Cliff Kincaid
Donald J. Trump was in my hometown of Toledo, Ohio on Wednesday night, speaking to a crowd of working class Americans who have been watching their jobs go overseas. His success with these voters has been recognized by, of all people, the left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore, who suggested in an article titled “Five Reasons Why Trump Will Win” that Trump has found the key to victory in November.
Moore declared, “I believe Trump is going to focus much of his attention on the four blue states in the rust belt of the upper Great Lakes—Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.” That article appeared on July 21. Trump was in Scranton, Pennsylvania, before he went to Toledo.
Trump has found the potential key to victory because he realizes that the Democratic Party has given up on these workers, who were once considered to be their main constituency. These workers have become even more alienated from their jobs, as Marx predicted, because their jobs no longer exist. And according to Trump, it’s because the Democrats—especially the Clintons—embraced bad trade agreements like NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Smart liberal journalists smell the coffee. “Donald Trump’s Working-Class Appeal Is Starting To Freak Out Labor Unions” was the headline over an article in The Huffington Post. But because the unions are endorsing Mrs. Clinton, the Trump candidacy has the potential to drive a huge wedge between the well-paid union leaders and the workers they claim to represent.
“Hillary Clinton has supported virtually every trade agreement that has cost this country millions of jobs and is on the exact opposite side from rank-and-file union workers whose jobs she has destroyed,” Trump says. “Clinton has helped negotiate the [Trans-Pacific Partnership] and is its biggest booster—there is no doubt she would enact it if given the chance—yet more betrayal of union voters whose jobs would vanish as a result of this deal.”
At the rally in Toledo, aired by Right Side Broadcasting, Trump talked about the jobs disappearing from Toledo.
He hammered the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would give countries like Communist Vietnam special trade benefits. He talked about how the Chinese are taking advantage of the United States. This is a story that has been developing for years in Toledo. “In Blue-Collar Toledo, Ohio, a Windfall of Chinese Investments” was the headline over a New York Times story in 2013. The extraordinary story, about a city known as the Glass Capital of the World, or Glass City, was now buying glass from China for an extension to the Toledo Museum of Art because it could be made there more cheaply.
The story went on, “Over the past seven years since the museum project was completed, ties between Toledo and China have grown numerous. Chinese companies have paid more than $10 million in cash for two local hotels, a restaurant complex and a 69-acre waterfront property.”
One article even suggested that Toledo, Ohio, may go down in American history as the first major U.S. city to be owned by China.
Trump is appealing to workers who are losing their jobs to Mexico, China and Obamacare. His denunciations of Obamacare get as much applause as his criticism of bad trade deals. Trump asks the audience about those being forced from full to part-time work because of the impact of Obama’s health care scheme and many hands go up. There’s also the issue of the rising premiums that make insurance difficult to afford. Trump reminds people that the premiums are scheduled to rise again.
Adam Taxin of Right Side Broadcasting interviewed two young ladies from Toledo about the campaign.
They should have been excited about the first woman presidential nominee of a major political party. Instead, they cited Hillary Clinton’s lies on Benghazi and saw through former President Bill Clinton’s romantic speech about her at the Democratic National Convention.
Right Side Broadcasting specializes in political news, video and live streaming coverage of political events. As the name implies, it claims to be on the “right side of history.”
Whatever the ultimate truth of that boast, one thing is certain: Right Side Broadcasting on YouTube is giving viewers an intimate look at the grass-roots support at Trump for president rallies. It shows the crowds so that viewers can actually see the packed arenas and enthusiastic support: “Ever wonder what the crowds look like at Donald J. Trump rallies? We show you what the mainstream media won’t.”
When even Michael Moore is starting to see the handwriting on the wall, you begin to understand the appeal of the “Trump Train” and how it can crush Clinton-Kaine.
Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism, and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org