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How Trump May Win Ohio and Pennsylvania
The every-four-years parade of east coast journalists trooping out into the Rust Belt of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia and their neighbors has begun.
Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have run their stories. You can Google them (fine, here’s one), and the articles from smaller outlets that will follow, but I can save you some reading time, because they are all basically the same:
Oh my God, the Midwest is a freaking mess. Nobody has jobs, middle-aged white people are doing heroin and meth, and everyone is on food stamps. These people are angry as hell at, well, they say the government.
Trump and Hillary have been through (name the one small town you stopped in) and promised to bring back the old industrial jobs (Trump) or some hi-tech something (Hillary.) I stopped by a (diner, bar, waffle house, VFW hall) and talked to (name of the one guy you talked to.) He told me times are tough, but these people are tough. They built the mills, they pulled America up by its bootstraps. They’ll make it. Quote some Bruce Springsteen song you heard that afternoon driving east as fast as you could. Done.
The reporter then rushes back to New York to bathe in Purell and drown his/her disgust in warm PBRs and Starbucks spiced lattes. Next story is about a new start-up in Brooklyn that is creating a social media platform for dogs or something.
Understanding the Heartland
Most reporters act shocked to find people “out there” so angry. They can’t understand why the “folks” take food stamps but think handouts are for lazy people. They can’t understand why someone without health insurance, coughing up chunks of the asbestos they breathed in every day at the factory, opposes Obamacare.
The people the reporters speak with feel they got cheated. They worked hard, they paid taxes, they sent kids off to war (every small Midwest town has a memorial stone, if not three, to the local people who died in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq…) Then they got screwed by, well, someone. The lucky ones now work for minimum wage at a local Walmart full of junk made overseas. The rest visit the charity pantries and spend their food stamps not because they are lazy like “those people” (a code word for urban African-Americans; the few people of color in these towns tend to feel the same way), but because they are hungry. They wait like a cargo cult for the boom years to return, someday, somehow.
Trump gets this at a visceral level. He tells them it is not their fault, or his, though both share blame. It was the Japanese, or the Chinese, or some mythical Big Government, or regulations, or even the unions that gave the same workers higher pay and good benefits. It doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to play to a crowd angry and confused looking every four years for some answer, and some hope.
I Saw Them, The Ghosts of Tom JoadI grew up in Ohio during the 1970s and 80s, and watched the industrial heartland fall apart in front of my eyes. Our town had a huge Ford plant. It was sold to Toyota, who cut jobs by half before closing it all down because they got better tax incentives in Kentucky. I don’t know what happened in Kentucky, but I can guess.
I wrote a book about all this, the last fifty years of the Midwest. When you look at it as a historical event, today’s state of things is as inevitable as sunset.
The book is Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the 99 Percent. Close to four years ago I tried to sell it to a couple of the larger publishers in New York. No literary agent wanted it, no publisher was interested. As one put it, declining me, “You’re saying there’s poor people in Ohio?” Another was clearer: “Who wants to read a book about unemployed whites?”
The first publisher outside of New York I approached, one located in Indiana, immediately took the book.
How Trump May Win the Swing StatesI fully doubt Donald Trump has read my book, or many books at all for that matter. Someone on Trump’s team, however, is very aware of the unfocused anger in the Midwest I wrote about, and is working hard to use that to get some votes. If Trump takes the swing states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, it will be because of that staffer’s insight. Maybe s/he’ll write a book about it.
Until then, here’s more about my book, Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the 99 Percent:
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
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chuck said...
1Is amerika the “Cracle Barrel” and then some, Nation?
09/18/16 9:09 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
2Killary/ 2016 ?
09/18/16 9:09 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
3We came we saw he died. Was he black? R or D? Part of the MIC?
09/18/16 9:11 PM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
4Yes, there are lots of dumbasses in PA and Ohio, but not enough of them bother to vote ’cause they are angry and voting is a big waste of time, and besides the elections are fixed ’cause Donald Trump, their dark lord and savior, said, so they will get their guns and follow idiots like the governor of Kenfucky and the dark lord himself who said guns is the only way they can save one their sacred second amendement, so when the time comes the rapture leaves their sorry behinds behind they can blow their brains out, ’cause like Donald Trump, their dark lord and savior said, “it’s all meaningless anyway.”
09/18/16 9:39 PM | Comment Link
teri said...
5“Trump gets this at a visceral level.”
Indeed. I keep telling people that they misunderstand Trump’s appeal. He does not believe in anything, except money and the getting of money. He has no core beliefs, no core values, no core set of principles or policies upon which to build a platform. It doesn’t matter. He is a hustler, a salesman, a pitchman – and he is the best at it I have ever seen. He doesn’t have to believe his product is any good; as a matter of fact, he knows for sure his product won’t perform as advertised. All he has to do is read the crowd and perfect the pitch to get the crowd to believe. This is his talent. If you can stand it, watch him work a crowd from start to finish at one of his rallies. He just throws things out until he gets a positive reaction from the crowd and that is his cue to run with whatever idea engendered that response. HE doesn’t have to believe his snake-oil will cure baldness and erectile dysfunction – YOU do.
I don’t think he’s even aware of it. (He’s blissfully unaware of pretty much everything.) He just reads the crowd, he merges with them and “feels” them unconsciously. I don’t even think he is truly a racist or a misogynist. He is a casual “drive-by racist/misogynist”: if the racist pitch is selling to the people he happens to be with that day, he’ll go along with it. He doesn’t care enough about anyone but himself to have strong feelings one way or the other about such details as the race and gender of other humans. [Note that this drive-by racism is just as harmful to the body politic as bone-deep personally-held racism. My point is that nothing the man says comes from a place of deep personal belief. He has no personal beliefs, as I pointed out to start with.]
Unfortunately for his supporters, they can’t understand that like all good conmen, Trump’s main goal is to get their money out of their pockets and into his. If he loses the race, he will probably sue the Republicans for making him spend his own money to run. If he wins, he won’t last long for a variety of reasons, but whatever time he spends in office will be used to garner more tax breaks for the extremely wealthy and to build up even more corporate power. His supporters won’t know what hit them.
Too bad the Democrats purposefully did in Bernie Sanders. The country is at a loggerheads, ready to turn hard right or hard left, and the Democrats took out the guy who could have beaten Trump in a landslide. Clinton, on the other hand, is equally hard right as Trump – maybe even more so with her incessant war cries and obvious support of the MIC, but she is correctly distrusted as a congenital liar by the voters. I’m not sure why they don’t believe her ever-changing bullshit, but they do believe his, except perhaps the difference is simply his unerring ability to mind-meld with the crowd. She hasn’t got it.
[Please do take note: I’m not saying all this out of admiration for Trump. I’m just trying to understand what is going on here. I loathe Trump. I loathe Clinton. I won’t vote for either one and the oligarchy and corporate sponsors who spewed them out for us during this joke of an “election”. They can go straight to hell, but I will not cast a vote saying I want to go there with them.]
09/19/16 6:10 AM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
6Assuming Hillarious wins, the idiot’s past– Wikileaks where are you? – will catch up to her and the Republicans will raise Kaine and impeach her before she serves her hundred days.
09/19/16 7:38 AM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
7http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2016/09/18/apologizing-daughter-last-15-years-war/
Evil’s got to go somewhere. What the hell, peace breaks out here in Colombia, so it’s Amerika’s turn in the barrel.
09/19/16 8:12 AM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
8Like in “The Exorcist” evil starts at the top. Rats.
https://tcf.org/content/commentary/house-intelligence-committees-terrible-horrible-bad-snowden-report/
09/19/16 8:24 AM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
9teri said:
” He has no personal beliefs, as I pointed out to start with.”
umm, yes he does. One, and only one. He believes in himself, as most profound BRAND on the planet.
Two days ago, I posted a link to an article about his “foundation” and the business dealings selling his BRAND in countries around this planet, that would be a conflict of interest of biblical proportions. Ha. Within 12 hours, he claimed he would totally “divest” himself from the foundation,. right. By turning it over to his family. un hunh.
He won’t need it.
I’ve got $1k that says, IF, he does get elected, he’ll erect a giant sign over the White House. You know.. with his brand.. TRUMP. And he’ll rename it the TrumpHouse. More over, he’ll write an EO forcing the Mint to put his picture on the $100 bill. And giant billboards over government buildings with HIS portrait on them. Just like every dictator on the planet. And, he’ll use taxpayers money to set up meetings, on HIS GOLF COURSES/HOTELS etc. You know… to market his brand to foreign dignitaries. He’ll tap every conceivable loophole, POTUS advantage and lobbyist dollar possible. But here’s the real scary part.
He WILL find a way, to use the NSA, FBI, IRS, ad nauseum, for personal political and corporate intelligence, from spying on and ruining his competition, be it world wide corporate or political enemies. He’ll make Nixon look like a 6yr old stealing marbles.
But that’s only the beginning. Eventually, he’ll turn the US into… the United States of Trump.
And the Dumbest Country on the Planet will cheer.
Cue..the antiChrist.
we now return you to your previously scheduled program. Thanks for watching.
bartender.. leave the bottle of Everclear.
09/19/16 9:12 AM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
10ich bauer said…
“Like in “The Exorcist” evil starts at the top.”
Indeed. But evil only exists because good men don’t kill the government agents perpetrating it. At least.. till the government starts kicking in doors to confiscate weapons.
Frankly, his embrace of the 2nd Amendment and his incendiary remarks about 2nd Amendment “people” in regards to Clinton, might come back to bite him in the ass. Lord.. make my day.
09/19/16 9:19 AM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
11teri said:
“I loathe Trump. I loathe Clinton. I won’t vote for either one and the oligarchy and corporate sponsors who spewed them out for us during this joke of an “election”. They can go straight to hell, but I will not cast a vote saying I want to go there with them.”
I think you speak for very large portion of Amerika, notwithstanding every poster here.
Last night, I had a dream that Clinton dies from pneumonia next week. Sanders steps in and the nation is saved from nuclear damnation. And then I woke up. Poured a drink, and smiled. Best damned dream I ever had.
🙂
09/19/16 9:25 AM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
12Knowing how much Obama wants to skedaddle (he’d use such a corny word) out of the White House a disputed 2016 election outcome might force him to stay a little longer. Maybe he’d hand over the reins to his pal Biden as a gesture of love and appreciation.
09/19/16 9:27 AM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
13oh, I forgot the best part. Clinton gave Trump a blowjob… giving him pneumonia too. Trump is too stupid to know it’s contagious.
09/19/16 9:29 AM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
14Pitch – Trump on the one hundred dollar bill? Nah. He’d want his image on currency that is handled daily by the admiring proles. A one dollar or twenty dollar bill is my guess.
09/19/16 9:37 AM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
15ps.. teri said..
“…this joke of an “election”. ”
Indeed. If this nation survives, which is a BIG if.. this election may well be the one that changes the whole election process, notwithstanding, the ruse of “super delegates”. But I ain’t holding my breath.. after all.. the DCOTP will still be here. And you can’t cure stupidity.
However, it WILL go down as the most bizarre, corrupt, theater of the absurd, election in the history of the US. Unfortunately, it also threw out all the rules. From this point on.. all is fair. I wouldn’t doubt.. the next election will see “debates” where candidates will challenge others to a duel. The DCOTP will go nuts!! I can see it now. The most watched “reality” show on the planet. Brought to you by …Coca Cola!!
I wonder who will be the host.
🙂
09/19/16 9:41 AM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
16“These people are angry as hell at, well, they say the government.”
You mean the one with all the illegal surveillance that got US nothin.
09/19/16 9:45 AM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
17If it was legal to bet on the chance the Trump-Pence ticket wins, Vegas would stop taking bets on Clinton:
http://www.businessinsider.com/mike-pence-dick-cheney-vice-president-2016-9
09/19/16 9:49 AM | Comment Link
chuck said...
18PVB on Tom Dispatch and the Guardian today.
09/19/16 11:32 AM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
19Hey, Pitch, we have fan in Matt Taibbi:
“No doubt about it, the country is in a brutal spot right now. We are less than two months from the possibility of one of the DUMBEST PEOPLE ON THE PLANET winning the White House.”
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/stop-whining-about-false-balance-w440228
09/19/16 11:49 AM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
20Angry people can make changes…for Craig Murray:
“After a 16,000 person petition to the State Department and letter writing and lobbying including by Jeremy Corbyn, Roger Waters and Daniel Ellsberg, I have been granted a 10 year US visa. Following my initial refusal of ESTA clearance and the offer then withdrawal of help from the US Embassy in London, it is only fair to say that the staff of the US Consulate in Belfast could not have been more pleasant and helpful, and my “interview” lasted thirty seconds. It is however a disgrace and an insult that the US issues visas in Belfast but not Edinburgh.
I will be going to Washington in a week to have the great honour to chair the presentation of the Sam Adams Award to John Kiriakou – the CIA agent who blew the whistle on waterboarding, and was jailed for it as part of the disgraceful Obama/Clinton War on Whistleblowers.”
Hell, it’s a start.
09/19/16 1:09 PM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
21If the Republicans have their way, Obomba and Hillarious will be sharing of cell of their own,
09/19/16 1:18 PM | Comment Link
wemeantwell said...
22I’ve a story up on the Guardian if anyone wants to see it:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/19/post-911-america-terrorism-fear-us-diplomat
And my thanks to our own Kyzl Orda for a comment there whacking the State Dept for persecuting me.
09/19/16 1:29 PM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
23I think getting fired for exposing the waste that is the Iraq reconstruction qualifies as doing enough in this world, where “go shopping” is the only thing the government asked of its dumbass citizens.
09/19/16 1:54 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
24I would give PVB a like, and comment of support for his article, but The Guardian has banned me for over a year. Saves me time I guess! Home of the Free from comments.
09/19/16 2:56 PM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
25“I would give PVB a like, and comment of support for his article, but The Guardian has banned me for over a year. Saves me time I guess! Home of the Free from comments.”
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. That’s US! Besides, those Nazi-moderators all need to get laid.
09/19/16 5:06 PM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
26Trump won’t win in New York ’cause the criminals there can always spot a real one:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/09/19/report-thieves-helped-crack-bombing.html
09/19/16 5:14 PM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
27Bauer- Hillary says Trump may be guilty of treason with his imflamatory remarks concerning Muslims. Hey, we all knew this election cycle would be a looney tune episode. Maybe he can be arrested and rendered to ……………..Camp McDougal for interrogation and “reeducation”. Hillary may have a Pol Pot action figure doll she keeps hidden and plays with when she feels a little stressed.
09/19/16 6:52 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
28rich said”
I will be going to Washington in a week to have the great honour to chair the presentation of the Sam Adams Award to John Kiriakou – the CIA agent who blew the whistle on waterboarding, and was jailed for it as part of the disgraceful Obama/Clinton War on Whistleblowers.”
Holy fuck!!! Really??? Man, I feel like I’m a dumb shit walking amongst milestones.
09/19/16 7:20 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
29Pitch,I think he was quoting Craig Murray !
09/19/16 10:25 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
30Wells Fargo in the news today with CEO before congress. Didn’t the DNC have a gathering or Coronation at Wells Fargo Center recently?
09/20/16 7:42 AM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
31Chuck- you and everyone here know the meeting is PR theatre. The plutocracy sometimes hauls one of their own into the town square for some mild tongue lashing. They then adjoin to some swanky bistro and laugh at how the ruse always seems to work. The proles love it and feel vindicated.
09/20/16 8:40 AM | Comment Link
chuck said...
32“Then they adjoin”.. and write and accept checks, and make laws accordingly for the people (the 1% people.
09/20/16 8:44 AM | Comment Link
chuck said...
33Ex CIA Director is “With Her”. W. W. W. D. ……… What will Jr. do?!
09/20/16 8:47 AM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
34It doesn’t matter if Trump or Clinton leads the Dumbest Country on the Planet. With so many lunatics living in a different world, this country should give up the false pretense of a “United” States of America:
“NBC News poll conducted in June and July found that 72 percent of registered Republican voters still doubt President Obama’s place of birth. And 41 percent outright disagreed with the statement, “Barack Obama was born in the United States”. After Trump’s admission that, “YES, Barack Obama was born in the United States,” 51 percent of voters who back Trump said Obama was not born in the U.S., according to a YouGov/Economist poll.”
Get ready to RUMBLE!!!!
09/20/16 9:03 AM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
35Bauer-NOW you’re getting at my bitch I’ve had for decades. America should have been maybe four or five separate nations. Ah, but that manifest desinty thingee and hubris beyond any Greek demigod’s temperament.. The settlers wanted it all- from sea to shining sea. Now we are an ungovernable mess and it was so predictable. Over 300 million ‘murkans”. No way that can really work. The future of the North American Continent might look very different in 100 years with perhaps five autonomous regions being run independently and no DC running the show.
09/20/16 9:36 AM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
36It can’t happen here?
Colombia descended into a 52-year civil war after the assassination of Jorge Gaitan, who would have been president. Amerika’s got lots more guns and nuts. Colombia got over its madness. Amerika may prove there is balance in the universe.
09/20/16 11:44 AM | Comment Link
chuck said...
37Rich…. Years ago I had lunch with Cynthia McKinney. The U.S. did not want the United States of Africa, according to her. Believe, Hope, Change, and millions from speeches.
09/20/16 2:20 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
38America is great! Does that include N and S ?
09/20/16 2:22 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
39Congratulations U.S. and sheeple. This week was the first alert regarding pressure cookers, etc to cell phones. Same week as Snowden movie. Feel safe. Kill your cell phone.
09/20/16 2:31 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
40Does PVB pay $178 MILLION A YEAR FOR COLLEGE?
09/20/16 2:43 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
41FOR THOSE VIEWING THIS SITE FOR THE FIRST TIME,PETER VAN BUREN IS BUSY EDUCATING, AND NOT ABLE TO UPDATE THIS SITE DUE TO REACHING THE PEOPLE. WAGE PEACE AND JUSTICE…updates soon I believe, change , hope, etc. .
09/20/16 2:54 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
42(that message was not approved by any candidate) Think write in! I have written in Chelsea, Bradley, Assange, and pets.
09/20/16 3:08 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
43Educate.
09/20/16 3:13 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
44Organize.
09/20/16 3:14 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
45Agitate.
09/20/16 3:14 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
46Repeat, and phuck voting. 1 million in the streets soon. How about Jan. 20th for whoever !
09/20/16 3:20 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
47TPP protest in DC around Nov 12. Join…
09/20/16 3:42 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
48time out. exhale. educate
09/20/16 3:58 PM | Comment Link
chuck said...
49How about this….
09/20/16 5:53 PM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
50How about…we spend some of the taxpayer’s money and hire some intelligent counter-terrorism agents who can spot a real terrorist, like in Boston, New York, Orlando…
09/21/16 7:25 AM | Comment Link
rich bauer said...
51The eternal question: is they really that incompetent or is they that corrupt? Fear is the great motivator to keep America controlled by Deep State, and I don’t mean the white elephant on 23rd and C St. Would explain the FBI’s incompetence in the Anthrax “investigation.”
http://www.unz.com/article/deep-state-america-2/
09/21/16 8:03 AM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
52Bauer- thanks for the link to deep state article. The Muslims are ridiculted for clinging to a 14th century mindset but what about the Jews who cling to a much earlier and just as goofy mindset.
Their exceptionalism is very vulnerable to dismissal. I understand their concern since I still cling to Apollo for bailing me out out an existential crisis.
09/21/16 11:00 AM | Comment Link