Pennsylvania, Where Everyone Is ‘Furious’

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/opinion/campaign-stops/pennsylvania-where-everyone-is-furious.html

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Reading, Pa. — KEITH MANDICH had been to this theater before, to see John Mellencamp.

Now Mr. Mandich, a retired steelworker, was back in downtown Reading, Pa., to see another guy he thought of as a hero for working-class America: Senator Bernie Sanders.

In his bid for the Democratic nomination, Mr. Sanders has nurtured vocal support from young, college-educated liberals. But he also has fervent support from people who remember the era of well-paying union jobs at manufacturing plants — and who are very aware of how far we are from that time.

“I just like Bernie because he’s old like me,” joked Mack Richards, 70, another retired steelworker at the Reading event.

Pennsylvania is among the five states holding a primary on Tuesday, and it has the most delegates at stake. Since neither party has locked up its nominee yet, the state’s white working-class voters have more of a voice in the primary process than they have had in years past. In 2008, they were considered Biden voters — the white working-class denizens of Scranton, Pa., and places like it — whom Joe Biden, Scranton’s own, was supposed to win over for Barack Obama.

This time around, the fight for these voters has focused significantly on a somewhat unlikely contender for juiciest campaign issue: international trade deals and their repercussions.

Any presidential candidate on the stump knows how to work a good metaphor into a speech, and Mr. Sanders knew to use the very ZIP code he was rallying in.

“In many ways, what is happening here in Reading, what has happened over the last several decades, is kind of a metaphor for what’s happening all over this country,” Mr. Sanders told the crowd. “We have seen a city which once had thousands of excellent-paying jobs lose those jobs because of disastrous trade policies.”

He went on to list corporations, including the Dana Corporation, that had shut down plants in Reading and moved overseas.

Mr. Mandich, the Sanders supporter and Mellencamp fan, said that he was laid off from his job at the Dana Corporation, which manufactured automobile frames, when the company closed its Reading plant in 2000. The Dana Corporation was one of the companies that supported the Clinton administration’s effort to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement, which activists and liberal economists argue did more harm than good to the United States economy.

Kevin Wright, a high school physics teacher in line to see Mr. Sanders, saw parallels between the populism on the left and similar sentiments on the right.

“We’re the response to the Tea Party,” he said.

His sister, standing next to him, laughed nervously. “Careful!” she warned.

“The Tea Party has taken over the Republican Party,” Mr. Wright continued. “I think our movement’s stronger, and has more numbers, and is more rational and grounded in reality. And you can see that just based on the people here.”

The crowd in Reading skewed a bit older than a typical Sanders rally — possibly because it took place on a weekday afternoon. Fritz Von Hummel, 55, a self-employed appliance technician who was laid off from his previous job in November, canceled a couple of appointments to come to the event. He said he had not had health insurance for the past seven years because he could not afford it, and he was eager to talk about the shortcomings of President Obama’s signature health care law.

“I’m just furious with the situation the way it is,” he added.

There was more fury elsewhere in Pennsylvania. Driving directly from a Bernie Sanders rally to a Donald Trump rally is an easy way to get political whiplash. The two candidates couldn’t be further apart on the political spectrum. Mr. Sanders was introduced by a young undocumented student who tearfully spoke about wanting to come “out of the shadows.” Mr. Trump opened his rally at an expo center in Harrisburg with his familiar “build that wall” refrain.

At both rallies, four similar grievances emerged among their supporters, over health care, Social Security, campaign finance and trade.

While Pennsylvania’s recent presidential voting record is quite blue, that could change in 2016. Since the beginning of the year, roughly 165,000 Pennsylvanians changed their voter registration, according to state election officials. The biggest shift came from voters switching to the Republican Party.

At his rally in Harrisburg, Mr. Trump asserted that Harrisburg had lost nearly 40 percent of its manufacturing jobs since 2001, and pledged to bring back jobs from countries like Mexico, China, Japan, Vietnam and India.

“Pennsylvania has taken harder hits on trade than just about anywhere else in the United States. Not good! The state of Pennsylvania has lost more than 35 percent of its manufacturing jobs since 2001. Not good,” he said. “Mexico has been taking your companies like it’s candy from a baby.”

After Mr. Trump’s rally in Harrisburg let out, supporters clashed with protesters separated by a line of police officers. The two groups flung chants back and forth. From the pro-Trump side: “Baby killers!” “Bernie sucks!” “Build that wall!” And from the anti-Trump side: “Black lives matter!” “Go to college!” “Get more chants!”

Jennifer Poole, a self-employed Trump supporter from Port Royal, Pa., couldn’t get into the rally, so she watched him outside on her phone instead.

“I don’t know what has made these people feel that Trump is racist and he’s not, he’s clearly not,” Ms. Poole said. “I was never a registered voter until now. I really believe that he can do great things and turn the world around. I really do.”

In conversations with both Sanders and Trump supporters, the same questions kept coming up: What do you do if you’re a middle-aged factory worker who has made a decent living for most of your life, only to see not only your job, but your entire industry, go up in smoke? Do you go to college? Take on a lower-paying job? Retire early? Or just hope that something better comes along, someday?

Neither party seems to have a monopoly on the answers. Mr. Mandich, the Sanders supporter, said if it came down to a Trump-Clinton election in November, he would not vote for Mrs. Clinton.

“I probably would go for Donald Trump,” he said.