MOBILE – As the 2016 election winds into its last day voters across the country are taking one final opportunity to evaluate which candidate they’ll cast their ballot for this Tuesday. But here in Mobile, Alabama – in a state where Donald Trump currently has a 99.9% chance of winning on November 8th – it seems like most have all but made up their minds.
“Look, I’m just anxious as shit about this economy” offered Travis Smith-Reynolds outside a Mobile-area Trump rally Sunday evening. “I’m supporting Donald J. Trump because he was a successful businessman and he’s gonna get this economy back on track.”
Travis Smith-Reynolds, center, protesting the intellectual property provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. (AP Photo)
Reached for comment outside Gold & Guns, an area pawn shop and shooting range, Betty Johnson, another Trump supporter echoed the sentiment. “This economy is just terrible. It’s terrible. You got no jobs. And you got Obama in the White House and he’s not doing a damn thing about it. Makes me furious, Barack Hussein Obama and that wife-a-his. The two of them making all of us down here so anxious. Jesus Christ am I riddled with economic anxiety.”
“Well I’ve been hearing from a lot of people that Barack Obama, well, he doesn’t even want to fix the American economy. Now you tell me, why do you think that might be?” – Betty Johnson shares some election thoughts Sunday (AP Photo)
And just as the decline in domestic manufacturing has led to a hollowing-out of once-prosperous small towns across the country, so too has the hollowing-out of those towns led to a calamitous drop in civic participation. And Todd Tullberry, leader of a local community organization, sees a vote for Trump as his best chance at keeping his group’s doors open. “I’ll be honest, in this economic climate, forget finding new members. We’re just trying to keep the ones we got. But with Trump, I think there’s a chance, a small chance, we turn this economy around and maybe we’ll be able to start rebuilding.”
“This is what a chart of 8 years of 6% annual GDP growth would look like.” – Todd Tullberry outside his group’s meeting hall Monday. (AP Photo)
Trump wraps up his election bid Monday evening in Michigan with a last push to woo black and latino voters, two groups that, given their historically low levels of economic anxiety, have been slow to embrace his candidacy.
To find your local polling place, visit headcount.org.
(L&B)
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