Pennsylvania Ping!
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Posted on 10/18/2024 7:43:42 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Traditionally the Amish do not vote. In the past they wanted little to do with government, believing instead that they serve the higher kingdom of God.
Now, among this deeply religious community known for rejecting modern technology, the attitude to politics is changing and the “Amish vote” has been relentlessly targeted in one of America’s swing states.
“Trump has some good ideas, especially on the economy,” Henry Stoltz, an Amish vegetable farmer, said. “But you see, I don’t like his morals.”
Stoltz, 45, who sells the pumpkins, apples, potatoes and squash that he grows at a country market in Manheim, Pennsylvania, is a member of the Trump campaign’s latest target demographic — one that it believes could put the former president back in the White House.
Pennsylvania is the most hotly contested state in the run up to next month’s election, and, with 19 electoral college votes, the most coveted. Overall victory is considered very unlikely for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris if they fail to win here.
Joe Biden won the state by 80,000 votes in 2020, and 90,000 Amish live in Pennsylvania — many of them in the, traditionally Republican, Lancaster County.
“The Amish could make all the difference this year, big time,” Ryan Sexton, a Trump supporter, said at a voter registration stand 20 metres away from from Stoltz’s stall. “We’re seeing a lot more enthusiasm from them this time, they give us the thumbs up when they pass by,” added Sexton, who leads the Republican Early Vote Action group in the county.
“I don’t think it’s going to be tight at all in Pennsylvania, I think Trump is going to win by two or three points. We’ll take the state, because we’re registering so many more folk than the Democrats this time,” Sexton said. “We signed up 22,000 last week, the Dems only did 9,000. We’re destroying them.”
Sexton and his team said they register between 15 and 20 Amish at the market every Tuesday. The Republican group attempts to persuade this small minority with the promise of smaller government and a passionate defence of their religious freedoms.
Another motivator is the story of the local Amish dairy farmer Amos Miller, whose farm was raided in January for selling unpasteurised milk. Miller was banned from selling raw milk anywhere in the state by a judge, and became a cause célèbre for his community.
Early Vote Action were also at Miller’s trial to register his Amish supporters outside the courthouse. “The milk story really upset them,” Sexton said. “They hate the idea of the government interfering with their right to sell what they want.”
The group has printed hundreds of “Amish for Trump” yard signs. In Manheim they’re popular among regular locals but not with the Amish. The community is famously shy, and also almost never poses for photographs, believing it is against an instruction in the Ten Commandments to never make idols.
The Amish settled in Pennsylvania in the 18th century to escape religious persecution in Switzerland and Germany. Their Protestant interpretation of the Bible states they must live separately from society to preserve the purity of their beliefs. Many still shun modern life and the technological advancements of the last 300 years, including cars, and prefer to get around in pony-driven buggies.
Another Amish man, in his twenties, runs the Fairland coffee and bakery stand at Roots market with his wife and sister. The man, who didn’t want to give his name, told The Times that, like Stoltz, he had registered to vote this year.
“I will vote and I’ve decided who I’m going to vote for, but it’s a private thing so I’d rather not say if you don’t mind,” he added.
Early Vote Action’s founder is the colourful and controversial Trump activist Scott Presler. A close confidante of Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara, who co-chairs the Republican National Committee, Presler was one of the warm-up speakers for Trump at his return to Butler in western Pennsylvania last month.
“Pennsylvania’s Democrat governor Josh Shapiro is waging a war on school choice and religious freedom, and small businesses, and raw milk, and farmers,” Presler told The Megyn Kelly Show on SiriusXM last week. “Every aspect of Amish living is under attack, so we meet the Amish where they are.”
Presler also claims to have a list of 13,000 Amish addresses, and is posting leaflets and voter registration forms to them. Registration in Pennsylvania closes next week.
Steven Nolt is professor of history and Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown College, 15 miles from Manheim, and runs its Amish studies courses. He has tracked the Amish vote for years and doubts some of the Trump campaign’s bolder claims.
As the average Amish couple has six children, half of Pennsylvania’s 90,000 Amish are under the age of 18 and unable to vote, Nolt pointed out.
In the 2016 presidential election, he calculated that just 7 per cent of the state’s Amish voted but has also found that since then the number has been steadily climbing.
“Anecdotally, I have no doubt that more Amish folks will vote this year than have in the past,” Nolt said. “The outreach to them is the strongest it’s been for years and that has an effect. Amish vote overwhelmingly Republican, so there may be a few thousand more votes for Trump there.
“I’m just dubious that there really are the numbers to make that much of a difference, and some of the claims made by the likes of Mr Presler really boggles the mind. But we’re all expecting a close election in Pennsylvania so I guess it all depends on the size of the margin of victory.”
How will Stoltz, the Amish farmer at the market, vote? “I registered because they asked me to,” he said. “I thought ‘well, it gives me the option to vote if I want to’. Maybe I’ll vote for Trump but the truth is I haven’t decided yet.
“If our bishops told us to go and vote then that would influence me, but they haven’t yet. They’re still saying we should keep out of it.”
because it worked in 2016 ...
As Someone who has Amish neighbors in South Central, PA, if the Amish want to help preserve their way of life, there is no choice but Trump!
I hope they see it, and act on it!
Ooohh boy that’s going to be a tough accent for Kam to imitate.
“if the Amish want to help preserve their way of life, there is no choice but Trump!”
Exactly right. The Big / Deep State is out to crush the Amish with countless modern rules and regulations. So many people vote against their own self interests for really stupid reasons like Henry Stoltz in the article who said “But you see, I don’t like his morals.”
Trump may have a few moral failings with multiple wives and some locker room talk, but that’s it. Trumps moral failings are a millionth Harris’. There is NOTHING more immoral than communism and that’s the path she would gleefully take us down.
It’s shocking how few people can truly see this and are unable connect the dots.
and 2020
The same for jews who Israel to exist!
There is but one choice!
The margin in pa in 2020 was 81,000 with a much stronger candidate in Scranton Joe if even 35,000 Amish vote that is enormous
Pennsylvania Ping!
Please ping me with articles of interest.
FReepmail me to be added to the list.
Something to consider for those advocating for PHOTO Voter ID...better have a religious exemption provision as in Ohio.
The ‘Deep State’ and the WEF HATES any ‘self-sufficient’ people. And if they can’t destroy them with regulations they will eventually just kill them.
LOL! I think you won this thread :-)
Horse and buggies are low carbon foot print. Better than EV vehicles!
Someone convince the Orthodox Jews to go talk to the Amish.
They could even speak Yiddish/middle German to each other.
It’s time Godly proples unite.
Peoples
Ja!
“Because it is there!”
The Amish need to understand the degenerate pedophiles of the Democrat party are out to destroy their way of life.
The state has been pretty much trying to shut down the Amish farms.
Just a wild guess here, but maybe it's because there are NO AMISH IN UTAH?
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