The Guardian went to Pennsylvania:
As Donald Trump emerged to a thunderous roar of approval in the heart of Pennsylvania’s Rust belt, he was back in his comfort zone among the people who once put him in power.
But by the time he stepped off the stage nearly two hours later, even some of the former US president’s supporters were wondering whether his rallies are doing his re-election campaign more harm than good.
Apparently this county is indicative of the entire region where Pennsylvania could be decided by turnout. The Republican party there has been overwhelmed by infighting with hardcore MAGA weirdos who have recently taken over the local party so they really need Trump to get out the vote.
Frank Scavo, a businessman and ardent Trump supporter who was part of a coup that took hold of the county Republican party earlier this year, was clear before the rally about what he wanted to hear from Trump.
“These rallies fire up the base to go out there and knock on doors. His base will walk on fire for him, but plenty of other Republicans don’t vote. Are they demoralised? Do they think their vote doesn’t count? Most of it is apathy. But if we don’t get people out there knocking on doors, Trump’s not going to win Luzerne county,” he said.
That’s not how things worked out.
Trump repeatedly broke away from the prepared speech about economics to make rambling claims that Harris was both a fascist and a communist, to attack her laugh as that of “a crazy person” and a “lunatic”, and to claim he was more beautiful than the vice-president. He also spent time debating aloud with himself how to pronounce the name of the CNN anchor Dana Bash.
By the time he stopped speaking 100 minutes later, a large number of the arena’s 8,000 seats had emptied.
Some people were just not impressed:
“He reminded me why I’m not going to vote for him this time,” said Jenny, a local businesswoman who did not want to give her full name because she didn’t want to alienate customers.
“I voted for him in 2016 and had a Trump flag in the front yard. I voted for him again in 2020 but didn’t put the flag out that time. I’ve been thinking of voting for him again because Biden’s been so bad for the economy and Kamala won’t be any better. But after listening to that, I’m actually afraid of Trump being president again. I don’t know what he was talking about half the time. Perhaps he was always like that but he seems worse, more unstable.”
He is. She’s not mistaken about that. (She is mistaken about the economy but you can’t blame her with the way the news — and not just the right wing media — talks about it.)
As I wrote a few days back, I traveled through rural Pennsylvania recently and was quite surprised to see the lack of Trump paraphenalia festooning the small towns. In 2016 and 2020 it was everywhere. You’d even see people flying big Trump flags alongside confederate flags at Gettysburg. Not this year. There was some but it was very subdued compared to what it has been in the past.
Trump is further hampered by the fact that people like Jenny want him to be more focused and serious but his MAGA freakshow wants the crazy. That’s what they come for. Similarly, as he is trying desperately to neutralize his anti-abortion record by implying that he won’t do anything drastic if he gets elected, his evangelical base is getting very upset:
No matter how many times he winks and nods at them saying “first ya gotta win elections, ok?” they demand public affirmation of their extremist views.
Does any of this mean Trump won’t win Pennsylvania? Nope. He certainly could. Most of these people will vote for him even if they think he’s lost it. But as the article says, there are a lot of voters who don’t usually vote in this region and Trump has to get them all out to win. (And yes, Harris needs to cut into the margins.) But the “Trump magic” of being able to get his crowds super excited and rushing out to join his MAGA crusade may be wearing off a bit. In a close election that could be decisive.