‘Four years of getting even’: voters in former
Trump stronghold mixed on possible second term
Pennsylvanians largely downplayed his vow to be
‘dictator’ on day one of new term, while others are soured on 45th president
Chris Stein
Chris Stein
in West Hazleton, Pennsylvania
@ChrisJStein
Mon 25 Dec
2023 08.00 EST
From the
farm where he retired in the Pennsylvania countryside, Roger Williams has been
keeping up with the latest news about his preferred presidential candidate,
Donald Trump – including the comments he has made about wanting “to be a
dictator for one day”.
“For one
day – don’t get it twisted,” Williams, 67, replied when asked about the comment
that amplified fears that Trump, if successful in his campaign to return to the
White House in next year’s election, would take steps to dismantle US
democratic institutions.
“He wanted
to put his foot down and dictate some things that needed to get done. That’s
what he meant,” Williams said as he sat at 4th Street Pub in West Hazleton, a
town in Pennsylvania’s north-eastern Luzerne county that was key to Trump
winning the state and the presidency overall.
In the
seven years since Trump transformed the Republican party with his 2016 election
victory, Americans have grown used to him saying brash, strange and insulting
things in public, but the comments he made about wanting to be a dictator have
landed differently.
Polls show
the former president is the overwhelming frontrunner for the Republican
presidential nomination next year, even though he is facing federal charges for
his well-documented attempt to overturn the 2020 election, when voters rejected
his bid for a second term and replaced him with Joe Biden.
Media
outlets have already reported that Trump is considering purging thousands of
civil servants and replacing them with ideological loyalists, using the justice
department to retaliate against former officials who turned against him and
deploying the military to crush protesters if he wins a second term in 2024.
Earlier this month, Trump went public with his desire for absolute power when
he took questions from conservative Fox News commentator Sean Hannity at a town
hall in Iowa.
“Under no
circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power
as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked. “Except for day one,” the
former president responded.
We have Biden because of Trump, and we have Trump
because of Biden. I don’t want either of them to run
Chris Christie supporter Bob Capparell
“I love
this guy,” Trump continued, referring to Hannity. “He says, ‘You’re not going
to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one. We’re
closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not
a dictator.’”
Days later,
in a speech at the New York Young Republican Club’s annual gala, Trump doubled
down. “I said I want to be a dictator for one day. You know why I wanted to be
a dictator? Because I want a wall, and I want to drill, drill, drill,” he told
the sympathetic crowd.
The former
president’s foes pounced on the remarks to press their case that he is too
dangerous to hold office again. “The greatest threat Trump poses is to our
democracy, because if we lose that, we lose everything,” Biden said at a
campaign reception in Los Angeles.
It will be
voters in places such as Pennsylvania whose judgment of Trump’s remarks will
matter most. One of a handful of swing states expected to determine the outcome
of next year’s presidential contest, Trump won the Keystone state in 2016, and
lost it four years later to Biden. His arrival on the political scene left a
lasting imprint in Luzerne county, which once leaned Democratic but broke
decisively for Trump in his first presidential election, and where the GOP has
generally done well ever since.
Several
voters in the county said they remain unnerved by Trump, but the former
president’s fans portrayed the concerns about his desire for dictatorship as
overblown.
“That’s all
bull,” said retiree Joe Belletiere, 74, of the ex-president’s remarks. “They
took that out of context.”
A former
Democrat who switched parties when Trump first ran in 2016, Belletiere now
describes himself as a “staunch Republican”. Sipping coffee in a McDonald’s
where he meets up with his friends every morning in Hazleton, a medium-sized
city neighboring the smaller, more conservative West Hazleton, Belletiere said
Trump is just showing his resolve to achieve longstanding campaign promises,
like building a wall along the border with Mexico, and increasing the country’s
already record oil production.
“He’s going
to dictate taking the wall down and opening up the oil,” he said.
Sitting
nearby, 77-year-old Richard Yanac said he once again planned to vote for Trump,
expecting him to bring down prices that had risen throughout Biden’s presidency
due to a long list of factors, including the economy’s broader recovery from
the disaster brought about by Covid-19.
“I don’t
think he’d be a dictator,” Yanac said. “I’m a Trump person, and I hope that
when he gets in, he shuts down the border, he starts drilling and he gets the
prices down.”
Polls have
recently shown a tight race between Trump and Biden, with several finding the
sitting president lagging among voters in Pennsylvania. They have also shown
that voters are sour on both men, and that feeling was very much alive among
the retirees who hold court at the Hazleton McDonald’s.
“We have
Biden because of Trump, and we have Trump because of Biden. I don’t want either
of them to run,” said Bob Capparell, 74. A lifelong conservative, he’s
supporting ex-New Jersey governor and Trump foe Chris Christie, or perhaps
Nikki Haley, who served as the former president’s UN ambassador.
Asked
whether he thought Trump could become a dictator, Capparell replied: “He would
be, absolutely. You’d never get him out of office, never.”
While
Trump’s triumph in Luzerne county and Pennsylvania as a whole in 2016 was one
of the many shocks he gave Democrats that year, there’s evidence his staying
power has waned. The county supported him again in 2020, but by a percentage
point less, and Democratic candidates won four seats on the county council in
last month’s elections.
Bob
Buchman, 72, voted for Trump in 2016 because he “believed his baloney”, but
backed Biden four years later. Faced with the same choice again, he’ll vote for
Biden, if he must.
“I’d take
10 Joe Bidens before I’d take one Donald Trump. He just lies and lies and
lies,” he said. “I’m afraid if he gets in now, he’ll just have four years of
getting even.”
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