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Shortly before the 2016 U.S. election, Donald Trump appeared as a messiah in the heart of the beleaguered steel country of western Pennsylvania, carrying a message of hope to people who didn’t have it.
In the small town of Monessen, ravaged by unemployment, the townspeople went crazy. Hundreds of longtime Democrats joined the Trump train.
“We are going to return the steel produced in the United States to the backbone of our country,” the future president of the United States told them. “This will create a lot of jobs.”
In the days that followed, Trump signs sprouted up on the lawns and then spread to other old ruined steel towns in Mon Valley, a Democratic stronghold south of Pittsburgh. He helped Trump win this crucial state by just 0.72 percent, and with it the White House.
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Trump had been invited to Monessen by the mayor, Lou Mavrakis, a former Democratic official with the steel union. He wrote to the Trump campaign after Hillary Clinton, and before that, Barack Obama ignored his letters.
The speech was “extraordinary,” Mavrakis told me fervently in 2016. “It gave people a shred of hope.”
But four years later, Trump is no longer seen as Monessen’s savior. And Mavrakis is no longer the mayor. He was rejected by the electorate, in part because of his early enthusiasm for the president.
Now even Mavrakis has turned against Trump. I found him sitting on his porch, outside of town, with a “Biden-Harris” sign on his lawn. He didn’t beat around the bush, calling the president a “son of a bitch.”
“Trump came here and made crazy promises,” said Mavrakis, 82. “He was lying about bringing the steel back. Lies every day. Lie about the virus. He lies when he opens his mouth. The guy is a pathological liar … Jesus Christ, I thought I had seen it all. “
He added: “People have found out around here. Pennsylvania is going for Biden. “
LOUIS RUEDIGER
“Trump came here and made crazy promises,” says former Monessen Mayor Lou Mavrakis.
The city was already dying when Trump arrived in Monessen four years ago. And he’s died a little more since then.
Located on a scenic bend in the Monongahela River, it was once a booming city of more than 20,000 residents. Almost half of its people worked at the Wheeling-Pittsburgh steelworks. It closed in the late 1980s and fewer than 7,500 souls remain.
Hollywood used the mill to make the movie Robocop before it was largely demolished. Driving into town a week before the 2016 election, along bumpy roads, I passed abandoned wooden houses, barely visible in the undergrowth.
An old sewing factory was empty, all 20 windows broken. Half the shops on the main street were in ruins. Billy T’s bar and the only hotel, the Okay Lodge, were also boarded up.
I remember there was a word that elicited unprintable responses from the Monessen folks at the time: “Nafta.” They blamed the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, signed by Bill Clinton in 1993, for sending their jobs overseas.
Trump lashed out at NAFTA, calling it the worst trade deal in history, and promised to end it or renegotiate the substance with Mexico and Canada. It was a big part of his appeal in the country of steel.
After his election, things initially seemed to be looking up at Monessen. One hundred days after Trump’s inauguration, I contacted Mavrakis, who was elated.
“I did, I finally sold the City Hall!” he told me, jumping out of his chair. “It’s the Trump effect. He put places like this on the map. “
LOUIS RUEDIGER
The city was already dying when Trump arrived in Monessen four years ago.
They had been trying to sell it for years to cover the debt. That same day Trump said he wanted to commemorate his 100 days in office by “ending NAFTA.” However, after phone calls from the leaders of Mexico and Canada, he agreed to “renegotiate.” That process lasted well into 2020.
Meanwhile, Monessen broke down a bit more. In the abandoned hardware store, the old owner’s glasses are on the counter, covered in four more years of dust. The trees that sprout from the windows of the old pharmacy have grown. The pizzeria, the Chinese restaurant and the pawn shop remain abandoned. A Windows Replacement business has its own covered windows. You still can’t stay at the Okay Lodge or drink at Billy T’s.
When I walked down the main street in 2016, there were still two benches. Both have already closed. One had been there for 90 years. “Everything is falling apart,” a woman told me. “Now I have to drive seven miles to a bank.”
Around the city there are 500 abandoned houses in various states of disintegration. Many have been empty since the financial crisis of 2008. The City Hall, although newly owned, is still empty. Christine Panepinto, 55, a lollipop lady, voted for Trump in 2016, but now she was torn. “The steel mill is not here yet,” he told me. “I was not delirious. Everyone promises jobs, it’s the same in all elections. “
“But things are worse now. I am disappointed in all of them, not just Trump. I think we are lost here. I am pro-life. I’ve prayed about it and I don’t know what to do. “
Outside of Foodland, the local grocery store, Rebecca Romantino, 53, an unemployed local resident, said: “I hate Trump. He promised to bring back the steel. He didn’t do shit. People are very angry for him here. “
In defense of Trump, he never directly promised to bring the steel mill or the jobs back to Monessen.
Rereading his speech shows that he spoke about trade policy, ending NAFTA, withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, stopping the dumping of subsidized foreign steel in the United States, and China’s manipulation of the currency.
Andrew Harnik / AP
“People have found out around here. Pennsylvania will bet on Biden, ”says Mavrakis.
He attacked politicians who “worship globalism over Americanism,” calling what had happened in Monessen and elsewhere a “politician-made disaster,” while defending bilateral, rather than multilateral, trade deals.
American steel would once again “send our skyscrapers skyward,” he said, and “American workers would be hired to do the job.”
Many in Monessen thought that was referring to them. The lack of progress means that Monessen, and places like this, appear ready to return to the Democratic fold.
When Trump spoke here four years ago, a 25-year-old fourth-generation Monessenite named Matt Shorraw held a protest.
This week I found out that Shorraw is now the mayor of Monessen. He said: “He told them he was going to do something and he didn’t. He opened old wounds about the factory closing and that’s not fair. “
Part of the steelworks is still a coke plant and is the largest employer in the city with around 200 jobs. However, it has been idle for months due to falling demand.
When Trump took office, there were about 11,300 jobs at iron and steel plants in Pennsylvania. The figure rose slightly, but did not exceed 12,000. During the pandemic it dropped to 10,000. In 2018, the president imposed a 25 percent tariff on foreign steel, with mixed results for the industry.
On July 1 of this year, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (T-MEC), successor to NAFTA, entered into force.
Its provisions include that at least 70 percent of the steel used in automobile manufacturing be sourced in North America. It has been well received by the steel industry, though the 850,000-member United Steelworkers union called it a “baseline, not a final destination.”
Shorraw said, “Four years from now, if it actually helps, I will give [Trump] credit. I don’t think we’ll find out anytime soon. I hope that helps. We need something “.
Biden leads Trump by seven percentage points in Pennsylvania, one of the few states projected to return to the Democrats on November 3. Clearly, there are fewer Trump posters in Monessen this time. But the president still has his supporters.
Dan Roberts, 54, has a giant “No More B *******” Trump flag in front of his house, and his yard is adorned with posters. One was recently stolen, so he has prepared the rest with fishing wire and multiple mouse traps to snap fingers at thieves.
Roberts, a maintenance worker, said: “Now I’m like an eyesore around here. But I believe in Trump. The steel industry isn’t what it used to be, but fracking has created big paying jobs in Pennsylvania. It just isn’t in this area.
“I see people in those parts with trucks raised, 80 or 90 thousand dollars, and that doesn’t work at McDonald’s.
“I want Trump to win, but I have a sad feeling that they are going to take it away. The media hates it so much they would put a kangaroo there. “
