John: "The world’s gone crazy. And the cops get blamed for all this bullshit? Our son-n-law is a sheriff. These people want to defund the police? What would you do w/out them? What would this world look like w/out police?"

Roberta: “I think that phrase is being misconstrued." 1/

John: “Bullshit. If the Blacks listened to the police, there wouldn’t be all these killings, wouldn’t be all these knees on their necks.”

Roberta, frowning: “I disagree with that."

John: “It’s testing my loyalty—to be a Democrat."

2/

“But you know what?” Roberta offered, looking in my direction. “He’s going to vote for Biden anyway, just to get rid of Trump.”

John stared ahead in silence. Slowly, he began to nod.

3/

If Donald Trump can't win over someone like John—someone who thinks this way, talks this way, feels so culturally estranged from the Democratic Party—then he's reached his ceiling w/ working-class whites.

And, if so, very hard to see a path to 270.

/end https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/28/letter-to-washington-scranton-white-working-class-381320