TWO POLITICAL: PENNSYLVANIAS – The Moderate Voice

By Lou Martin

My wife and I live in a rural farming area in Western Pennsylvania. We moved here five years ago because we’re country people, and it’s only 20 minutes from where I grew up and where my mother still lives
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Here we have chickens, a big garden, and a wood-burning stove but no broadband internet, which sometimes makes it hard on my wife, who works from home.

Each week, I commute about an hour to a small liberal arts college in Pittsburgh where I specialize in U.S. labor history. When I drive to work on Monday morning, it feels like leaving one political universe and entering a parallel one. I sometimes wonder whether there might be a political leader who can bridge that divide and speak to concerns in both worlds.

When I turn out of my driveway, I pass old farmhouses, small manufactured homes, and $500,000 “rustic” styled houses. All along the way, I see Trump yard signs, flags, and banners. I remember seeing the signs and flags in 2016—before we had even moved here—and they have been here ever since. One large farm has several Trump flags and a 4 feet by 8 feet Trump-Vance sign. That same sign read “Trump-Pence” until January 7th, 2021, when the owner crossed out Pence’s name with paint, evidently feeling betrayed by the vice president during the January 6th insurrection.

Around that time, my mother’s neighbor put up a “F— Biden” flag. I’m not easily offended, but it did not seem right that Mom would have to see the F-word every time she left home.

In the 2020 election, Trump won 71% of my township’s votes—1,007 votes to Biden’s 401. I can’t say exactly why. I’ve read studies that voting patterns in rural areas like mine are stoked by “deaths of despair,” but I doubt the politics of the full-time farmer or the construction worker down the road are the same as those of the attorney who lives in a half-million-dollar home. One thing they all have in common: The township is 98.2% white. Only one African American lives here.

Next on my drive, labor history. I get on the interstate just over the ridge from Aliquippa, once home to a Jones and Laughlin steel mill that used to employ 10,000. Steelworkers were a key part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s base, and in 1936 he won this county nearly two to one. A historical marker in town reads “NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin Supreme Court Ruling,” commemorating a 1937 decision that enshrined union rights in federal law. In its wake, workers here overwhelmingly voted to join the United Steelworkers, ending the company’s dictatorial rule over the town. The union contracts that followed brought steelworkers out of poverty and gave them a 40-hour workweek, sick pay, and pensions.

The last few decades have been hard on Aliquippa. The number of those good union jobs went into sharp decline in the 1980s, and the mill shut down in 2000. As jobs went away so too did many residents, leaving behind empty lots, a depleted local tax base, rising crime rates, and disillusionment. Many who live in the region’s former steel towns blame the industry’s decline on free trade agreements. Trump’s rhetoric about “carnage in the streets” and “getting tough on China” undoubtedly resonate with them. In 2020, Trump won 58% in Beaver County. There were hopes that the natural gas boom would reinvigorate manufacturing, especially when Shell built a plant to process gas for plastics, but the boom never came.

I continue another 25 miles into Pittsburgh. As former mill towns like Aliquippa—and a dozen others—continue to struggle, Pittsburgh has reinvented itself. It is now home to seven colleges and universities, several hospitals, IT and high-tech firms, and an increasingly diverse population.

I exit the highway and drive through Squirrel Hill, where I sometimes see police and armed guards stationed outside the neighborhood’s synagogues—a reminder of the horrific attack on the local Jewish community six years ago. On October 27, 2018, a far-right extremist killed 11 people and wounded 6 in a local synagogue. The week before, the gunman had posted an antisemitic and anti-immigrant message on Gab, a social media network used by hate groups and “alt-right” activists.

Trump condemned the shooting but also seemed to downplay the threat posed by white nationalists and hate groups, which have been on the rise since he announced his candidacy in a 2015 speech, accusing Mexico of sending drug dealers and “rapists” into the U.S. And he continues to use rhetoric that dehumanizes immigrants and stokes fear and hatred.

I then drive across Forbes Avenue, a main thoroughfare that leads to the four-lane Fern Hollow Bridge, spanning a 100-foot-deep ravine. In January 2022, the bridge collapsed with five vehicles on it, including a city bus. Amazingly, no one was killed. Investigations revealed that the concrete piers had deteriorated, and the X-braces had rusted through—evidence of our crumbling infrastructure.

The recently passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, one of President Biden’s legislative accomplishments during his first year in office, enabled Pennsylvania to start clearing away the rubble and rebuilding almost immediately. The new bridge opened to traffic just 11 months after the collapse, but there continue to be a lot of concerns about the condition of Pittsburgh’s 146 bridges.

Along the tree-lined streets near my college campus, I see yard signs very different from the ones in my rural community. Here, there are signs for progressive Democrats, one that proclaims in several languages that immigrants are welcome, and Black Lives Matter signs.

I’m reminded that in the run-up to the 2016 election, some colleagues, having studied the “FiveThirtyEight” forecasts, were confident—like many people around the country—that Clinton would soundly defeat Trump. I wonder if being surrounded by so many Clinton signs contributed to that certainty.

When I park my car near campus, I undo my seatbelt and pin a button on my shirt that reads “Chatham Faculty United.” Last year, administrators informed us by email of a $12 million budget shortfall, cuts to our 401K match, and more costly health insurance plans. Faculty members began a unionization effort. In one meeting, I told coworkers that Biden’s National Labor Relations Board has been the most protective of union rights of any NLRB in my lifetime. We received letters of support from politicians, including the Pittsburgh mayor, the county executive, and a city councilperson.

Even though 73% of the full-time faculty signed union cards, the university administration refused to recognize the union and hired a law firm to challenge our right to organize. We are now in our seventh month of hearings, and the university informed us that the administration plans to appeal the NLRB decision. It has crossed my mind that the president and the trustees may be hoping that Trump will win and new NLRB appointees will make it harder for us to unionize.

Even though my commute can feel like I’m passing between two very different worlds, I can’t help but think the things that we—on both sides of this divide—have in common.

Undoubtedly, we all have differing views and beliefs, but I also believe that the sharp divide I see today comes from tribalism fueled in large part by political rhetoric. I genuinely think that there are many issues that bind us together: We want stable jobs with good benefits and a voice in our working conditions. We want good infrastructure, including safe bridges in our cities and broadband internet in the country. Maybe most of all we want our family, friends, and neighbors to be safe—and hate-filled rhetoric is not making us safer.
I keep hoping for a politician who will stop along this route and talk—and listen—to all these people and find that common ground.

Lou Martin is the author of Smokestacks in the Hills: Rural-Industrial Workers in West Virginia and one of the founders of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum. He is a member of the Appalachian Studies Association and teaches courses on American history, environmental history, and propaganda. This was written for Zócalo Public Square.