Anthony Rice’s house in Youngstown, Ohio is a mile away from a river valley once filled with factories offering jobs. Many of those left in the 1980s, and with them, many residents.
His home is one of the few occupied on the street. Empty lots or boarded-up homes make up most of the block. He points to those remaining, listing his neighbors and their age. They are all over 70. “This neighborhood is okie-dokie, although not much goes down here”, he says. “Stores used to be all around here, but they mostly gone. The people left are either too old to move or waiting for someone to buy them out.”
The road itself is a patchwork of potholes. “This street hasn’t been paved in like forever. They just don’t care about us. But we used to that.”
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Youngstown is the largest city in Mahoning County, Ohio, where Donald Trump narrowly lost a county Barack Obama won twice easily. That was partly because turnout in Youngstown – which is lower income, younger, and close to half African American – dropped by roughly 15%.
It was a blueprint replicated across the US – getting just enough working class, older and wealthier suburban whites to flip and turn out for Trump, while a small enough sliver of minorities and younger white voters did not turn out. It was achieved in just the right places: Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
I ask Anthony about the election. “Most people in this neighborhood sat idle. We didn’t have a dog in this fight. It is like we had our president, and it is time for them to have their president. I voted for Hillary. But I don’t mind Trump, although I do think he is crazy. He is jamming a stick in the beehive, and some think it will break their way.”
Did Trump’s win surprise him? “No. Obama promised a lot and only a little came of it. Maybe New York City got delivered promises. This street here is still filled with homes falling down.”
A lot of the US is like that. I have seen it all over, when I put 100,000 miles on my car before the election. I have heard and seen the frustrations of countless people – of all races and faiths – in wildly different places, from Nebraska to Louisiana.
To get out beyond successful neighborhoods in DC, New York City and the elite college campuses – beyond where prevailing socio-political opinions are made – is to see another America.
It isn’t a more “real” America – a glib and offensive cliche – it is simply a different one. It is an America that values and experiences different things, emphasizing local community and faith, rather than career or educational status. It is an America that has been on a downward trajectory for decades, hurt by the loss of jobs and with downtowns emptied of energy and filled with drugs. It has made staying in these communities harder.
In this America hope is fading, not growing. People’s lives are a constant tangle of changing and uncertain jobs. The path that offers a way out – education – requires threading a narrow needle of opportunities from an early age. If that small chance is missed it means a lifetime of feeling looked down on by the “other America.”
In these towns, “America already is great” rings hollow and offensive. Trump exposed and exploited that, coming into these communities with a simple and angry message – one that effectively said: “This ain’t working for you. So let’s knock it all over!”
He also came with a message of division and fear, inflaming a long ugly thread of racial politics in American history. It made supporting him almost impossible for frustrated minorities such as Anthony, who was blunt: “Trump isn’t a racist, but sure does surround himself with racists.” Some registered their frustration by simply not voting, a process exploited by a cynical GOP that has made it harder to vote.
Hattie Wilkins, 66, witnessed that. She is a former steel worker and union president who is now a community activist.
She hates Trump but also doesn’t like Hillary Clinton. She actively supported Bernie Sanders in the primaries. Frustrated and angered by Clinton, she eventually voted for her, but as a vote against Trump. “I had to,” she says. “It hurt but I did.”
She had trouble convincing many of her neighbors to get out and vote: “I ran into a lot of people who didn’t like either of them, so they weren’t voting.” Despite that, she worked hard to get as many people registered as she could, even trying to coax the drug dealers in her neighborhood to do so.
Despite the intensity of political passions, Youngstown is a small, close and extra friendly community, and Hattie has spent her life here. She has colleagues, friends and acquaintances who voted for Trump and who she has long relationships with. When I ask her how they could vote for someone she thinks is a racist, she says: “The people who voted for him, they can’t see that. It is their ignorance, and I try to educate them.”
I ask her whether she thinks they’re still good people, despite their vote. She replies: “Yes, yes. I feel that they are.”
Enthusiasm for Trump wasn’t hard to find among the white voters in Youngstown. George Beshara, the owner of the The Gold Exchange pawn shop – a store that sits between two boarded-up shops, was also born and raised here. He has seen the changes the town went through.
“When the steel shut down in the 1980s it kicked the shit out of Youngstown,” he says. But he is optimistic, and Trump’s message fits his optimism. “We could use some manufacturing jobs, good paying ones, not these minimum wages ones. When we put tariffs on steel and start manufacturing again, we got a shot.”
When I asked him if he voted for Trump, he shoots back: “Oh yeah.” When asked why, he says: “I just think everyone wanted a change.
“I don’t think it is specifically Trump. We were in purgatory for eight years. Nothing happened, no growth, no GDP. I mean nothing! And nobody wanted to work because you were getting enough money from welfare, why go get a job? I think Obama made people lazy, he made it too easy not to work, and that is not the American dream.”
He also notes how surprising it was Trump came within a nudge of winning the county: “This is a monstrous Democratic community. If you even talk Republican here 25 years ago, they might have shot you!”
Things have changed, however, and plenty of lifetime Democrats voted for Trump. Bill Golec, 60, is one of them. A city police officer, he also runs a lawnmower repair store on weekends. After high school, he earned both a law enforcement administration degree and a small engine repair certificate from local schools.
He is a life-long Democrat, and when I ask him if he voted for Trump, he quietly responds: “Hate to say yes. Couldn’t vote for Hillary. I wasn’t going to vote for anyone at all.”
He adds that Trump was the first Republican he has ever voted for. “It has been going on for too long, for too many years,” he says. “Something has to change.” He pauses: “These people on welfare, they’re living better than what I am. I am working two jobs. I like what Trump is doing with the auto factories. We need jobs here, in the United States.”
When I ask why, despite all the problems with Youngstown, he hasn’t moved, he looks confused. For him the question is silly, because the answer is obvious. “I like it here – my family is still here,” adding that he initially stayed to take care of his mom after his father died.
That is the thing about places like Youngstown: people often stay where they are born. For many it is simply what you do, and the community’s health is dependent on it. You stay not to just build a life, but also to support older family members.
Places like Youngstown are also more diverse than usually acknowledged. Including having growing Muslim populations.
I went to the Islamic Society of Greater Youngstown for Friday prayer. I came early and the first man I spoke to greeted me with a big handshake. He was rushing out the door but stopped to welcome me.
I started explaining I had come to talk about politics, cautiously dancing around the issue of Trump and the recent executive order, when he quickly interrupted.
“OK. You want to talk about Trump? I voted for Trump!” I asked him if he was pulling my leg. He laughed. “No way. I may be a Muslim, but I am a businessman first and I am not stupid. Many Muslims here did. Under the table.” He added with a big smile: “We are Americans. We have diverse views also.”
Inside, 34-year-old Bruce Jones was sitting quietly against the back of wall. He grew up in Youngstown, and while some of his friends went off to college, he bounced around a bit, before getting dragged deep into heroin. He was recently released from a three-year prison term for burglary, where he converted to Islam.
“Islam saved my life,” he says. “When I was released this mosque welcomed me even though they know my past.” When I asked him about Trump, he doesn’t miss a beat. “Of course I like him. He is going to restore America again.” When I ask him about the recent changes on immigration he squints: “We are all citizens here. So I am not concerned.”
That last sentiment was made clear by almost everyone I spoke to at the mosque, including Aiman Salem, 54. He came to the states over 15 years ago from Syria to study. He didn’t vote for Trump, and is careful to explain why: “The community here in Youngstown is great. It is one of mutual respect, regardless of background. I definitely have concerns about Trump, like any American. I believe he has incorrectly targeted our faith.
“I would like to see more of an explanation and communication of what he plans. But I am not impacted. I am a citizen with a good job. Very few here at this mosque are impacted. We should accept refugees, of course, but Obama’s mistakes in Syria are one of the contributing factors for why we have the problems in Syria we have now.”
I ask him if he was surprised Trump performed so well in the region. “The American public grew impatient with what happened here in the US over the last 16 years, eight under Bush, eight under Obama … I work with Trump voters, and have friends who voted for him. I understand many of them and their anger. I don’t like how it is being expressed, but I see their anger as being about economic issues.”
In Youngstown the past decades have been a slow decline, yet the town has maintained a warmth, friendliness, and a strong sense of community. Being here means being pulled between wanting to stay in a place that values you, but worried the future might only offer more decline.
One morning, I meet Daisy as she stood in the sunshine waiting for a ride from a relative. She watches me taking pictures and shyly smiles. I go over to talk with her and she tells me her story. She is 18 and was raised by her grandmother after being taken away from parents who were drug addicts. “I went through hell because of all the drugs around me”, she says.
She left briefly to try and make a new life for herself but returned to stay with her grandmother. When I asked her about the election, she says: “I voted for nobody. Both are liars. I can only pray that Trump is the right president for us.”
I ask her about the future, and she mentions modeling and the military. Then, a pause.
“I want to do better in my life,” she says. “I want a healthy life. I want a wonderful life. And I want to see the ocean.”
I had to drag myself thru this dreary, sorry assed, pitiful, albeit poignant indictment of the farce called elections. It has to be some Pavlovian behavior where subject dogs learn to endlessly press some lever hoping for a reward. Years gone by I could have mustered some empathy. Now I think; suffer you voting saps.
The media and the establishment doesn’t give one damn about Youngstown and these folks. They are a means to an end just like the imbeciles tearing down the Civil War statues…..useful fucking idiots all……The worst are the republican establishment types……..their day is coming.
It is all about power, the creation of money and the distribution of that money and nothing else……
Small town USA is radically different from coastal
USA. Maybe better said, coastal USA is radically
different from small town USA.
I live in very small rural USA and I like it just fine.
People are people, but too much diversity creates
racial discord, and now especially, it can create fear
in whites. Big cities with inner cities seething with
resentment are nerve wracking. No thanks.
The bankers will NOT stop stealing and lying, nor
will the paid off politicians. We are emotionally
assaulted everyday with new threats from these
people. At my age the only relief is in distancing
myself from the city.
1st spew-“Trump isn’t a racist, but sure does surround himself with racists.”
Wha? Who? This man has been fucked to near death with an ignorance dildo.
#2-Making it harder to vote-FUCK YOU. Every one of the 7 points listed is only GD common sense. Especially considering only today I read there are a total of 3.25 MILLION more voters than there are voting age people in our population. Say what did that bitch “win” the popular vote by again?
Crapola #3-“The people who voted for him, they can’t see that. It is their ignorance…” Thank you Hattie for your condescension. I also feel so tiny when a huge, world traveled intellect like yours even deigns to recognize the me the bug crawling on her flip-flops.
And then, just about when you think the idiocy can not get any worse…
Some balance with a couple well centered men. Then an almost too hard to believe talk with some moslems. Damn, if that was only true, I could die a happy man knowing that the country of Washington, Jefferson and Madison could actually get these fuckers squared away.
I hate to say it but it’s got fake news written all over it. Damn, whether it’s good or bad, I’ve become one cynical mofo.
The writer was clearly not trying to incite your wrath. In the commercial they’d hand you a Snickers, here, not so much. “Cynical Mofo,” yes, we agree on something right out of the f-ing chute. He wrote it as interviews MM (oooh 4lb bags at Costco). Next time you read, listen to what is said, attempt to understand, step into their shoes, if only for a moment. For just a moment consider yourself one “Lucky Mofo.” You alive, you ain’t them, you bitch’n with the best.
Pen, your mileage obviously does vary. That Vox piece was utter & total propagandic (iz dat a woid?) bullshit. Maybe you should heed your own advice about reading for comprehension. Fools take the “facts” in such articles at face value without question. Cynics read between the lines for a glimpse of truth.
The shoes I step into when I look at islam are firmly rooted in history. isalm is responsible for 100s of millions of deaths and currently, it looks like moslems have no intention of taking their foot off the gas. So when I read this bullshit about islam saving my life and can’t we all just get along, yeah I ain’t buying it.
You OTOH, are. Good luck with that.
Small town America is alot like Youngstown “the town has maintained a warmth ,a friendliness and a strong sense of community ” .It is one thing I like about being on the road .Alot of the old America is still out there especially in the smaller towns.Brings joy to my old heart to know it’s still alive . Broken in many ways but still here.
Yes, a good piece and could be describing my small, rural town just as easily. We are diverse. We all help each other out and respect each other. THIS is the America I know and yes, we didn’t like the two candidates but went for the one who had the greatest hope in changing something.
It’s too bad that there’s so much mental illness here on this site, that cannot see that we all basically want the same things regardless of whether we’re black, white, Muslim or Christian. We all work together every day. Sick, twisted minds have to make up false aggressors, dream up conspiracies to fit their fantastical ideas about what’s happening in the world. We just shake our heads.
Something’s got to change, and it will. It’s just sad to see that people on both sides (left/right) are so screwed up in the head that they do things like what happened this past weekend. I just hope they kill each other off and leave the rest of us alone.
The “people on both sides (left/right)” didn’t do anything. The whole event was staged and choreographed for maximum effect….
Diversity + Proximity = War.
You *fucks* who keep trying to force diversity on people keep causing wars and get all these people you supposedly care about killed, hurt, and impoverished.
Individuals are perfectly capable of mingling together in diverse groups, even groups completely different from them, when they do so voluntarily.
However forcing cultures which fundamentally have different standards of right/wrong and different ways of organizing themselves to try to operate under one umbrella of standards there is a 100% guarantee of conflict that can only escalate because eventually one group’s standards have to take precedence and the other will be subjugated.
You talk about everyone getting along… but on *who’s* terms will they be required to operate under? Who is setting the universal standard for right and wrong for all these people because that’s the only way it can happen.
islam is toxic-if you believe otherwise, you’re not only not paying attention to current events but are a fucking lousy student of history.
Until enough people reject the fake dollar, the bankers will keep stealing money until everyone else is destitute.
Gov Scott has condemned the hate of the KKK and Nazis without a peep about Antifa hate. TV is reporting that all Confederate Monuments will be taken down. America is now headed to Hell on a rocket sled. If you were a moderate and support this, people like me spew you out of our mouths; we just went farther Right and you are now a Useful Idiot. If God lifts His Hand of Mercy on this ZOG and it’s Pinko majority, it will be Justice.
I agree with CC Rider. Lysander Spooner summed it up; A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.
The sooner the institution of government is consigned to the ash heap of history where it rightfully belongs the better. Decentralization down to the smallest possible unit and voluntarism are the best hope for liberty, freedom and prosperity.
The first guy should learn some grammar. Might help him get job.
That knee grow skank trying to get her druggie pals to vote for Obama. Nice.
When you convert to mooslimism, is it a REQUIREMENT to look like a fukwad terrorist?
Is it me, or do most of those people sound like a bunch of damned crybabies …. all of them waiting for someone ELSE to fix their problems.
“We are diverse.”. Oh, wonderful! The end all and be all, pumped into your head so often you can’t decide for yourself.