I can’t help but feel everyone in Silicon Valley is desperate to believe every narrative about the election except the version where Trump wins because he was the only one promising prosperity to people not located in major cities.
"For every blue collar democrat we will lose in Western PA, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Philadelphia." ~Chuck Schumer
Meanwhile 10 minutes away at Temple University you have 2 hour lines at polling close. If the dems want to win PA they need to get their voting district shit together in the city.
It would not have made much off a difference. The spread in the entire state was about 90k but when I saw the lines at the universities it made me wonder about the entire state.
I used to live in the suburbs of Philadelphia in a new "rich" neighborhood and the lines there are usually 15-30 minutes. Granted the population there doesn't fluctuate much.
Actually no, it's more accurate to say the Republicans lost it.
(I don't know how my family members voted--we're far too WASPy to do anything but keep it private), but I suspect my parents stayed with the GOP while my siblings and I went to the Dems (I voted Hillary for President and GOP everything else. Turned out to be a miscalculation)
At any rate, it seems there weren't enough of us to outweigh Pennsylvanians who continued to vote Republican or who converted to voting Republican.
If you choose to ignore proper naming, you're just exposing your bias.
More people believed that Trump was doing things because he had their best interests in mind.
They were either gullible or gullible?
Or maybe it was a reaction against the "elites". In Michigan 90,000 democrats left president blank on the ballot (Trump won by 10,000).
Or, your assumptions are incorrect. - "I think many people struggle to believe voters took these promises seriously."
"Most of his promises w/r/t rural prosperity did not match the anemic policy he put forward"
He constantly railed on about jobs going overseas, imposing tariffs on imports and protecting local industry, spending on infrastructure, reducing illegal immigration (which people rightly or wrongly, believed to be one of the factors, contributing to their situation), etc, etc.
One recent one was putting a 300% tax on imported Bombardier regional passenger jets. The result? Bombardier teamed up with Airbus to form a new division that will manufacture the same jets in the United States.
I know it's not popular out on the left coast, but that sounds like promises made, promises kept.
See also: China building a factory in Chicago to build subway cars. The local pols played it as a big negotiating victory for the mayor, but it was actually the Chinese dodging the tariffs before they could be imposed.
Hasn't that already been a conversation since way before 2008 ie: "Joe the Plumber"'s candidate?
There is something more going on here. My own opinion is that the current potus is an appeal to nationalist authoritarianism where other more conventional republicans were not.