Fox Conn or Trump Con
It was the middle of the 2016 general election. Trump’s analytic team discovered they had a chance of winning Wisconsin. With the state voting system already tilted Republican by the questionable efforts of Governor Scott Walker, Republican Party Chairman Reince Preibus, and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan; it would only take some “convincing” to push Wisconsin into the “win” column.
The major Republican regions of Wisconsin are agricultural: the famous “cheese-head” dairy farmers who were voting for Trump regardless. But it was in the more urban areas around Milwaukee and Green Bay that Trump’s message of “ Making America Great Again” by bringing back industrial employment found appeal. Walker and Trump touted the coming of Foxconn, a Chinese based manufacturer; bringing 13,000 jobs to the state. Foxconn makes high-tech screens for I-Phones and other devices.
On the announcement that Foxconn was coming, candidate Trump announced:
“The construction of this facility represents the return of LCD electronics and electronic manufacturing to the United States, the country that we love. That’s where we want our jobs. To make such an incredible investment, Chairman Gou put his faith and confidence in the future of the American economy — in other words if I didn’t get elected he definitely would not be.”
The promise of manufacturing jobs made a difference. Out of almost three million votes cast for President, Trump gained 1,405,284 to Clinton’s 1,382,536: 22,748 votes or two thirds of one percent to win the ten Wisconsin electoral votes.
This week, Foxconn announced that they aren’t going to build a manufacturing plant on the site. They are now looking at a “technology hub,” and while some manufacturing will be done, the 13,000 promised jobs are now uncertain.
In October of 2016, Carrier announced that it would be closing its plants in Indianapolis and Huntington, Indiana, and moving its operation to Mexico. Candidate Trump, and more importantly his running mate former Indiana Governor Mike Pence, went to work to “save the Carrier jobs.” Their apparent success was touted as the kind of impact a “business” President could have. While it didn’t determine the voting outcome in Indiana, it did make a difference in the “blue wall” states nearby, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
A year later, Carrier announced layoffs at the Indianapolis plant. Five production lines have been reduced to three, and 2000 jobs reduced to 700. The Huntington plant will soon stop manufacturing all together, with only salaried workers remaining doing research, design and customer service.
The President promised the workers of Youngstown that they didn’t need to move, jobs were coming back. Last month, General Motors decided to close the Lordstown assembly plant. The famous question of the Watergate era was: what did the President know, and when did he know it. Perhaps we ought to be asking the same question of this President; what did he know about Foxconn, Carrier and GM, and when did he know it?
President Trump has a “tenuous” relationship with the truth. That’s a nice way of saying that he says whatever he thinks will get him out of whatever problem he’s in at the moment, regardless of the facts. Yesterday was a clear example: he stated that the “media” misstated what the President’s intelligence chiefs said to the Senate committee, even though the C-Span 3 broadcast (yes, I watched it all) showed that there were no misstatements. So when the Trump Administration claims that “ISIS is defeated” or “the Russians aren’t obeying a treaty” or “North Korea isn’t building weapons” or “Iran is breaking the agreement” or “caravans are coming to the border” or “no collusion:” we really have no idea what is true.
After almost four years of the Trump campaign and Presidency, the public has become numb to falsehood. After four years of “alternative facts” and “the truth isn’t true” we have come to expect lies. There is no longer outrage, or surprise. It has infected our entire political system, and made many voters, if not most, cynics.
This is the true legacy of the Trump era. Whatever happens in the next two years, impeachment or not, re-election or not, the American people will be forced to answer a simple question: how long are we willing to be conned?
