DONALD TRUMP’S FORGOTTEN MAN
DONALD TRUMP WAS SAYING EVERYTHING Vonie Long wanted to hear, not that Long believed him.
The head of the United Steelworkers’ local union in Coatesville, Pa., Long was sitting in his electrical-maintenance truck in June 2016, listening on the radio to Trump give a speech on trade at an aluminum plant on the other side of the state, outside Pittsburgh. Trump had begun with a tribute to the steelworkers who built America. He blasted the politicians who pursued globalization and pledged to fight unfair trade practices that threatened U.S. jobs. Most of all, he made promises, from renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to imposing a tariff on steel.
Long, a stout man with a bristly gray mustache, was impressed. Republicans didn’t usually talk like this. “Any of us steelworkers could have given that exact speech,” he told me recently. And while Long, a Democrat, voted against Trump, after the election he hoped that Trump might actually follow through.
But it hasn’t panned out that way. A year into Trump’s term, the factories have not roared back. His accomplishments—a massive corporate tax cut, a strong stock market—have largely redounded to the benefit of the bankers and fat cats. Trump has taken few of his promised actions on trade and manufacturing. The American steel industry has suffered as the market floods with imports, forcing prices down, all while the Administration dithers and delays over tariffs.
As Long sees it, no one should feel more betrayed by the Trump presidency than the archetypical Trump supporter: the white working-class voter whom Trump dubbed the Forgotten Man. And yet, to his great frustration, many of his fellow blue collar workers don’t seem to grasp how Trump has abandoned them. As of last month, the President’s approval rating was 46 percent among white non-college-educated voters, down 7 points since he took office,
