As Donald Trump becomes the President of the United States for the second time, let's talk about his superpowers. And, like many superheroes and supervillains, his superpowers have a geographical genesis. Pennsylvania, the state where Trump survived an assassination attempt on July 13, 2024, during a rally, might have delivered the country to him. The moment a 78-year-old man stood up, raised his fist, and mouthed “Fight! Fight! Fight!” right after a bullet wounded his ear, a superhero was born. Ironically, this incident at Butler was the 19th mass shooting in Pennsylvania in 2024, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.
Trump's performance improved among younger voters, white men, Black men and Latin Americans in Pennsylvania, an electorally significant swing state. The visuals from the voting day in November 2024 showed young people waiting in long queues to choose their next president. Now we know who they voted for. The polling data has been analysed to death. Pennsylvania went the way the rest of the country did.
What Went Down In Pennsylvania
With 50.4% vote, Trump secured the state's 19 Electoral College votes, catapulting him to the White House for a second time. In 2020, Biden won Pennsylvania with 50% of the vote against Trump's 49%. Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 with 49% against Hillary Clinton's 48%.
Harris won only nine out of the 67 counties of the state, with only Philadelphia giving her an over 75% vote. Nearly every voting precinct in Pennsylvania swung towards Trump, most significantly in Democratic fortresses, driving him closer to victory. Does this mean that the people of Pennsylvania turned into women-hating reactionaries within the last four years? Much as the Democrats might want everyone to believe so, this is not the truth. A casual chat with a healthcare aide working for one of the largest health service conglomerates in Pennsylvania reveals several of the anxieties that explain Trump's stellar comeback as the POTUS. The retiree aide, who took up this job entailing eight-to-twelve-hour shifts like many others for an extra income, rues the fact that the growing immigrant population in the US was making jobs scarcer for the citizens. As per a Pew study from 2022, the U.S. workforce has over 30 million immigrants, with legal immigrants accounting for 22.2 million and the remaining 8.3 million immigrant workers are unauthorised. At 46.2 million, immigrants make up barely 13.2% of the US population, yet they can cause unassailable anxieties, both cultural and economic.
Do Americans Understand Immigration And Immigrants?
When the said healthcare worker was asked about immigrants in and around the medical centre, they denied noticing any significant surge in the numbers there. Interestingly, at least six physicians on duty on the same floor were of foreign origin at that moment. According to data on immigration compiled by the American Immigration Council, around 25.2% of the physicians in the state are foreign-born. It then merits another question: do regular people understand immigration and immigrants?
The US, despite its wealth and commensurate technological advancements, remains an unequal society. The inflated prices of eggs and milk, therefore, became billionaire Trump's clarion call. When the wallet feels the pinch beyond a point, it is not uncommon to find a conspicuous scapegoat. Immigrants, particularly the unlawful ones, become that scapegoat even though they happen to be working for less than minimum wage. So, while Pennsylvania may have immigrants accounting for only 7.5% of the total population, the “outsiders” became an election issue of note.
Religion vs Ethnicity
Pennsylvania, like the rest of the United States, loves its firearms, and this brings us back to the beginning of the essay. The deadliest shooting in the last decade was a hate crime, where 11 people were killed and seven more injured. This was the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting incident of 2018. As per the official records, the majority of the race/ethnicity/religion-related hate crimes committed in 2023 in the state were carried out against Jewish persons, places of work, and worship. Religion, perhaps, is more polarising than ethnicity.
Regular people may not even care for the ‘them' and ‘us' binary unless there is something at stake. As long as there are skilled doctors and nurses available to give medical assistance, most people won't notice whether or not they are immigrants. Working two jobs to make ends meet is what, sometimes, digs and deepens identity faultlines. So, yes, the people of Pennsylvania may not have become nativists suddenly, but they certainly may be getting anxious about their future.
This anxiety met the fist, and the miracle of Trump's ‘Second Coming' is for all to see.
(The author is a Delhi-based author and academic.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
