USA TODAY International Edition
TRUMP STOKES HOPE, WORRY IN RUST BELT
States that helped swing election await the effects
About 20 miles separate Randall Shelton’s and Cecile Taylor’s homes in Wayne County, Mich. It’s the gulf between their expectations for Donald Trump’s presidency that seems unbridgeable.
Shelton, 63, a disabled autoworker in Allen Park, hopes Trump — an “angry white man” like him, he says — will create jobs and crack down on illegal immigration. Too much is given to people “who haven’t paid into the American pie,” he says.
Taylor, a college administrator from Canton, Mich., despairs over Trump’s election. She worries about what he’ll mean to race relations, to minority rights, to America’s place in the world.
“I’m desperately trying to find some light at the end of a tunnel we haven’t even started down,” said Taylor, 52. “I’ve never been more anxious in my life.”
Trump will take the oath of office Friday. Tapping into voter anger and Democratic disaffection not seen since Ronald Reagan, the president- elect won the election, aided by a near- sweep in the industrial Rust Belt, despite losing the popular ballot by nearly 3 million votes.
By flipping three states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — by a total of less than 80,000 votes, he won.
Those three states together hadn’t backed a Republican nominee since Reagan in 1984. Trump’s victory wasn’t just about them: It was about Ohio and Iowa, which twice backed Barack Obama. It was about Indiana, which supported Obama in 2008 but now looks out of reach for Democrats. And it was about Kentucky, which voted for Hillary Clinton’s husband, Bill, twice in the ’ 90s but rejected her by 30 percentage points.
In Trump, said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., voters — especially white, working- class ones — heard an economic and cultural clarion call they hadn’t heard since Reagan: Their losses could be reversed.
Trade deals could be torn up. Coal could be big again. Manufacturing could return.
“These are people whose lives have been transformed over the last couple of decades, hitting them in their families and where they live. They don’t have the skills, they can’t pick up and go,” Madonna said. “These are people who had no expectation that their lives could be better until Trump.”
They’re voters such as Ryan Wylie, 26, of Detroit, who is unemployed and supported the Republican despite the grief he says friends gave him in a city where Trump lost 95% of the vote to Hillary Clinton. He sees Trump as a strong leader capable of “bringing jobs back and just taking care of business.”
In Brownsburg, Ind., Robin Maynard, 53, a union worker at Carrier, says Trump already saved his job by convincing the company not to move 1,000 slots to Mexico. Indiana backed Obama in 2008 but chose Trump by 19% this time around.
In Luzerne County, Pa., Democratic County Council member Eileen Sorokas — who volunteered for Obama, voted for him twice and even named a couple of ducks after him and the vice president — voted for Trump and is confident he’ll be a great president.
“He’ll handle himself pretty good,” said Sorokas, 69, who lives in a county where coal- mining jobs are gone and once- booming factories have long been shuttered. “I watched him on The Ap
prentice. … I think he’s a businessman, and he’s going to do a good job. His livelihood is here.”
For those living in this part of America, a Trump presidency means soaring hopes — and deepseated worries. You can find either almost anywhere, if you look.
Sorn Sanh, 38, a Republican bank manager in York County, Pa., voted for Clinton. A single mother of Cambodian heritage, Sanh’s teenage daughter helped organize a unity rally after students were seen at a neighboring vocational school carrying a Trump sign and chanting, “White power.”
“I think we are going backwards,” she said, noting she believes “the whole reason they thought they could do that” was because of Trump’s campaign rhetoric comparing Mexicans to rapists, criticizing Muslims as not doing enough to protect America and suggesting a ban on Muslims entering the country. “You talk about bullying, this is bullying,” she said. “Kids are looking up to this.”
‘ GREAT THINGS’ Perhaps no message tapped into the heartland quite like Trump’s slogan to “Make America Great Again.”
The job losses are staggering: In the seven Rust Belt states examined by the USA TODAY Network, more than 700,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2000. Nationally, it’s about 7 million manufacturing jobs since 1980.
Although unemployment is down steeply in the aftermath of the last recession and some manufacturing gains have been seen, wages have declined or stayed flat in current dollars.
It’s a situation Trump’s supporters say he will change, despite global forces arrayed against him.
In Macomb County, Mich. — which Trump won by nearly 12 percentage points after Obama won it by four in 2012 — St. Clair Shores plumber John Scalzo, 52, predicted that by securing the borders and lowering taxes, reducing government and getting rid of programs that stifle initiative, Trump’s “going to do great things.”
IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN It’s not just working- class voters who see better days ahead. Though Trump underperformed in many traditionally upscale Republican enclaves, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen 8% since the election.
In Troy, Mich., Jeffrey Scott, president of Allan Tool and Machine, says anything that spurs construction — such as the lower tax rates proposed by Trump — will be a boost for his business.
There is also a strong undercurrent of hope among Trump voters for returning to a more prosperous — and less culturally and ethnically diverse — time. Many say immigrants take jobs from citizens.
In western Wisconsin, which swung toward Trump after backing Obama in the past two elections, Richard Zastrow, 54, a truck driver and part- time farmer in Arcadia, says Trump got his vote for more than promising to keep automakers from building cars in Mexico. It’s his belief that Trump will be tougher on immigration, too.
“We didn’t want all these people coming into the country,” Zastrow says, taking a break from tending his 100- odd head of beef cattle and before heading off to his night job hauling chickens.
In Aspers in south- central Pennsylvania, Jose Beltran, 49, is a farm crew supervisor and former migrant worker from Mexico who doesn’t have any fears of a Trump administration, or his talk of walls or anything else. Standing in 19- degree weather on a windswept hill, as he and a crew trim fruit trees for the next season, he asks, “Did you see any white guys on the way up? Who wants to do the job I do, working in winter?”
THE END OF THE ACA One likely outcome of the Trump presidency is clear: the end of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.
Joseph Bryant, 38, a tax adviser in affluent Fishers, Ind., north of Indianapolis, won’t miss it.
A married, gay libertarian who adopted his two children after their mother was murdered, Bryant says the ACA has been a nightmare. He can’t find therapists for his children, and since he began buying insurance through the exchange in 2014, his premiums have risen from $ 3,000 a year to $ 8,400 — even as his outof- pocket expenses climbed to $ 7,000 last year. To make ends meet, the family has cut back on “frivolous” spending such as ca- ble TV and eating out.
He has little hope for Trump as president, but at least when there’s a Republican in office, he says, the ACA can be replaced with something better.
In tiny Montmorency County, Mich., County Commissioner Albert LaFleche, 83, sees Obamacare far differently. A Democrat who voted for Clinton, he saw his county give nearly 70% of its vote to Trump, even though the ACA has cut the uninsured rate there from 24% to 8% — one of the largest declines in the state.
His adult daughter has several cancers and has insurance, thanks to the ACA. “Everybody thinks they’re paying too much for it, but without it, my daughter — I don’t know where she’d be,” he says. “She couldn’t live because of the cost of the medicine.”
That’s one example of how the Trump effect depends on where you stand.
WHERE WILL RUST BELT GO? Some in the Rust Belt wonder what Trump’s election means next: Will it reinvigorate Democrats stunned by his victory? Or is the region on a path — like West Virginia, Kentucky and possibly Indiana — to being irrecoverable for the party?
There’s no doubt Democrats are soul- searching before 2018 and important gubernatorial and U. S. Senate elections across the region.
Rusty Redenbacher, 46, a disc jockey for 93.9 The Beat in Indianapolis, voted for Clinton and openly worries about what Trump’s election means for race relations.
His hope is that those across the region and across the USA can take the election as a call to meet each other, in person, to learn what each is about.
“Twitter is cool. Facebook is cool. ( But) people can get a little wicked and wild behind keyboards,” he says. “Come out and talk to people face- to- face, and we will work through this. We have survived bad things before, and I think we will l survive this guy.”
Trump is a strong leader capable of “bringing jobs back and just taking care of business.” Ryan Wylie, 26, of Detroit
“I think he’s a businessman, and he’s going to do a good job. His livelihood is here.” Eileen Sorokas, 69, voted for Obama twice
“You talk about bullying, this is bullying. Kids are looking up to this.” Sorn Sanh, 38, left, referring to students carrying a Trump sign and chanting, “White power” in front of a vocational school in York County, Pa.