The last time Donald Trump was president, he travelled to Youngstown, Ohio, among the most depressed of America’s rust belt cities, and promised voters the impossible.

The high-paying steel, railroad and car industry jobs that once made Youngstown a hard-living, hard-drinking blue-collar boom town were coming back, he said. “Don’t move. Don’t sell your house,” he crowed to a rapturous crowd in 2017. “We’re going to fill up those factories – or rip ”em down and build brand new ones”.

None of that happened. Indeed, within 18 months, General Motors (GM) announced that it was suspending operations at its one remaining ­manufacturing plant outside Youngstown, throwing 5,000 jobs into jeopardy in a community with little else to cling to. Trump’s reaction was to say the closure didn’t matter, because the jobs would be replaced “in, like, two minutes”.

That, too, did not happen. People moved away, marriages broke down, depression soared and, locals say, a handful of people took their own lives.

“The Democrats and the Republicans are all a den of crooks. Only one side lies about being crooks, and one doesn’t. If you’re going to be a crook, I’d rather know it than be lied to.”

  • Jyek@sh.itjust.works
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    7 hours ago

    And this idiot’s vote is dozens of times more powerful than that of any voter in any major city in the country.

  • spujb@lemmy.cafe
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    9 hours ago

    democrat leadership will see this and think “damn! they are on to us we have to lie and scheme even harder at the expense of human dignity next time!”

  • Crikeste@lemm.ee
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    17 hours ago

    Where this fucking idiot was wrong was in thinking that Amerikkka has ever or will ever care about the common person. lol

    Burn the whole country to the ground

  • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    I think at some point this is just overanalyzing things. People vote for the same team they always have. It is like asking a football fan why they root for their team. There often isn’t a real answer and what they tell you is ultimately nonsensical.

    • WastingCommentSpace@sh.itjust.works
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      3 hours ago

      Interesting idea. I watch american football but i never got into it until later. And i find it interesting that i have no teams i prefer exactly. I just like to see the different plays and stuff. I do always vote left. But ive never considered democrats my team. Just the most closely aligned i guess. I would vote 3rd party if i felt it made a difference and there was a candidate i liked that i felt could win.

    • Kitathalla@lemy.lol
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      10 hours ago

      Post-hoc explanations. They’re super common once you start looking into people’s everyday actions.

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    1 day ago

    If you’re going to be a crook, I’d rather know it than be lied to.

    Of all dumb reasons for voting for Trump, this one takes the cake.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      “I might be forcibly sodomized to death in a dark closet, but at least I’ll know who’s doing it by their voice!”

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      19 hours ago

      They aren’t wrong. The dems keep refusing to follow through with their broken promises. People are fed up with the establishment. I wish they had a different choice than Trump, but the DNC refuses to listen to their base and keeps propping up neoliberal center right candidates who only listen to their donors.

      This is not the voter’s fault, it’s 100 % Kamala and the DNC.

      Almost as if the DNC prefers a candidate like Trump over an actual left of center candidate who will follow through with the economic platform of the dems.

      • ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        5 hours ago

        They are wrong. The Republicans lie constantly about being crooks. They literally call themselves the “law and order” party all the time.

        It’s bullshit motivated reasoning by someone who doesn’t want to admit the real reasons they went for Trump.

      • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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        15 hours ago

        dems keep refusing to follow through with their broken promises

        Dems have faced blockades from a GoP-dominated legi branch for something like all but 4 months of the last 40 years. Despite this, they offer a plan that can help and hope for the legi support to make it happen.

        GoP has been united in fucking over the 99% and lying about it; Every fucking time since prez Reagan.

        Blame the Dems, though.

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          14 hours ago

          Biden’s good friends are the ones who blocked his agenda.

          He literally did nothing to fight for what he supposedly wanted. Don’t give me that crap.

      • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        That’s called cutting off your nose to spite your face. There are a lot of things to legitimately criticise about the Democrats. But on every single one of those issues the Republicans are far far worse.

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          14 hours ago

          This sounds eerily similar to the arguments blue no matter who folks were making before the election…. “Trump’s genocide will be worse than the one Biden is actively funding.”

          The democrats are ignoring their base because they are bought and paid for by the same donors as the republicans. They literally give zero fucks and would rather have Trump than any candidate left of center.

          Supermajorities of Americans support progressive policy agendas that the dems refuse to even acknowledge, let alone advocate for.

          This is 100% the fault of the dem leadership, but they are happy because they will get tax cuts and more campaign donations from their oligarchs.

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              8 hours ago

              I don’t know. I did not vote republican lol. But I do know that a lot of folks see the economy as the number one issue, and a lot of folks are worried about immigration…. Dems are better in general at having actual policy platforms than the repubs but Kamala failed on both of these issues, this is without regard to the whole genocide thing which Biden has been furtively supporting this whole time which has turned a lot of dems and young people away

              Trump did a stupid speech with cans of beans in the background while Kamala was hugging CEO’s…. And Kamala was also celebrating that another war criminal, Dick Cheney, had endorsed her

              Edit. Neither Kamala nor Biden fought back when the parliamentarian said they could not do 15 $ minimum wage in a reconciliation bill… do you believe Trump admin will listen to a parliamentarian when they want to jam through other crazy shit? They already got the boofing Supreme Court justice by ignoring precendent

              Biden was weak af and if you think he is the best since FDR I can’t even talk to you bruh

              • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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                6 hours ago

                That’s not even an attempt to answer my question. What I’m saying is, however bad Biden and the Dems are (and they are, of course) the Republicans are much much worse. So people who vote for Trump because they don’t like the Dems are just fucking stupid.

                • quicklime@lemm.ee
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                  6 hours ago

                  Thing is, yeah they’re fucking stupid but they’re also voters who the Dems could have persuaded and hardly tried. Repeatedly spamming “vote for us or you get Trumped again” doesn’t count as persuasion.

                • DancingBear@midwest.social
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                  6 hours ago

                  Yea, but you’re not going to get anywhere thrashing and slamming independents who voted for Trump… Hillary chastising Dems and Obama chastising black men pretty much proved that…

                  We are not going to get anywhere by blaming the voters like the establishment politicians have been doing, this is a leadership issue… I heard Cory bush spelling today on npr this afternoon…

                  If Dems don’t want progressive voters in their party they need to come out and say it. Say who you are.

                  And if you don’t want progressives it’s probably why you lost the election…. Because you lied about what you care about…. America is a progressive country of voters run by a citizens united corrupt Supreme Court ruling

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    1 day ago

    These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.

  • T00l_shed@lemmy.world
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    Look, I know things are hard, but that’s a really narrow take. At the very very least the democrats would not tear down what social services you could still claim. This is like shooting yourself in the foot, and being like “fuck that hurt, maybe it will be better next time?” Instead of “oh shit, better not shoot myself in the foot again”.

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    Only one side lies about being crooks, and one doesn’t.

    And which is which? I can’t tell which the speaker wants me to think. I think that says more about the speaker than it does about me. I can’t tell if they’re trying to shoot themselves in the foot on purpose.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      I assume they mean the Democrats are lying about not being crooks, but given that the article is about Trump breaking promises, that makes him the liar and obvious crook. Which means he’s the preferable candidate somehow?

      I guess it’s just comfortable lies vs. difficult truths. Times change, if you don’t change with them you’ll be left behind in a ghost of a town.

      • jonne@infosec.pub
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        Yeah, the electorate also punished Carter for being straight with Americans about oil dependence and energy security. And instead of following the path of energy transition, they went with Reagan who promised Americans everything while undermining the middle class.

        A lot of voters are basically like children that want to be lied to.

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        I like this take. I think it makes sense, even though I don’t agree with the reasoning of the speaker in the article. There is so much difference between the policies and actions being enacted that to claim an comfortable lie is somehow comparable to a difficult truth is asinine. Both are stupid! Do not vote based on this premise! Have actual policy reasons behind your position. But that’s just my opinion.

        • catloaf@lemm.ee
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          1 day ago

          Sure, that makes sense for an informed voter and a rational actor… but real people rarely are.

          • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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            This is the core problem with most analyses. People are emotional. Whoever pissed them off last might just be who they vote against. Or they may act out to hurt the party that’s least bad for them because they’re angry the most they’re willing to offer is to be less bad. It’s irrational, but no amount of complaining about irrationality is going to make it not true.

  • tal@lemmy.today
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    1 day ago

    kagis

    It sounds like he’s probably referring to the Lordstown Motors auto plant that closed.

    Apparently, some of the facility is now doing EV-related work.

    It sounds like originally, there were about 4,500 people, and now about half that work at the new factory, and most of the rest were relocated by GM.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ohio-town-grieving-lost-jobs-voters-are-deeply-divided-president-n1155596

    Most of the 4,500 workers who lost their jobs last year, and in two earlier waves of layoffs since 2017, have started over in GM plants in unfamiliar towns hundreds of miles away.

    https://atlaspolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Case-Study-Ultium-Cells-Ohio-Final.pdf

    Ultium Cells Ohio is a $2.6 billion joint venture between General Motors (GM) and LG Energy Solution (LGES). The companies announced their plans for the facility in December 2019 and, as of June 2024, there are nearly 2,200 hourly and salaried workers on site, surpassing Ultium’s employment expectations when they first announced the facility.

    GM relocated 1,300 hourly employees [4]. This was on top of shift cuts in 2016 and 2018 that impacted 1,250 and 1,500 employees respectively [5]

    So while this is probably quite bad advice aimed at scoring political points:

    “They’re all coming back!” Trump told a cheering crowd at a rally in nearby Youngstown in 2017.

    “Don’t move! Don’t sell your house!” he said.

    Assuming that Trump’s campaign had any idea that this would happen at the time he was speaking – and apparently there was federal subsidy (albeit from the Biden-era IRA) involved:

    Support from the federal government, including a $2.5 billion loan from the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office and tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act, have been and will be essential to the construction and growth of Ultium Cells facilities in Ohio, Tennessee, and Michigan.

    …that might be uncharacteristically accurate for Trump in that new jobs equal to maybe half the number of jobs that exited had been there (though not necessarily the same workers or skillset, and personally, I wouldn’t have stayed around a closed auto plant for five years hoping that someone willing to hire me would show up and ramp up hiring and want to hire me).