eric Blanc: https://www.hoosleft.us/p/episode-76-we-are-the-union

Once again, that was Stephanie Ternullo, Assistant Professor of Government at the Harvard University Kennedy School and author of How the Heartland Went Red: Why Local Forces Matter in an Age of Nationalized Politics.

Now, normally I’d have an essay here with takeaways from the interview, but I’m going to try out something different. In order to keep a steady stream of content coming your way, I’m going to experiment with releasing the essay separately, a couple days after the interview drops. My tentative plan going forward is to release new interviews on Tuesdays, with the essay coming out Thursday or Friday.

Then, beginning on May 18, I will be hosting a live Sunday morning talk show featuring a panel of guests from around state. I love the deep dives on a single topic that I get to do on this podcast, but I also want to talk more about current events in Indiana with a diverse group of Hoosiers. The network Sunday shows out of Indianapolis are okay, but half the time is wasted on bad-faith MAGA talking points with pushback from a very narrow section of the Democratic big tent.

HoosLeft This Week will bring together panelists from the democratic socialist left to principled never-Trump conservatives. By removing the bad-faith arguments, my hope is that we can demonstrate the full range of what is possible in our state once we come to our senses and toss these bums from office. Again, that will be live every Sunday morning beginning May 18. Stay tuned for more details.

What do you think? Let us know. Reach out on social media - I’m on Facebook, Bluesky, YouTube and TikTok at hoosleft and on most other social media sites at scottrog78. You can also email me at scott@hoosleft.us.

Thanks again to our guest Dr. Stephanie Ternullo. More from her at stephanieternullo.com. The book, How the Heartland Went Red: Why Local Forces Matter in an Age of Nationalized Politics is available from Princeton University Press. Links are in the show notes. After you rush to buy Stephanie’s book, if your budget allows and you value my work, please consider a paid subscription over at HoosLeft.US, where you can find every episode and article we’ve ever published. Hit me up on social media with your feedback, tips, ideas, and concerns. And please forward the show to a friend and have them pass it on. Let’s keep building this project - and a truly democratic state - one conversation at a time. Until the next one, this has been the HoosLeft podcast. I’m Scott Aaron Rogers. Love each other, Indiana.