Clinton courts Trump’s Midwestern loyalists
Region’s rural communities blame 20 years of decline on trade deals, political elites
YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO— The Democratic presidential ticket took a victory lap through the Midwest after what was, by and large, a successful convention, in a three-day bus tour that also illustrated Hillary Clinton’s challenges in closing the deal with voters who have deep-seated mistrust of Washington.
Clinton’s blue campaign bus, emblazoned with her “Stronger Together” slogan, travelled a couple hundred kilometres, including along the Appalachian Mountain ridge in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, rolling past Dollar Stores, bowling alleys, red-painted barns and dilapidated wooden homes with porches. These are the rural communities where there’s a current of anger over the 20-year decline of the nation’s middle class.
The resentment stems from trade agreements championed by both parties — including her husband, Bill Clinton — as well as political elites they feel are corrupt and have abandoned the country’s heartland while enriching themselves.
From Harrisburg, Pa., to Youngstown, Clinton sought to make a connection with voters while touting her economic plan, which calls for the biggest investment in jobs since the Second World War. She shared the story of her grandfather, who did “dangerous” work in a Scranton, Pa., lace mill, and pledged to “fight” for those who feel “left behind.”
“There are a lot of people in our country who are frustrated, they feel like maybe the economy has passed them by, their government doesn’t help them, that nobody is listening and nobody cares about them,” she said in Pittsburgh. “I get that.”
Clinton also said Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has “zero” economic plans while pointing to his business record of manufacturing his branded products in places such as China and Bangla- desh. “The only thing he makes in America are bankruptcies, both his own and for the people who do business with him,” Clinton said.
Yet her challenge here is demonstrated by the fact that even some local Democrats say their party shares the blame for rural America’s economic and social plight.
Johnstown, where Clinton visited a steel-wire manufacturer, exemplifies the regions drifting away from the Democratic Party. “When you come to towns like Johnstown, where they have bled manufacturing jobs the past 30 years, where they have the highest poverty rate in the state, they are really suffering,” said Erin McClelland, a Democrat running to represent Pennsylvania’s 12th congressional district, who attended a Clinton rally.
“They feel the Democratic Party has abandoned them, talks down to them, calls them stupid,” she said.
Previously in Democratic hands since 1974, the seat McClelland is running for was taken by a Tea Party Republican in 2012.
“They don’t know what ‘white privilege’ is. All they know is everything keeps getting taken away from them and they’re watching Donald Trump diminish the same industrial political complex that has demeaned and insulted them,” said McClelland, who stormed a podium at her party’s Philadelphia convention “because they are not talking about rural America.”