Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for inviting me to read and review this book.

I was not at all familiar with the work of Salena Zito, a veteran journalist, before reading this book. I found her narrative to be quite fascinating as she described how people live (and vote) in what some coastal self-appointed elites call "flyover country," and why their votes matter. And she described the apparent cluelessness of left-leaning members of the mainstream media as far as how they tend to categorize members of the public based on race, ethnicity, income, education, etc. For example, in their eyes black and Hispanic citizens are (or should be) all Democrats and will always vote that way. Those who choose to vote differently are often labeled "traitors." And Republicans are all mean-spirited Nazis. Reading these analyses in this book reminded me of the time a Democratic woman could not understand how a mutual friend could be a Republican because she's such a nice person.

As described in the synopsis published on Amazon, the author was able to interview many people including President Trump and many of his top associates. To quote, "Known for her on-the-ground reporting on populism and rural America, Salena zooms out to tell the fascinating story of the battle for America’s heartland and the issues that actually motivate voters. To understand how and why Trump won the 2024 election, you have to understand places like Butler. Big cities like Los Angeles, New York and D.C. don’t decide who wins election cycles, but people in places like Butler, Pennsylvania sure do."

All in all, a quite fascinating read. I highly recommend it.