Why Trump Likely Won't Save This All-American Town from Decline

In 1947, when Forbes magazine published its 30th anniversary issue, it selected Lancaster, Ohio, as the quintessential representation of the all-American town. It had the perfect balance of large companies—Anchor Hocking Glass Company was huge—small businesses like shops, and farms just outside of town. To hear Forbes tell it, it was a beautiful, cohesive, nice small town, one of many all across the United States.

Today, towns like Lancaster are struggling to stay alive. Industries have fled the Midwest, opportunities have dried up, income inequality has risen, and many places around America are shells of their former selves, even as the national economy hums along. In his new book, Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town, out on Tuesday, longtime magazine writer Brian Alexander explores this trend, using Lancaster as a microcosm for what is happening all across the nation.

Alexander moved back to Lancaster, his hometown, and spent almost all of 2015 there. He bought a car, found a place to live, and started hanging out, talking to people and researching. He kept tabs on townsfolk who were struggling with low-paying jobs, opiate addiction, and institutional bankruptcy. I chatted with him by phone to find out more about what he learned, how economic forces destroyed towns like Lancaster, what Donald Trump can do about it, and what the future holds for companies like Anchor Hocking that have sustained small towns for generations.

VICE: What is the 1 percent economy?
Brian Alexander: The 1 percent economy, as it's conceptualized for Glass House, really comprises a lot of people, including super high-end law firms, investment companies, and business consultants. People who make an enormous amount of money by deal making or providing advice or representing companies or executives in the legal realm. A lot of that money flows up to them and does not flow down to the 99 percent of people who are working in places like glass factories. It's a system that doesn't [compensate] people who are doing the lion's share of the labor in this country, and I don't think it's fully appreciated exactly how this system operates.

Is the US rotting from the inside like the Roman Empire or other powerful countries throughout history?
I think we're still a great country and always have been a great country, because America is a country that's based on an idea—so whether the economy is up or down or people are happy or unhappy, the idea lives on. The idea itself is great. The question is whether or not we can live up to the idea, and in that respect, I don't think we are, not because we are rotting from the inside, but because we have managed to break what I call the social contract.

The social contract is basically fair dealing. You work hard and certain things come to you. If you don't work hard, you don't get them.

Why is it so common these days for towns like Lancaster to be drying up and dying?
I don't think Lancaster is going to die. There are a number of reasons why I focus this book on the decisions and activities of financiers, investment people, and deal makers—"Wall Street," for a lack of a better word—and how those decisions affect a town. It's also true that things like imports and trade affect it. The decline of unions affects it. There are a number of things. One of the biggest things really is a different outlook about what our economy is supposed to be about.

There was a new philosophy that came into the fore in the early 1980s that said that the only responsibility of business is to create maximum value for shareholders. It essentially owes nothing to anybody else. In the past, if you were a big company in a smaller town, you considered yourself a part of that community. Your kids went to the local school. You were sort of woven into the fabric of the community. But starting with the Reagan administration in the 1980s, it became the ultimate goal of business to create more and more shareholder value to the exclusion of every other responsibility.

Did Lancaster support Trump?
The town did support Trump. Fairfield Country, where Lancaster is located, is a Republican stronghold and always has been for my whole life. They were going to vote Republican no matter who ran. Sixty percent or so in Fairfield Country voted for Trump. I was a little surprised at the strength of the dedication to Trump that some people displayed. I wasn't surprised that they voted Republican because it's a conservative area, but once Trump was a nominee, I was surprised. It was partly because of what I consider a pathological hatred of Hillary Clinton. And partly because they really decided to buy into the idea that Donald Trump could turn back the clock and make America great again, as he says. People think that he's going to make places like Lancaster the way they used to be. I'm skeptical he can do that, but I think people have been beaten up a lot, and they wanted to believe in somebody.

What could Trump do to improve the fortunes of the town?
Personally, I don't think he'll do anything to improve the fortunes of the town. Partly because some of his key advisors are some of the people who had a hand in doing damage in the town. He says, for example, that he's going to have new sort of trade deals that are going to force companies to bring business back to the United States. Well, I think that's going to be a little tough on some places like Lancaster, where the only export is glass and some agricultural products. If he wants to create a trade deal, he's going to have to deal with an industrial product and also an agricultural product. If he starts creating a trade war, what happens to the farmers who depend on exports for their products?

Things like this are very complicated, and Trump acts like it's not. I don't think that people fully appreciate that you just can't go in and say we're going to slap a 35 percent tariff on something and suddenly all these jobs are going to start appearing again. You can't make anybody build a factory in your town. You can't force them to do that, and there are a lot of towns like Lancaster that would love to have a new factory, a new business, a new computer-server farm, or a new fulfillment center. There are a lot of towns, because we spent 35 years hollowing out these towns. There's so much demand out there for new kinds of employment that I don't think there's going to be enough supply to fulfill those demands even if some of Trump's plans do work, and I don't think they will.

Is it drugs and addiction or a lack of industry that is leading to the failure of the American dream as we know it?
I think it's a lack of faith, and I don't necessarily mean faith in religion. I mean the lack of faith in institutions, the lack of faith in government, and the lack of faith in anything. I think that incredible disaffection is really what's behind the opiate epidemic. Now, obviously when you have cheap availability of lots of dope, which you've got now—dope's really cheap in central Ohio—that's going to be fuel to the fire, but I don't think that's the ultimate cause.

As one guy in the book says, why isn't anybody asking why a 16-year-old girl is sticking a needle in her arm? That's the important question—not that she's doing it, but why she is doing it. I think it's because younger people are disaffected. The way it was supposed to be is not the way it is, and in that gap of faith, belief, and social cohesiveness they're filling it with drugs.

Does the Anchor Hocking Glass company still exist?
The Anchor Hocking Glass Company still exists. The short story, and the book is mostly about this, is that they were once a Fortune 500 company. They became the target of corporate raiders and financial maneuvering. The result was a severe erosion and damage to the company over a period of years, including two bankruptcies. They have come out of bankruptcy and are trying to get back on their feet. But these were conscious decisions, starting in the 1980s and continuing until actually 2015, that created a lot of this damage, both to the company and to the town where the company is.

What surprised you most about the people in Lancaster?
During my stay back in Lancaster, I was touched by how many people still love their town. They really have this deep affection for the place where they live, and I think that's fantastic. If Lancaster is going to have a successful future, I think it will be built on that. There are a lot of strong people in that town who are willing still to give their time and energy to try and make a town a better place, but it's a struggle. It's hard to do. They're kind of up against it, but I'm rooting for them, and I'm rooting for them because they feel so passionately about where they live.

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