Ohioans back Trump while prosperity lags
Ohioans cast 53.3% of their Nov. 3 votes for Donald Trump, bigger than Trump's 2016 Ohio margin. And for the first time since 1960, Ohio voted for the loser, not the winner (Joe Biden).
That prompted bystanders to ask, “Why has Ohio changed?” But that's the wrong question. Here's the right one: “Why hasn't Ohio changed?”
Meaning: Ohio hasn't changed in ways that would build better lives for rank-and-file Ohioans. Median household income was $54,533 in Ohio 2018; nationwide, it was $60,294.
And the last time per capita personal income in Ohio matched or exceeded national per capita income was in 1969.
Bystanders dismayed by Ohioans' support for Trump will argue that the president really hasn't done anything to boost Ohio incomes. Politically, that's not the point. Like all successful demagogues, Trump has a gift for amplifying the grievances of people who believe they've been ignored.
Example: Mahoning County (Youngstown). The county gave Trump 50.4% of its vote. Only twice in 88 years had Mahoning backed a Republican for president (1972, Nixon; 1956, Eisenhower). Skeptics will say, correctly, Trump was more talk than action about the social and economic wreckage in the Mahoning Valley. But what return did Youngstown, etc., get on its almost 100-year investment in Democrats?
The saintly Jimmy Carter pulled the rug out from under a plan to preserve Youngstown steel jobs after the 1977 shutdowns. And the Youngstown area was a seedbed of future Sen. John Glenn's political career. Decade after decade, Mahoning gave Glenn and fellow Democratic Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (albeit, despite a vicious feud Mahoning's machine had with Metzenbaum) huge majorities.
What did Mahoning get, considering its tsunami of Democratic votes? Nada. In contrast, every West Virginia county seat seems to have big federal offices and scads of federal jobs, thanks to the late Robert C. Byrd, the state's long-term Democratic senator. Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama took Ohio's Democrats for granted. Those days are over.
Or consider Lorain County: It voted for John Kennedy in 1960; Theodore Roosevelt, the Bull Moose Progressive, in 1912; and narrowly, for Hillary Clinton in 2016. It gave 50.6% of its votes to Trump Tuesday.
Then ponder this:
• Ohio's median age is 39.4 years. The nation's median is 38.2 years. And 17% of Ohioans are aged 65 years or older, the Development Services Agency reports.
• Ohio has lost enormous numbers of good-paying manufacturing jobs. Research by William J. Skhurti (once state budget director) and Fran Stewart found that among three key reasons for those job losses (domestic competition, foreign competition and automation) automation was most important, so Ohio must “make sure … workers are able to update their skills.” Yet Ohio underfunds education.
• About 4.5% of Ohioans are foreignborn; the nationwide proportion is 13.9%. Crucially, the census also reports “47.4% of (America's) foreign-born population (arriving) … over the past decade had a college degree.” In contrast, the proportion of Ohioans with a four-year degree is 27.8%; nationally it's 31.5%. (Disclosure: I am also a college teacher.)
• In 2019, about 11.9% of employed Ohioans were union members; in 1989, about 21.3% were. Union jobs pay more, and unions tend to support Democrats.
Sum-up: Our legislature-in-a-hammock hasn't positioned Ohio for real economic growth.
Then this: In 1968, with three tinystate exceptions, no non-slave state besides Ohio gave a bigger share of its presidential vote to anti-black demagogue George C. Wallace (13.5%).
And his votes came not just from the usual Ohio suspects but also from some Ohio union members, notably among United Auto Workers. The counties where Wallace ran strongly (Warren, Clermont, Butler) were all-in for Trump this month.
Neo-liberal economics backed by both parties (moving manufacturing jobs overseas to cut wages here) and racial ire stoked by Republicans have weakened Democrats. Ohio's New Deal coalition was never that strong (Democratic then-gov. Martin L. Davey continuously feuded with fellow Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt's federal administration.)
Unless and until Democrats recapture the General Assembly to move Ohio beyond the status quo, that's what life (and bank accounts) for many Ohioans will remain — status quo.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com