Posted on 04/07/2024 12:32:31 PM PDT by karpov
John Sabo and Josh Thieler grew up in Pittsburgh-area communities that were hit hard as 200,000 steel and manufacturing jobs disappeared from the region, upending their parents’ generation and leaving main streets pocked with empty storefronts.
Sabo, the son and grandson of mill workers, says his father rarely found steady work after losing his job in a U.S. Steel mill, leaving Sabo to “know what government cheese tastes like.” Thieler spent part of his childhood in a trailer park in a small city that shed nearly half its population as families hunted elsewhere for work.
Today, both men have good jobs in thriving industries. But their paths to a better life have landed them in different sectors of the region’s new economy and changed their political identities, turning one into a staunch Republican and the other into a progressive Democrat.
Pittsburgh is at the center of a class inversion between the two parties that is redefining American politics. Democrats have traded their former blue-collar base for professional-class, metropolitan workers, while Republicans have become overwhelmingly dependent on working-class voters concentrated in far-flung suburbs, small towns and rural areas.
In Pennsylvania, the largest 2024 battleground state, President Biden’s victory four years ago depended in large part on big gains among voters such as Thieler, a software company manager and former Republican who is now part of the city’s heavily Democratic professional class. But those gains have been overtaken by opposition from voters like Sabo, who works in the natural-gas industry, a sector that has given a boost to blue-collar workers in rural counties.
These energy-economy voters see Biden as hostile to fracking, which taps natural gas trapped in sedimentary rock deep underground. The sector has drawn billions of dollars in new investment in Pennsylvania, much of it in the state’s southwest corner.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Subtitle: Economic churn is pushing voters toward Trump in the Pittsburgh area, potentially overwhelming Democrats’ base of college-educated workers
“These energy-economy voters see Biden as hostile to fracking...”
Gee, I wonder why they would see Biden that way?
It is astonishing as downright anti-energy Biden has been that the US Natural Gas industry keeps hitting record production numbers.
Even more astonishing is that anybody would vote for a guy committed to destroying the US energy industry. These non-thinking, brain-dead idiots think power comes from the plug on the wall and unicorns heat their homes.
It would be nice but I’m not counting on it. They elected a gimp and an empty suit to the senate.
“Subtitle: Economic churn is pushing voters toward Trump”
It should be noted that there are NO OTHER credible Republicans capable of doing the above and that ANYONE calling for other candidates already knows as much and thus would prefer a Democrat in the White House.
A Pennsylvania no fraud elections Weighs on Biden’s Re-Election Chances.
Fixed the headline. This is the only thing that would weigh on Biden’s re-election chances. A fair and free vote everywhere. As long as we allow the election to be stole again, issues do not matter.
I was born in 1961 and I too know what government cheese tastes like. I also know what government "civil defense" hard candy tastes like.
But we were dirt poor and were happy to have anything to eat.
The question is — will the pro- fracking vote be large enough to overcome the CERTAIN anomalous ballots ( always for the Democrats ) in Philly and Pittsburgh?
There’s not a single white, working class man voting for Biden in Upstate NY or Western PA.
There are some white male cucks who will vote for Biden, but they are without exception government employees, part of the bloated “education establishment” at some level, LGBTQ activists.
It sounds statistically impossible, but I believe it. I see it day-in-day-out. The dividing lines could not be clearer
You can thank RINO traitors for that, especially Mitch the Turtle. Trump's candidate, Dr. Oz, barely beat the RINO McCormick. So the RNC didn't lift a finger to help Oz win that state, and the Turtle made sure all money went to getting the Murkowski hag re-elected in Alaska. And the RNC didn't send any election lawyers to states like PA, AZ, MI, GA, and WI in 2022 to monitor the count after the theft of 2020.
I really liked Govt cheese. In the 1970s some gov't agency was dumping their stocks at my grandmother's retirement home, so she would take multiple 10lb blocks of the stuff, because she knew we kids liked it - made great grilled cheese and Mac-n-cheese. My mom and dad just liked saving $$.
Government dried milk on the other hand - truly awful stuff.
Yes, the dried milk was not good.
But mom used it for recipes that called for milk, and saved the milk for drinking.
My dad was friends with the local dairy farmer, so we got our milk fresh from the farm.
The farmer even gave us kids some of the creamy stuff from the top of the tank.
Long before the government made it illegal!
“Government dried milk on the other hand - truly awful stuff.”
My Mom loved that dried milk. Gag. Almost as bad as those green powered eggs in boot camp in the Navy.
In the Southern Tier of NY, right across the border from the Saudi Arabia of Natural Gas, the thickest and richest part of the Marcellus Shale resides, but the Single Party Demoncrats are banning an improved method of fracking using CO2, because gas is baaaaaad.
I miss government cheese. Was made from the excess milk the government bought to keep prices from crashing. At least the government did something with the milk. Now they just throw it away.
Yes, but will it be enough to overcome the mail-in voter fraud?
*You can thank RINO traitors for that, especially Mitch the Turtle.*
Maybe, maybe not. It was Santorum that wiped the floor with Casey in 3 nationally televised debates. That was 18 years ago. Voters preferred the empty suit. Will they catch on this year? Think Fetterman.
I loved the government cheese, made the best grilled cheese and grilled ham &cheese sandwich
They don’t like to say this out loud, but the political leadership in states like Texas and Pennsylvania would be 100% on board with an initiative to shut down energy extraction on Federal lands in places like Alaska, New Mexico and the Dakotas. This does nothing but drive up energy prices for producers in states that aren’t affected by those restrictions.
Don’t forget about that Kalifornia RINO Kevmo McCarthy who was in charge of the house election money. He abandoned lots of good conservative candidates too. Especially in the Washington 7th district, Gold Star Husband and former Green Beret/CIA Operator Joe Kent.
We should view McConnell and McCarthy with extreme contempt. Only McConnell, if he got down on one knee and apologized to America would I forgive him. If McCarthy’s exquisitely coiffed hair was on fire and I was walking by on my way to a urinal, I would laugh and pick up my pace to the porcelain pisser.
McConnell did the Country 2 solids, keeping Garland off the Supremes, in retrospect, knowing what we know now, he might have done less damage as a Supreme than he’s doing as AG. And McConnell’s shepherding of President Trump’s judicial nominees through the Senate circus.
McCarthy has done only one honorable thing, he quit. Lastly, within 60 minutes after President Trump’s swearing-in next January America needs to see a SWAT raid on the US AG’s office and either Garland and close staff being frogmarched out shackled or preferably horizontally feet first in a black bag that matches the color of his soul.
Pennsylvania Ping!
Please ping me with articles of interest.
FReepmail me to be added to the list.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.