The Penn Market is a good sized general store attached to a campground in Butler County, Pennsylvania.
They sell food, including the best ham salad I have ever eaten and some wonderful chocolate croissants.
They sell stuff you might need while camping; toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, Bandaids, antiseptic cream. They sell camping supplies’ tent pegs, bungee cords, air mattresses, baja blankets.
They sell, tee shirts, sweatshirts, flipflops and Crocs. They have assorted toys, trinkets, stuffed animals and odds and ends.
I don’t know how much of what they sell is made outside of the United States. But I’d bet most of what they sell, that isn’t food, is imported.
Which means prices are about to go up, thanks to Trump’s tariffs.
Butler County is Trump country. The man is revered in that part of the state. You’ll see signs and flags everywhere praising the man who is close to a demigod to people struggling to get by in a mostly rural area.
The people who own the campground are Trumpers, because they don’t like the way they see the world going.
I talked to the woman who runs the campground now. She told me her mother had always picked up hitchhikers, and nothing had ever happened. But, now, she was afraid to pick up a stranger.
I sympathized. I didn’t mention that it had been years since I’d seen a hitchhiker, and it was never safe to pick up a stranger. In her view, the world has changed. It has become less safe.
Thanks to CNN, Fox News, and Court TV, if a grizzly murder happens in Oregon, people will hear about it in Ohio, an hour after it happens, and get the gory details, for weeks afterward.
There’s a good chance, as the owners of the Penn Market will struggle to keep shelves stocked while sales slump because of higher prices. They’ll blame their problems on Muslim terrorists or woke liberals, or anything except Trump’s tariffs.
They will assure you that the tariffs mean the stuff they sell will soon be made in the USA, by hardworking Americans .
Except it won’t. It takes time to build a factory, and train workers, and get the raw materials. It’s easier to bring things in from China, India, Mexico and assorted other countries, where wages are low.
The importers will pay the tariffs and pass the price increases on to the consumer.
Trump and his toadies don’t care about ordinary Americans. Most of them don’t understand how we live. (J.D. Vance, presumably does, but he doesn’t care. Shame on him.) They don’t care about small businesses, like the campground.
In the years to come, a lot of those small businesses are going to die. Little mom and pop restaurants, small boutiques, little delis, independent coffee shops, will close, because they can’t afford to pay for what they need, or pay their employees.
I’m hoping the campground will survive. It’s family owned and the family are good people. They have turned the campground into an event space, which means they are open to all kinds of people; Blacks, Gays, Asians, new agers, hippies.
There is a kind of symbiosis, between the owners and the campers. They provide us with a safe, comfortable space. We play by the rules, clean up after ourselves and buy lots of chocolate croissants. (They’re delicious!)
I would hate to see that go.
This summer, the Penn Market is going to be hurting. Butler County, which relies on tourism, for a fair amount of their revenue, is going to be hurting.
People won’t be going to the two state parks. They won’t be coming to the Big Butler Fair, or any of the other fairs and festivals in the area.
People in Butler County probably won’t blame Trump for their misfortunes. That’s the other tragedy. The man is close to being a demigod in the county. There are Trump shrines in front yards in all the small towns. They will blame LGBTQ people, woke liberals, immigrants, the deep state, anyone but the people responsible.
Joe Rogan, Jesse Waters, and other right wing pundits will explain why these people are causing the hard times we’re about to face.
Their arguments will be clear and easy to follow, even if they aren’t true. These people are good liars.
But the Penn Market will still be struggling.
Which is a tragedy of sorts.
