Posted on 05/08/2018 4:30:30 PM PDT by Kaslin
Unlike the 5,644 Democrats in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, who changed their party registration to Republican in 2016, presumably so they could vote in the closed 2016 Republican primary, Ed Harry did not. He didn't formally leave his party at the beginning of the election -- but his eye did wander.
At D's Diner, Harry dusts the crumbs from his white toast off of his deep- navy Penn State sweatshirt and switches from coffee to pop. As the young utility workers at the next table leave, he tips his hat, and they return the gesture.
He says of former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, the son of one former U.S. president and brother another: "I made a promise to myself, four years out, after Obama won his second term, that I would never vote for a Bush or a Clinton. That was absolute. Nothing would ever change that. I thought they were both corrupt."
He adds: "When Trump first announced, I laughed. I just couldn't believe that he even had a chance." But Harry was dead set on someone outside of the establishment, so he started to look at the other choices.
"The only other nonpolitician was Dr. Ben Carson," he says. "Everybody else, outside of Rand Paul, I didn't really have any use for. Put them in a bag and shake them and they all come out the same."
As the campaign went on, he wasn't committed to anybody. "The one I liked the best was Jim Webb," Harry says of the Democratic former Virginia senator and former secretary of the Navy, "and I thought he was probably the best candidate out of everybody, but he didn't last except for a couple of months."
The more he listened as the campaign went on, he explains, the better he understood that the Democrats definitely hated Donald Trump and the Republican establishment hated Trump. All the lobbyists on K Street hated Trump. The Chinese came out against him. India came out against him. Mexico came out against him.
Harry says: "I figured I must have a candidate because everybody who's coming out against him are all corrupt, and he's an outsider. So, I said, 'I think I found my candidate.'"
Then he made the announcement: "I had decided to go to the rally he held here in Wilkes-Barre and I ran into a local radio reporter who knew me as a Democrat union official. She said, 'What are you doing here?' I said, 'I guess I saw the light. I'm going to support Trump.' She said, 'You want to get interviewed?'"
He told her bluntly, "Actually, I don't care."
During the course of the interview, she asked him if he was involved in the labor community in the area.
"I said, 'I just happen to be president of the labor council,'" he says. "When we got done, I said, 'Well, that should get me a resignation tomorrow.' Sure enough, I got a phone call from them the next day." He voluntarily resigned, and he did it in person, in front of the entire council.
Harry has lost trust in everything big in this country. He says: "Big banks, big Wall Street, big corporations, the establishment of both parties and their lobbyists, and the big media corporations; gone are the days of the network news just delivering the news."
He adds: "This Russian s--- day in and day out is just absolute nonsense, as far as him being in cahoots. I watched ABC last Thursday; the first 10 minutes dealt with nothing but the allegations that he was in bed with the Russians. The big storms that hit the Midwest got a minute. Nothing else got any time. It was just all this bulls---."
Harry is optimistic about Trump. "But it is going to be a hard slog, he has to work against the Democrats and the Republicans.
"In his heart I know he wants to do well. But Washington's culture is so embedded that it may be a year before he gets a handle, or eighteen months before he gets a handle on everything."
And no, Harry does not care about what Trump tweets. "We knew exactly who he was when we voted for him, tweet and all," he says. "What I liked about Trump was that it was more than about Trump, it was about people, it was about being part of something bigger than just me, I felt as though I was part of something important and worthy of accomplishing something better than what have had."
As long as Trump stays away from becoming a Bush or a Clinton and stays tough, Harry is in this new alliance for the long haul: "If he becomes one of them, then I think this movement continues, without him."
Trump marks the turn of the tide.
Nice post!
In my mind, Trump ties Ronaldus Maximus for Best Prez.
The more he listened as the campaign went on, he explains, the better he understood that the Democrats definitely hated Donald Trump and the Republican establishment hated Trump. All the lobbyists on K Street hated Trump. The Chinese came out against him. India came out against him. Mexico came out against him.
Harry says: “I figured I must have a candidate because everybody who’s coming out against him are all corrupt, and he’s an outsider. So, I said, ‘I think I found my candidate.’”
...
That’s close to what I went through.
I’d been saying for years on FR that we needed an outsider. I just had no idea it would be Trump.
Put them in a bag and shake them and they all come out the same.
Hillary, THAT is why IT HAPPENED.
Nice article Kaslin. Thanks. : )
He adds: “This Russian s-— day in and day out is just absolute nonsense
And this is why is going to happen in 2020 again
My pleasure, and she is right.
I had Trump figured out when he came on the scene.... but I wanted to do some research on what he was like before. I had known of his marriages... and had seen Melania one time with him somewhere on the news.
In research, I found him to be a very giving man. He was wealthy and liked to share anywhere he found a need. Several different occasions he helped by using his plane for someone, or he just gave money to others for a room to stay in or food to eat. He didn’t care who the person was... a nobody.. he would help them.
I found out he was a democrat but he sat and talked to anyone. . didn’t matter what their politics were. He liked to talk and talk... he liked to mix around a crowd... very friendly.. and was as much at home with the poor as the rich. He seemed to have no bad habits that I could see... just a very rich man who lived very rich.
None of that bothered me at all. The fact he liked to help made him a giving man... that was very good. Then when I saw them come down the stairs, I knew he was good enough to vote for and that he would keep his promises... the research showed he had done so in other things.. and it also showed he loved his country.
As of today, I don’t care what he ever did before 2016.. he did not live his life in secret to impress voters some day... he lived it as a person with nothing to hide.
I am a Christian... with high expectations. I live a life that is as Christ like as I can day to day. And NOTHING they come out with about my President, makes any difference. We needed a person of his talents... there are plenty preachers... but few men with the stamina and spine of Trump.
Those who do the talking.. the media. .. the accusers... they DO bother me a lot. The more they charge against him and the more they attack... makes me dislike them more than the day before. They are barking up a tree that will bear no fruit.
THEY are the reasons Trump came along and THEY are the reason Trump won... obama was more than this country can stand in one generation... and I knew who hillary was when they came to Washington from Arkansas. She and bill are not fit to be in that office. So the more they attack our Trump, they just keep us tighter to him.. the more they hate him, the more I want justice for all their crimes.
They think Trump and his voters are trash... not too bright... but it’s THEY who are way out there on a limb where there is no sense left any more... just raw power and money.
Trump has proven to be a strong man... keeps his promises and loves his country. He still dances with the ones who brought him and he knows more than the elite will ever understand.. they don’t get it and never will... pride and wealth seeking does that.
Me, too. I decided that Trump was the only one who would fight back against all sleaze, all the time from the Dems. Enough of this ‘gentlemanly’ attitude. I like Gentlemen, but when you are up against all the garbage being spewed from the Left, you cannot simply stay silent, like GWB did for the last two years of his Presidency and the whole eight years of Obama’s. Now the Bushes are all chummy with Barry and Moochie??? ENOUGH!
Great post!
Bookmark
I had read about him, as a young adult, he used to go to his (rich) father’s worksites and talk to the workers, the hard-hats there. He treated them with TOTAL RESPECT and they noticed (hence the article...some people remember him from that long ago).
He continued to do the same throughout his years as a builder.
That told me all that I needed to know about him.
I knew exactly who PDJT was when I voted for him in 2016 here in Illinois, and I’LL DO IT AGAIN IN 2020!!!
F.U. DEMOCRATS!!!
I had the same impression of Trump.... good one and he’s proven himself.
What does it say for the rest of the elite I didn’t realize were elite until they showed themselves to be such ugly people and full of hate. They really had a stronghold on our country and I did not realize how deep in the pit they were.
Trump isn’t the cause he is the result. How many years of b.s. from both sides of the aisle before real change got elected. Over 30..
Salena Zito gets it..almost always has. She’s been reporting from the outside for quite a while. Is this an excerpt from her book?
I think most of us are simply BLOWN AWAY by how horrible the people are who we thought were on OUR SIDE.
...to the point of hating Trump so much (and by extension, us), that they wound up HANDING HIM THE NOMINATION, and now he’s doing a bit of house cleaning, at their expense.
For example, all that they needed to do in the Summer of 2015 when Trump come down his escalator and said that we needed a Wall...all they, or even ONE REPUBLICAN, needed to do was say something like:
“while I don’t necessarily agree with how he presents it, he does have a point regarding how porous our southern border is, and the huge numbers of people already here illegally”
THAT WAS ALL. They didn’t have to agree that ‘Mexicans were rapists’ (as they claimed to have heard it), just say that TRUMP HAS A POINT.
But did ANY of the other 16 Republicans even go that far, the people who we are told are on OUR SIDE, did any? NOPE...the closest anyone came was Cruz who said something like “I don’t have a problem with what he said”. The rest wanted NOTHING TO DO with Trump and immediately run over to the Democrat side to call him a RACIST.
...and with that, Trump had what he needed, a clear DIVIDING LINE between him and the rest of the pack, and they handed it to him. IDIOTS.
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