Bernie Sanders Visits Lordstown, Ohio
Bernie Sanders Visits Lordstown
By Caleigh Calvey
WARREN- Senator and Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders visited Lordstown High School in Lordstown, Ohio on Sunday around 1 p.m. The rally was assisted by the local Teachers Union and AFT President, Randi Weingarten.
The village of Lordstown (sometimes included into the city of Warren by the media) recently closed their General Motors plant, many students from the school district have moved, are living with grandparents, and in other cases students are living on their own or with distant cousins. The loss of GM has severely impacted the community, many politicians including President Donald Trump have used the loss to bring attention to the need for industry. Presidential Candidate Beto O’Rourke even visited the area less than a month ago.
Senator Sanders and Weingarten pointed out that thousands of workers are now suffering the financial and personal hardships that the loss of the GM plant has caused, which I commend them for. Yet, in typical Democrat fashion they made sure to criticize President Trump, and blame the losses on Corporatism.
Senator Sanders called President Trump a pathological liar, which is not the first time he has made the same statement. One of the other speakers pointed out that GM did not change their product at the Lordstown plant from the Chevy Cruise to SUV’s because it would have been cost 100 thousand dollars to retool the plant, then went on to criticize the company by saying most of their money the previous year was wasted on buying back stock and other losses on Wall Street.
Sanders said the meeting was important “not only to discuss the horrific impact on this small town, this community, about GM preferring to give billions to stock buyback to make the very rich even richer, while they chose to close down this plant and other plants around the country”. Of course, he would mention how in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York, and his home state, Vermont are suffering from the greed of big business, Trump’s tax cuts and the so-called “one percent”.
To my surprise attending the rally, a lot of the crowd seemed to be middle aged and older, but considering the location most of the crowd were probably former members of the UAW. Sanders and Weingarten met with the Lordstown High School Political History Club before the rally began and again to my surprise they were both very polite. Weingarten actually took the opportunity to work around the room and to ask students their opinions, comments and concerns for Sanders campaign. I have two statements, one to the local news and the other to Bernie’s campaign, which I will love to see how they twist my words.
Sanders had been attending an event before hand and was nearly an hour late, which left only time for group pictures and few words with him. I was shocked that personally he was polite, yet on the stage the scene appeared with a little bit differently of an attitude toward Conservatives. He did however commend the students for being so interested in history and politics. Telling us backstage that “not a lot of young people study history or study politics”. Weingarten did ask our opinion on the polls. Personally I believe Sanders or Biden will be the Democratic Candidate.
I wish we had more opportunity to ask questions, personally I would have asked him about his high taxes and the rate of inflation that will occur with it, where he will get all the necessary money from, where he will be making tax cuts, as well as how he imagines to bring more jobs to an impoverishing area. The rally, along with the meeting held by O’Rourke will, unfortunately, improve the likelihood of a Democrat securing the area.