First it was red-state farmers who got stung by Donald Trump's trade war with China. Now it's small business owners who are getting squeezed by the Trump administration’s immigration policy—which one Trump voter now sees as driven more by racism than economics.
“I think there’s a war on brown people,” Eddie Devine said, with 20/20 hindsight.
Devine, a Kentucky Trump voter, doesn’t like what he’s seen but it also wasn’t a major concern for him originally. He says he now stands to lose his landscaping business because he can't get enough seasonal workers through the scaled back H-2B visa program. Devine thought Trump would be good for his business, but now he feels betrayed.
“I feel like I’ve been tricked by the devil,” said Devine, owner of Harrodsburg-based Devine Creations Landscaping. “I feel so stupid.”
Trump's failure to produce for many small business owners and also some blue-collar workers has hit home in a rash of states Trump won in 2016, including reports from Kentucky, Texas and Ohio.
General Motors is cutting its second shift at the Lordstown Assembly plant outside of Youngtown, Ohio, next month. The move could cost 1,500 jobs at the 3,000-employee plant that builds the Chevrolet Cruze. This is in the heart of the Mahoning Valley, long a Democratic stronghold that broke toward Trump in 2016 because of his popularity with the kinds of blue-collar workers who are about to lose their jobs or reluctantly take buyouts.
Trump's lax emission standards along with once-declining gas prices (they've shot up since Trump scrapped the Iran nuclear deal) are responsible for a decrease in demand for fuel efficient cars like the Cruze and, thus, the layoffs. Ohio Democrats have taken note.
“While low gas prices encourage the decline of compact car like the Chevy Cruze, President Trump’s intention to weaken fuel economy standards is putting his thumb on the scale in favor of the larger cars and SUVs made elsewhere,” [Democratic Rep. Tim] Ryan said. “He claimed he was against the government picking winners and losers, and yet he goes against the very region and state that helped put him in office.”
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, plans to send a letter to GM about the announcement.
“GM cannot pocket billions of dollars in tax cuts and turn around and fire Ohio workers whose livelihoods depend on these jobs,” Brown said. “I expect GM to tell Ohioans immediately how they plan to use their tax windfall to keep Ohioans in their jobs.”
Oh, right—the GOP tax heist. Far from creating jobs, it looks like that corporate tax bonanza is just as readily translating into layoffs for American workers.
Trump’s trade war with China was already creating an opening for red-state Democrats in the midterms; his failings for small business owners and blue-collar workers who voted for him is just another nudge in the direction of Democrats this fall.