Who are those Americans who live outside the diktats of mainstream journalism and “woke” culture? —who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and say they will again in 2020? Journalist Daniel Allott left Washington, DC, and traveled for three years to try to find out. He visited nine very different counties across the U.S., going back repeated times and staying sometimes for as long as several weeks. He interviewed “farmers and professors; congressmen and homeless people;” retirees, small-town leaders, and former Obama voters. “Most political journalists,” he writes, “failed to anticipate Donald Trump’s rise because . . . they dismissed his voters as being guided by bigotry, ignorance, and fear. Needless to say, this has skewed their coverage.” Allott’s portraits of the lives and circumstances of these Americans, and the values and priorities that inform their political views, are crucial to our understanding and efforts to heal the great divide that currently plagues our country. The book is fascinating reading to boot.