During Tuesday's live election coverage, PBS NewsHour's Judy Woodruff referenced J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and a Culture in Crisis," as a book that helps explain Donald Trump's victory and America's cultural divide. KQED's radio talk show Forum featured Vance in an one-on-one interview back in August. If you are among the legions of Californians wondering how America arrived at President-elect Trump, here are three Forum shows from the past year that provide in-depth looks at concepts like "cultural divide" and "disenfranchised" that were tossed around in election analysis Tuesday night.
- J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy" has received a lot of buzz as the book that explains the Trump vote and why working-class Americans feel disenfranchised.
- UC Berkeley sociologist Arlie Hochschild was concerned with the growing divide between conservative and liberal America, so she went to Louisiana and spent time with members of the tea party. She found a large sense of alienation and financial struggle.
- If you're still wrapping your head around Hillary Clinton losing the election despite narrowly winning the popular vote, our discussion on the electoral college will remind you how the system works and why people love it or hate it.