It’s good to get out and see the country. The south, the mid west, the farm and rust belts, the west. These are good people. And they have a well earned right to be angry at washington for the way this country, and their neighborhoods and lives have been hollowed out for the benefit of wealth concentrator vultures and a communist centrally controlled country inimical to the Usa. But money in politics and the party that that money controls: the Republicans, are their true enemies. We’ll see. These are good people. Nice article.

This piece is an interesting accumulation of snapshots from the Midwest, but the title "American Road Trip," which suggests it is giving a picture of "America," is misleading. In the last couple of years, my wife and I have done driving tours through small towns in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri. Do you know who we saw in large numbers who are almost entirely missing from this article? Conservative, heterosexual, white Americans. There is nothing at all objectionable to any individual segment of this article -- to the contrary, they are well written and interesting. But the overall picture that is painted is misleading. The only reference to the conservative white majority in the rural areas of these states is this sentence about the crowd at the Iowa State Fair: "There are lots of confrontational T-shirts at the fair, their messages unprintable here." Yes, in the Midwest there are flag shop owners who refuse to manufacture the Dixie flag, married gay farmers combatting climate change, Yazidi-American and Beninois-American immigrants, conservative imams (and not-so-conservative Muslims), Native Americans, third-generation Mexican-Americans, "anti-fascist" gun lovers, and homeless veterans. But they are hardly the whole story -- or even the main part of the story. It speaks volumes about Ms. Shine's mindset that when she visited Lyon County, Kansas, where the Democrats got only 37% of the vote in 2016, she interviews "the county Democratic Party folks."

I love this story—thoughtful and informative. Thank you New York Times.

This series is the push I needed to subscribe. I need more reporting like this - reporting that connects me to people and communities that are foreign in a land where we need to be pulling together instead of pushing away from one another. @stephen savage - you've got the right idea.

Over 50 years ago, my fiancé and I drove from Berkeley to Boston, passing though Lincoln, Nebraska. We stopped to have lunch and a beer in a local restaurant. The bartender proudly told us that there were only 2 Negros in their town. We left, aghast, at that declaration. It was so heartening to read about the stop in the current Lincoln, where multiculturalism and tolerance appear to be prevalent.

We clearly need more wise gay farmers with huge hearts.

This article reminds me of 60's TV on Saturday night, something for everyone but nothing of value.

Is it just me, or did things look a little tired, run down, and shabby?

Yikes! What does D.C. have to do with our fine citizens?

The Times needs our voice, and we need the Times voice.

The only sentence I can recall from this article is where the child says that Obama was never president.

I think these photographs nail it. This is America.

Interesting, but the people you interviewed are not representative of everyone in the states, counties or towns you visited. The gritty pictures only serve to reinforce stereotypes people have of the flyover states.

These photos make the USA look like a very backwards society. I would never want to travel to this country if I read the NY Times overseas. Actually, I don't feel like ever going to any of the states that were used for this article. My bias is from before, and this reinforced it. Funny that these states decide who is elected to the White House...

Adding to my previous comment (I love this story—thoughtful and informative), I also really appreciate the design of this piece. The visualization of the journey through visual design, interactivity, photography, research and writing. When Trump keeps lying about the "NYT failing", we all know he's desperate and has no idea what he's doing or talking about. This paper truly is the beacon of hope, truth, innovation, craft, and creativity. Keep up the awesome work! I'm a fan!

What makes a person patriotic? For starters, taking the time to learn facts about the state of our Nation and the state of the World. And then voting intelligently based on those facts and an unselfish set of values.

Good story and nice to see but it seems out of keeping with the purported purpose of the piece, namely "What Does America Look Like Now". It seems like you went out of your way to show people who are not the "average" for their area but the minority. So, not a good picture of what the country looks like as a whole. Still, interesting to see so many from other parts.

The usual focus on parts of the country where few people live. Just like our early election states as tiny Iowa, NH etc every cycle (majority white populations > 95%) Get first dibs on winnowing out candidates.

Fine reporting by the writers, photographers, designers, and editors involved. Thank you.

Hmm, they found people. Just ordinary people. Take away the screaming fringe of the left and the right and you get people. I've been many places on this planet and mostly I meet people.

nice - see how the other half lives - might even help us understand why they voted for the DT's - and how we might change their future - for better

Beautiful article. I look forward to reading about some of the other roadtrips

A beautiful story about America. Very inspiring!

I so enjoyed this article. It showed ordinary Americans getting on with their lives, reaching out to their neighbors in their community and trying to fix some of the problems we are facing as a nation. I especially enjoyed the story of the farmer trying to figure out how to not add more pollution to our climate change problems. I felt some joy about being an ordinary citizen.

I hope you will continue this piece by visiting more/ all states. I enjoyed the focus on positive aspects of these communities; a refreshing tonic for today. Your journalists didn't lock into political boxes but illustrated with human-interest stories as did the photographers how life is changing and evolving here. Our new citizens are changing us as is our new appreciation for the differences in how families/groups can function. This is 2019: America's cities and towns stretching to accommodate the real world not just the East or West coast but the entire spread of our land and people. Good news.

I'm a photographer who's a big fan of Arnold's work. My question, though; why doesn't the NYT search out a local photographer to do these kinds of stories? If I recall, Arnold has some roots in Milwaukee, which is a good start. But there's a value in bringing in a local perspective to this kind of work, as well as giving a local photographer some exposure and boosting their career. Just a thought.

I'm curious why photographers when they take photos of 'real' America they go to Iowa. Why don't they go to New York? It's a story we've told ourselves for a century now: City folks are not truly American at least not as much as suburbanites or rural people. Somehow to be American means to live on the edge of society in its precarious border towns. In an increasingly volatile world we need a more resilient community based vision and move away from romanticizing the can-do lone ranger.

A very nice and interesting look at a slice of America. I saw a lot of what I consider patriotism in this piece. Patriotism to me is being willing to value the country over self, when the need or opportunity arises. It does not always mean being willing to fight in wars, but sometimes that is necessary (WWII comes to mind). Each one of these vignettes shows that. For instance, the naturalization of immigrants and the veteran housing. According to one statistic, about 13% of all veterans are either immigrants or are children of immigrants. The farm focusing on climate change shows patriotism as does the John Brown gun club.

This past summer I traveled across America hitting 34 states to assess the state of America. Like the reporters, I recorded my observations and shared them through a blog. I returned home hopeful for the future but cleared eyed about the challenges. Three observations are worth noting. 1. Our history that we teach our children needs to represent the minority experience. 2. Our leaders need to lift their eyes and set lofty goals that unify the nation in common purpose. 3. Social media provides a new venue for the credibility gap to thrive and disrupt trust. Strong physical communities foster a sense of belonging in important ways that virtual communities do not. We must truly belong to trust

This was a lovely story, and it gave me hope.