Democrats’ dodgy dealing could be another blow to Clinton
Emily Maitlis
BETWEEN the chaos of one US c o nve n t i o n , t h e Re p u b l i c a n s in Cleveland, and the next, the Democrats in Philadelphia, lay 10 hours of open road and another picture of America. I d rove i t wi t h a film c re w f ro m Newsnight, taking in rolling pastures and barren industrial wasteland. What unites them is that they are the highly prized elec toral battleground that could decide the next election.
Our first stop was the tiny Amish town of Volant. My cameraman pulled over to show me the meticulously hand-tied bundles of wheat . They use no electricity, no cars, no machinery — their way of life hasn’t changed for centuries.
Eve n though t h e y d i s l i ke b e i n g photographed they generously invited us onto their land, happy for us to film. As I looked behind me a row of tiny spec t ators gathered to watch our camera at work. Twelve Amish children standing on a hay wagon — the smallest just seven months old and already wearing the Amish bonnet, the eldest, her 12-year-old sister, guarding her in her arms, eyeballing me in silence.
It is easy to get sentimental about a people who seem so out of kilter with modern life. They are largely immune to the febrile political climate that has engulfed this country. They rarely vote. But here’s t he s t r a nge t hi ng: t hi s lifestyle — which predates globalisation — h a s b e c o me a sort of curious blueprint for those Americans who now feel left behind by the speed of change. Their self-sufficiency — call it sovereignty, even — can seem rather appealing to a nation that keeps on being told it is no longer great.
Concerns about globalisation voiced by Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are often traced back to the crash of 2008. But of course their roots grew decades a go wh e n all t h e h e av y industry left the Rust Belt towns — less than an hour away from Volant.
Alequippa — our next stop — used to be at the vanguard of steel manufactuing — the factories along its river bank at one time employing more than 150,000 people. Now there’s nothing left. The streets are deserted. The businesses a re s hu t . On h i s p o r c h wa t e r i n g scorched busy lizzies I found Phil Byren, a long-time resident. He’s too young to remember the steel mills but he heard stories of the time the city was great from his mum and grandma. When I asked him if there was cause for optimism, he suddenly perked up. “Theres a new tattoo parlour in town, so maybe we’ve turned a corner.” He wasn’t joking.
These former workers are natural Democrats — once Sanders voters. Two weeks ago he confirmed his backing f o r Hi l l a r y C l i n t o n , and told his supporters to do the same. But the scandal that engulfed the first day of the Democrat convention has changed the game. The par t y chair woman resigned after email leaks suggested she had backed Clinton over Sanders against party rules of neutrality. His supporters now feel vindic ated in voicing what they long suspected: the nomination was a stitch-up.
And that r i g h t n ow i s C l i n t o n’s problem: suddenly Trump’s nickname for his opponent — “Crooked Hillary” — strikes a chord. Not with Republicans, but with her own party. If the shrinking industrial heartland and the bucolic battleground that surrounds them doesn’t think she played fair they may choose to st ay home — or go elsewhere.