On "Trump Country" economics in the era of Trump

This post is an effort to collect some of the many recent stories on what's happening economically in the areas associated with high degrees of support for Trump.

Here's Thomas Edsall in the New York Times on April 17, 2019, "If Trump Country Soars, Will the President Glide to a Second Term?"

In small but politically significant ways, the economy under President Trump has favored regions and constituencies that supported him in 2016. These are the men and women whom Trump called forgotten Americans. 

The emerging pattern of economic growth reverses a trend that held from the 2008 recession to 2016, in which Democratic-leaning states and counties far outpaced Republican-leaning sections of the country.

Edsall notes that the more red states than blue ones are setting records for low unemployment.

As a related matter, this May 11, 2019,  New York Times story, dateline Colfax, Wisconsin (population 1,158 or 909, depending on whether you're talking about the village or the town), is headlined "Trump Has a Strong Economy to Proclaim.  In Wisconsin, It Just Might Work."  Here's the lede:

President Trump came to Wisconsin late last month to boast about the state’s unemployment rate, which has been at or near 3 percent for more than a year. “It’s never been this low before. Ever, ever, ever,” he said. (Fact check: true.) 

It’s a message that strikes a chord with Bubba Benson, who lives paycheck to paycheck but says that is still better than where he was a few years ago after getting laid off from a shoe warehouse “when all the jobs went to Mexico.” His new job at a plastics manufacturing plant covers the bills and pays good overtime. There are even a few extra bucks in his paycheck now, which he credits to Mr. Trump’s tax cut.

Journalist Jeremy Peters quotes Benson:

It didn’t let me go out and buy a new house. But that wasn’t what it was for.

The point seems to be that even a slightly improved economy is enough to keep many rural Wisconsin voters on Trump's side.  Many see an economy that is "stable, robust and meaningfully, if marginally, benefiting their lives."  

Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post on May 1, 2019 wrote "Why Democrats Should Visit Farm Communities."  She quotes a U.S. Dept. of Commerce Report:

A new report confirms that President Trump is causing the most pain in areas of the country that were the most supportive of his 2016 campaign.

Personal income for farmers fell by the most in three years in the first quarter, as losses to U.S. agriculture mount from President Donald Trump’s trade wars.  

The Commerce Department on Monday cited the steep decline in farm proprietors’ income as a key factor weighing on the nation’s overall personal income growth in March, even though agricultural producers represent only about 2 percent of total employed Americans.

That last statistic is true, but the services that support them, the local governments that depend on their tax revenue and the communities in which farmers live feel real economic pain.

Rubin also quotes a Bloomberg report:

One-time subsidy payments from the Trump administration to compensate producers for some of their trade-war losses helped prop up farm income in the previous quarter, but earnings plunged by an annualized $11.8 billion in the January to March period, according to seasonally adjusted data.

Providing a more ambivalent perspective is Sabrina Tavernise, writing for the New York Times on May 27, 2019.  The dateline is Lordstown, Ohio (population 3,272), where a massive General Motors plant closed a few months ago.  The headline is, "With his Job Gone, an Autoworker Wonders, 'What Am I as a Man?'"  Tavernise's story features Rick Marsh, a middle-aged white man who lost his job at the plant when it closed several months ago:

For Mr. Marsh the plant is personal, but in the three months since G.M. stopped making cars there, it has become political. A parade of presidential hopefuls has come through, using the plant to make the point that American capitalism no longer works for ordinary people. 

Tavernise quotes Marsh: 

To me, it’s another flagrant sign that these people, [the political class] really don’t have a clue.  They are so out of touch with reality and real people. All of them.

* * *  

[Marsh] made no exception for Mr. Trump. Mr. Marsh voted for him, as did a majority of voters in Trumbull County, a small square on the map of northeast Ohio that hadn’t voted for a Republican for president since 1972. 

The path to the White House next year runs through places like Lordstown, and Mr. Marsh and many of his neighbors, far from knowing how they will vote, say the G.M. plant shutdown has only left them more at sea politically. They tried voting for Barack Obama, then Mr. Trump.  Now they don’t know where to turn.

This seems promising for those of who would like to see Trump deposed--a critical white, working class perspective on Trump.

And finally here's a March 30, 2019 story from NPR about small-town newspaper editor and Pulitzer Prize winner Art Cullen's role in drawing U.S. presidential candidates to Iowa.   In particular, Cullen seems to be drawing them to his home town, Storm Lake, population 10,600, in the affluent and conservative (Steve King is the representative for the area that includes Storm Lake and surrounding Buena Vista County) northwest part of Iowa.  When the story was written, Cullen was about to host a candidates forum, in which Amy Klobuchar (MN), Elizabeth Warren (MA), Julian Castro (TX), and John Delaney (MD) were committed to participate.  Journalist Clay Masters quotes Cullen "wondering aloud":

Beto? Where's he at? Is he out in Taos or is he dancing with Oprah? Joe Biden? He's trying to make up his mind. Well, why doesn't he come and make up his mind with a bunch of Farmers Union members in Storm Lake? They'll help him make up his mind real good.

Cullen is, of course, not rural America's only erudite advocate, though to read most mainstream media, one would have an opposite impression.  Of course, to read mainstream media, one could also assume that all rural Americans support Trump.  The truth is more complex.

Cross-posted to Legal Ruralism.