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What Unites Americans? We Took a Road Trip to Find Out
Posted
November 19, 2020
Views
2,868
Likes
71
Comments
51
Engagement
4.25%
November 19, 2020
2,868
71
51
4.25%
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11:54Now PlayingBloomberg’s Frank Barry traveled across the U.S., driving on the Lincoln Highway from New York to San Francisco, through Pennsylvania, to discover what unites Americans in the run-up to November’s election. The Lincoln Highway was dedicated in 1913 as the first road to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, zigzagging across the country from Manhattan to San Francisco. A group of auto industry leaders conceived it as way to demonstrate that traveling long distances could be done not just by train, but by car — cars still being a new phenomenon.
Calling it a highway was a stretch — the roads were mostly dirt — but the suits understood marketing, and soon they had a slogan: See America First. It was directed at well-to-do auto owners who might otherwise sail to Europe for a holiday, but it still holds meaning today as airplanes and interstates render much of America invisible to travelers, and as people buy political books to understand places in “flyover country” that they would never visit (Kansas and Appalachia, for starters).
From Times Square, Barry began a journey with his wife Laurel to see America by traveling the entirety of the Lincoln Highway, with the goal of reaching San Francisco by Election Day. Since they were in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic and didn’t want to be dependent on roadside accommodations, particularly if outbreaks get worse, they bought an RV — a 25-foot Winnebago.
It was a journey of discovery centered on questions, not a polemic based on ideology. Barry’s goal was not to explain why America is the way it is, or why Democrats and Republicans think and vote the way they do. It was simply to see America — a cross-section of it, anyway — using Lincoln as a lens, and to imagine where the road might lead from here.
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