This is episode zero because it's just an introduction. A little about me, where I've been, and why I'm doing this now.
My name is Corbin Trent. I'm an East Tennessean from a little town in the Appalachian Mountains called Morristown. Right now I'm a general contractor in Lenoir City, but that's not the whole story.
The Voice on the Radio
In 2015, I was working on a food truck when I heard this gravelly, gruff voice on the radio. This guy was talking about factories closing, people struggling to pay bills, struggling to get medicines and see doctors. He'd seen a country being exploited by oligarchs and a working class that had been dumped by the ruling class.
That guy was Bernie Sanders. And he was describing my hometown.
I got so excited I sold the food trucks and started volunteering. Started a thing called Tennessee for Bernie. Eventually got hired by the campaign and traveled around the country preaching the gospel of Bernie, doing barnstorms, getting people involved.
When it became clear Bernie wasn't going to win, some of us started Brand New Congress, then Justice Democrats. We recruited 12 candidates. Only one won.
That was AOC.
From the Hills to the Hill
I went from the hills of East Tennessee to Capitol Hill as Alexandria's communications director. Helped launch the Green New Deal. Did some pretty transformational stuff that had big impacts.
After eight years in politics, I'd had enough. Came back to Tennessee and became a general contractor. Been flipping houses, building decks and porches for about three years.
Then Donald Trump got reelected.
Why I Can't Sit This Out
I realized I couldn't just sit on the sidelines anymore. But what do you do? So I started writing at americasundoing.com. Now I'm starting this podcast because I like to ramble and chat, and there's stuff that needs explaining.
Like the disconnect between the stories I heard growing up and the reality I lived. My aunt went to East Tennessee State University, worked part-time, and paid as she went. That's not reality anymore. My uncle got out of high school, went to work as a bag boy at A&P, and on that salary alone had an apartment, a new Camaro, and money left over.
Different economic reality.
My papaw was born into a sharecropping family, one of 13 kids. He built from that to owning 40 acres and multiple houses, working at American Enka. That was the story of East Tennessee - people building better lives generation after generation.
But they tell us we're doing better than ever. Wages are up. Life's getting easier.
Bullshit.
What You'll Hear on This Podcast
I'm going to show you the adjustments and manipulations they use to tell a different story. Like when the Census wanted to count Chinese manufacturing as American manufacturing if Apple owned the patents. That kind of pressure changes how policy gets made.
We'll talk political strategy too. I've worked on some pretty transformational projects. Got some ideas about organizing and building movements from a working class Appalachian who feels like the party left him.
Sometimes I'll take you around East Tennessee. Show you the industrial parks with neither industry nor park - just empty shells collapsing, parking lots grown over. Show you the poverty. But also the good stuff - the beauty, the wealth, what we built as a people. The Tennessee Valley Authority that electrified the South. Oak Ridge where they built the bomb and transformed a region with science and ambition.
We'll tell stories from the Hill, from AOC's campaigns. Look at headlines and give the occasional hot take when the New York Times or whoever can't see their complicity in how we got Trump twice.
The Journey Ahead
We're going to cover America's decline - socially, economically, democratically. But also that it's reversible. We'll look at how we functioned as a growing nation before, how China's functioning as one now. They're about to fly around in autonomous taxis while we're living in the Flintstones.
Then we'll get to the barriers - why we can't have nice things. Politics is one. Our economic structure is another. We'll discuss how to get over those walls, how to mobilize political will and offer an alternative to this unregulated, unchecked, uncompetitive capitalism that's paralyzed our capacity to do more.
That's what America's Undoing is about. Understanding the decline. Seeing through the lies. Finding the path forward.
Thanks for joining me on this journey.
Episode Zero is available now. Come for the economic analysis, stay for the stories about abandoned factories and the time we launched the Green New Deal.
What pulled you back into politics after stepping away? Let me know in the comments.
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