Oct 5, 2026 · 1 hr 17 min · 14 segments
Staten Island is often referred to—by its inhabitants—as the Forgotten Borough of New York City. But who knew that in the 1990s, Staten Islanders literally tried to secede. Our guest this week, Ben…
Aaron RegunbergHostMatt DaSilvaHostAnd I think like on the fascism thing it's like so much of fascism is just like nationalism supercharged and like this sort of like revenge of a sense of place and i don't know what the best way to channel that reality that people have identities based on where they are uh into like a broader more cosmopolitan like pluralistic shared project is but i think it's like a really pressing thing to figure out
I mean, aside from being a sports fan, I feel like that doesn't really go well.
Sorry, can I ask, Ben? You just spoke to this, but I feel like I still haven't entirely wrapped my head around it.
You had another great line in the pod that place matters and that the politics of resentment are a politics of place.
A lot of where I was drawing, thinking about places from is the work of two effectively sociologists, though I think one of them's an economic geographer.
uh okay this guy named andres rodriguez pose who wrote a piece called the revenge of the places that don't matter and what to do about it which was an attempt to explain the wave of populism that happened not just in the us in 2016 but like really worldwide or in a lot of western countries um and his argument was basically that you see the roots of this populism, not in any particular demographic, although obviously it's like often the white working class, but that there's really like a geographic logic to it, that it takes root, this kind of populism takes root in places that have seen long stretches of economic decline and feel like policies are oriented towards urban centers and not really oriented towards figuring out how to make these places matter again.
So there's this sort of economic logic to it, which I think you can feel if you go to any of the many places in the United States that have gotten screwed by globalization or the financialization of the economy.
Um, and now don't really have like a purpose or like, don't, there's like not like a clear economic function to these places, except to be like a bedroom community to a place that does have a booming economy for whatever reason, which is often an urban center.
Um, and, Another way is really rooted in the work of a sociologist, Katherine Kramer, who is based in Wisconsin, I think at University of Madison or University of Wisconsin-Madison.
And she was really interested in figuring out why Scott Walker had risen to a position of such prominence and like what what exactly the source of the resentment powering him to that place was.
And so well in advance of Trump, she started studying Wisconsin politics and found something just like what you described, Matt, of North Providence versus Providence, which is like people on the periphery of cities.
or are just like constantly have this sense of like us versus them that like they're making the rules, but they don't get us.
And like, they've got it all in terms of resources and wealth and taxes, whether or not that's even true.
And then there's a racial element to it too, which is like the redistributive politics of these places are like based on racial identity and not on, you know, whatever like this regional distinction that they think is more relevant so I think those are the two main strains of thinking that I've been following in this but I think like the Staten Island example is also instructive because there is there is a demographic reality to place to which is this like white people leaving Brooklyn to live on Staten Island.
So it's like how much of it is place and how much of it is a certain set of people who've moved to Staten Island for a very specific racially motivated reason.
And I think like on the fascism thing it's like so much of fascism is just like nationalism supercharged and like this sort of like revenge of a sense of place and i don't know what the best way to channel that reality that people have identities based on where they are uh into like a broader more cosmopolitan like pluralistic shared project is but i think it's like a really pressing thing to figure out
I mean, aside from being a sports fan, I feel like that doesn't really go well.
Sorry, can I ask, Ben? You just spoke to this, but I feel like I still haven't entirely wrapped my head around it.
You had another great line in the pod that place matters and that the politics of resentment are a politics of place.
A lot of where I was drawing, thinking about places from is the work of two effectively sociologists, though I think one of them's an economic geographer.
uh okay this guy named andres rodriguez pose who wrote a piece called the revenge of the places that don't matter and what to do about it which was an attempt to explain the wave of populism that happened not just in the us in 2016 but like really worldwide or in a lot of western countries um and his argument was basically that you see the roots of this populism, not in any particular demographic, although obviously it's like often the white working class, but that there's really like a geographic logic to it, that it takes root, this kind of populism takes root in places that have seen long stretches of economic decline and feel like policies are oriented towards urban centers and not really oriented towards figuring out how to make these places matter again.
So there's this sort of economic logic to it, which I think you can feel if you go to any of the many places in the United States that have gotten screwed by globalization or the financialization of the economy.
Um, and now don't really have like a purpose or like, don't, there's like not like a clear economic function to these places, except to be like a bedroom community to a place that does have a booming economy for whatever reason, which is often an urban center.
Um, and, Another way is really rooted in the work of a sociologist, Katherine Kramer, who is based in Wisconsin, I think at University of Madison or University of Wisconsin-Madison.
And she was really interested in figuring out why Scott Walker had risen to a position of such prominence and like what what exactly the source of the resentment powering him to that place was.
And so well in advance of Trump, she started studying Wisconsin politics and found something just like what you described, Matt, of North Providence versus Providence, which is like people on the periphery of cities.
or are just like constantly have this sense of like us versus them that like they're making the rules, but they don't get us.
And like, they've got it all in terms of resources and wealth and taxes, whether or not that's even true.
And then there's a racial element to it too, which is like the redistributive politics of these places are like based on racial identity and not on, you know, whatever like this regional distinction that they think is more relevant so I think those are the two main strains of thinking that I've been following in this but I think like the Staten Island example is also instructive because there is there is a demographic reality to place to which is this like white people leaving Brooklyn to live on Staten Island.
So it's like how much of it is place and how much of it is a certain set of people who've moved to Staten Island for a very specific racially motivated reason.
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