Misreading the Tea Leaves

For John, BLUF:  I don't think the "Liberal Media" wants to understand Trump voters.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Johnstown Never Believed Trump Would Help. They Still Love Him Anyway.

I am not sure about the provenance of this story.  I got it as a link from The New York Times, but it is actually from Politico and only mentioned in The New York Times in a column by Mr David Brooks.  The actual author is a Mr Michael Kruse and the dateline is 8 November 2017.

The sub headline is:

In a depressed former steel town, the president’s promises don’t matter as much as they once did.

Here is the lede plus one:

Pam Schilling is the reason Donald Trump is the president.

Schilling’s personal story is in poignant miniature the story of this area of western Pennsylvania as a whole—one of the long-forgotten, woebegone spots in the middle of the country that gave Trump his unexpected victory last fall.  She grew up in nearby Nanty Glo, the daughter and granddaughter of coal miners.  She once had a union job packing meat at a grocery store, and then had to settle for less money at Walmart.  Now she’s 60 and retired, and last year, in April, as Trump’s shocking political ascent became impossible to ignore, Schilling’s 32-year-old son died of a heroin overdose.  She found needles in the pockets of the clothes he wore to work in the mines before he got laid off.

Desperate for change, Schilling, like so many other once reliable Democrats in these parts, responded enthusiastically to what Trump was saying—building a wall on the Mexican border, repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, bringing back jobs in steel and coal.  That’s what Trump told them.  At a raucous rally in late October, right downtown in their minor-league hockey arena, he vowed to restore the mines and the mills that had been the lifeblood of the region until they started closing some 40 years ago, triggering the “American carnage” Trump would talk about in his inaugural address: massive population loss, shrinking tax rolls, communal hopelessness and ultimately a raging opioid epidemic.  When Trump won, people here were ecstatic.  But they’d heard generations of politicians make big promises before, and they were also impatient for him to deliver.

So far he has the picture right, but he seems to be missing something.  What he is missing is that the voters he interviewed are with President Trump because they think he is with them and that he is fighting a monumental battle with the powers that be in DC, both Republican and Democrat.  They don't think he can work magic, but they do believe he is trying.  And, they believe the Swamp People are trying to tear down President Trump, so they (the Swamp People) can go back to business as usual.

It isn't that I didn't learn something new.  For example, I always thought the borough of Nancy Glow had a one word name.  Now I know that it is two words, or three if you go back to the Welsh.

But you learn as you go along.  I have always thought the line in Oh My Darling, Clementine was "wearing boxes without topses", but this morning I found out it goes "herring boxes without topses."  Over half a century overturned, thanks to the internet.  I blame my Fifth Grade Teacher.

Mr Kruse wrote this otherwise good piece through the lens of "these people are being betrayed by President Trump."

The other problem is Mr Kruse tries to make all those Trump Supporters in Johnstown out as racists.  He closes his story off with a comment by Mr Dave McCabe, a retired High School Basket Ball Coach.♠  Mr McCabe had come up with a clever turn of phrase for the meaning of NFL, and while he wouldn't share it with Writer Kruse, his wife did.  It is what we would call "racist".  So, Mr McCabe, and his wife, and all the Trump Supporters in Johnstown end up looking, in the article, like Les Deplorables.  Easily dismissed for their backward ideas, including being upset with football players who take a knee at the National Anthem.

Mr Kruse had a chance to present some good information, but in the end he whiffed.  We are left to view these Western Pennsylvania "bitter clingers" as ignorant racists, based on someone trying to be clever and ending up being awkward.  Mr Kruse doesn't ask if this kind of word play goes on in other communities in the Hillary Lilly Pads, nor does he ask if it goes on in Black communities.  No, it is just those retarded Trumpies.

And here is a Link to the original David Brooks article in The New York Times.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  I wonder if that is the high school my paternal grandfather was helping to build when he had a heart attack on the job site?