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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums'We will turn on him so quick': Rust Belt voters who put faith in Trump expect results
CBC News visits Pennsylvania, where voters decided to give Donald Trump a chance to bring back jobs
By Terence McKenna,
Donald Trump won the U.S. election by breaking down Hillary Clinton's "blue wall," the handful of Rust Belt states that were considered reliably Democratic but switched over to the Republicans this time.
In the days leading up to his inauguration, many of the folks in the region who spoke with CBC News were eyeing Trump suspiciously. Just because they voted for him doesn't mean they trust him.
The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area of northeastern Pennsylvania is a great example.
For many years, 95 per cent of the hard coal burned in the Western Hemisphere came from here. At its peak, 175,000 people worked in the Pennsylvania coal industry. Now there are only a few thousand coal jobs.
more
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-voters-rust-belt-1.3937862
mreilly
(2,120 posts)Trump is going to be a disaster for them, make no mistake about that. But the alt-right fake news sites are gearing up to spin, distort, delude and defend him in any way possible.
I suspect when these chumps find themselves screwed by Trump instead of grabbing torches and pitchforks they will be glassy-eyed, numbly repeating the phrase:
Hillary would have been worse.
Hillary would have been worse.
Hillary would have been worse.
Hillary would have been worse.
That is, if we allow the lying right-wing fake news pricks and their sycophants to own the narrative in the days ahead, and complacently ignore or avoid the news since it's too painful and frustrating to watch!
mountain grammy
(26,648 posts)brooklynite
(94,727 posts)...they won't be likely to pay attention to your narrative.
crazycatlady
(4,492 posts)We're not going to win any votes by calling people deplorables.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)3catwoman3
(24,041 posts)If you don't trust someone, shouldn't that dissuade you from voting for that person?
bdamomma
(63,922 posts)would refrain from voting for a con artist, but then again those who voted for him were conned.
raccoon
(31,119 posts)judge to the SCOTUS.
bdamomma
(63,922 posts)because they liked what they saw on the Apprentice People voted for him because they thought they knew him sure they did
why does anyone think that the 1% who have the money care about those who don't...............sigh.
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)That's got to be the ONLY reason anyone would think "President Donald Trump" was ever a great idea in the first place.
CrispyQ
(36,509 posts)They voted repubs into every fucking corner of government. The GOP is going to do what it wants to do, voters be damned.
maxrandb
(15,351 posts)It will be him who will "turn on them so quick"
bdamomma
(63,922 posts)away their guns!
randr
(12,414 posts)We have been and still are a nation, if not planet, of migrants. Living in Colorado I have friends and neighbors from almost every State. Many from the central states. Most people move for employment.
Also living in a Blue State I recognize that many jobs are created by creative entrepreneurs all the time. Look at the job and business start ups in all the blue states compared with the rust belt area.
I am sure there are many entrepreneurial people doing wonderful things in those areas, just not enough of them.
Response to n2doc (Original post)
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riversedge
(70,299 posts)buttons!! NONE AT ALL!
https://i.cbc.ca/1.3938331.1484604176!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_620/usa-election-trump.jpg
"TRUMP DIGS COAL" were popular signs when the Republican candidate campaigned in Pennsylvania. (Steve Helber/Associated Press)
Rich Zawatsky, a former Democrat who voted for Trump, says he wouldn't want his sons to work in the coal mines even if Trump was able to get them going again. As he listened to Trump during the campaign, he says he thought, "There's no way on God's good earth that I'm going to send my boys back into a hole."
Nevertheless, Zawatsky felt Trump's heart was in the right place concerning the need to create jobs, and that was good enough to win his vote. If Trump doesn't deliver, Zawatsky says he'll switch again and vote to kick him out.
"We will turn on him so quick, with a vengeance."
Media placeholder
Democrats for Trump1:22
Jobs are also unlikely to come flooding back to Pennsylvania's steel Industry. The U.S. produces as much steel as it ever has but with 75 per cent fewer workers. There is zero chance, for example, they're going to fire back up the massive Bethlehem Steel factory that was mothballed in 1995. Its ruins have since become a tourist attraction.
Trump railed against NAFTA and other trade agreements when he visited the area, but a study from Indiana's Ball State University estimates 88% of lost American factory jobs disappeared because of automation, not trade agreements.
Scranton Factory
Some massive shuttered factories in Pennsylvania have been left to decay. (Alex Shprintsen/CBC)
Wilkes University political scientist Tom Baldino says, "There's kind of an urban mythology that says, 'Oh we lost these jobs to Mexico,' but you just don't need as many people on an assembly line or making things as we once did."..................................
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)...Vladimir Putin, that is.
I'm speaking from Canada.
Putin's geopolitical objective is as clear as it is simple: to destabilize the USA in order to reduce its hegemony. To that end he supported Donald Trump's candidacy. Not despite the fact that he is an incompetent buffoon, but because of it. That's why Russia is making no big issue out of the dossier. Putin even used the word "prostitutes" today, as a way of making sure you know Trump is a buffoon, and that you know that Putin knows.
When Trump inevitably fails to deliver, America is going to turn on itself, and his voters - who have had their urges toward physical and political violence validated throughout this sorry process - will be primed to explode.
Putin knows you can't get rid of Trump legally - impeachment would cost the Republicans their political futures and their party, so they can't support it. Assassination would plunge the country into grand mal seizures.
Given that Trump remains in power, his actions are likely to destabilize Europe, another region that Putin wants to to neuter geopolitically. American relations China are already taking a hit, and will get much worse over the next four years. America will be so busy trying to cope with the walking catastrophe of an incompetent President they can't get rid of, that you will not be able to present any credible counterbalance to Russia's expanding geopolitical influence.
My big fear (that is being realized more clearly every day) is that Putin, true to his KGB roots, has executed what's called a "stitch-up" - on your entire country. You may be far more fucked than you realize. Reacting by mocking Trump and Putin is not going to be helpful.
On edit: Turning on Trump supporters, as viscerally satisfying as that may be, plays straight into Putin's game. But I don't think you'll be able to avoid it, at this point.
Locrian
(4,522 posts)I'm reading "The Devil's Chessboard" - history of the CIA / Dulles brothers etc.
Putin is executing the same type of destabilization and interference we made a game. It's win-win for him: trump is either a puppet or a wrecking ball.
>> Turn on Trump supporters, as viscerally satisfying as that may be, plays straight into Putin's game. But I don't think you'll be able to avoid it, at this point.
1000x yes. I cannot believe how the left is falling for the divide and conquer strategy
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)This has been a masterstroke by Putin.
The game has already been played, and the USA has lost. Big time.
What a fucking nightmare,
Locrian
(4,522 posts)putin knows what we (the US) did to russia, economically unleashing disaster capitalism on them. Not that he didn't profit.
trump may succeed in turning the us into the same 20's mobster economy that russia has. mission accomplished for putin.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Put that together with the well-understood and well-deserved Russian neurosis about national security, and you have a mix that could power schemes even darker than this one.
Arazi
(6,829 posts)Pleas for unity amongst the Dems here and our allies is failing let alone any attempt to reach Trump voters
bdamomma
(63,922 posts)thanks for your truthfulness.
GoCubsGo
(32,088 posts)It all strikes me as a coordinated campaign to bash the Democrats and diminish Hillary. Although, at least the CBC put some of them on record as saying they'll turn on him if he doesn't give them what they want. Better start pulling out those torches and pitchforks now, suckers.
yodermon
(6,143 posts)and even offer up their children as sacrifices in the ensuing war.
Within 9 months. Call it Sept. 11th 2.0, maybe nuclear version.
Certainly no one will be talking about "jobs" or "health insurance". How quaint.
Why do you think he can say such obviously bullshit statements like "we will make sure EVERYONE has coverage" blah blah blah.
The repukes would love nothing better than to see some major population center and their annoying liberal voters/electoral votes eliminated.
sorry if this is too extreme
uponit7771
(90,363 posts)otohara
(24,135 posts)based on the lies and promises a vulgar con artists told them.
.
GeorgeGist
(25,323 posts)... cause their judgment is piss poor.
dalton99a
(81,570 posts)The Polack MSgt
(13,192 posts)Now that folks are actually being asked to explain themselves, they will say anything to hide the fact that they voted to restore white male supremacy.
All other reasons and explanations are camouflage and misdirection
They, well the vast majority of them at least, won't turn on Trump - ever.
His performance is unimportant, his presence is victory enough
Blanks
(4,835 posts)And hate radio. The 'perpetually hopeful that the jobs will come back' population will be sucking up to the republicans.
The problem isn't just automation (for workers) it's centralization. Large corporations have consolidated the means of production so that the factories are few, and the resources are separated from the processing.
The people harvesting raw materials have no voice, and no control over their product, and the people processing have no control over their product. Everything is mass produced, so it's not cost effective to compete on a small scale. Competition is dead.
What we will see is just like Reagan, it was all Carter's fault. For example 'Farm Aid' - first concert 1985. Reagan had been in office over 4 years. Farmers were still going bankrupt because of Carter. Carter was a farmer himself. He had tightened up the 'money supply' because inflation was out of control. The president must be made responsible for the shit that's going south on his watch.
Reagan could have come up with a program that assisted farmers (much like Obama had a program to help responsible homeowners after the bubble) instead, he just blamed it all on Carter.
We have to identify the solutions accurately and be hyper critical when those solutions are not applied aggressively. The problem is lack of competition, and anti-trust regulations need to be enforced, the Teddy Roosevelt model is the model that we need to work toward.
Initech
(100,102 posts)lindysalsagal
(20,730 posts)Is there anyone left to blame their problems on? Bernie?