"If any one American county can be said to exemplify Trump Country, Squatabit County Ohio might be the place. The rolling rust-belt slice of central Ohio went to Trump by an overwhelming 81% of 187 registered voters who cast ballots in the 2016 general election.
We spoke with Bob Hodgkins and Donnie Thomas of North Elbow. We met with Hodgkins and Thomas at The Dirty Spoon, the only remaining restaurant in the county. We were the only customers during lunch, with the four of us taking up nearly half the available tree stumps. Over truly shitty coffee, the two men admitted some misgivings, but confirmed that they stand solidly behind Trump.
Both were employed at the local Betamax factory, but have struggled to find full-time employment since it shut down in 1985. "There were some training programs a while back," Hodgkins noted, "and it would have been about 90 minutes away, which wasn't too bad. But then I found out that it was training people to build hybrid cars, and I wasn't going to have anything to do with that faggot stuff." Thomas agreed: "I worked at the Betamax plant, and my Daddy pressed vinyl LPs, and his Daddy made Victrolas. That's what we do here in North Elbow."
Neither man has health insurance, thanks to rising premiums that put ACA out of reach. Because of part-time employment, both earn too much to be eligible for state Medicaid. Under new GOP-enacted rules, official eligibility kicks in at annual earnings of $192 or lower for a family of four). "Yeah, thanks, Obama", Thomas sarcastically noted.
If one issue has caused second thoughts, it's been the the abduction of 11 of their teenage grandchildren for involuntary organ donation by mercenaries hired by Trump supporter Peter Thiel. Under the new health care program referred to by the president as "outside the box thinking", American citizens meeting certain health criteria are eligible for euthanasia so that wealthy Trump donors, known as "Pancreatic Pioneers", can extend their lives through a special transplant program.
Families of those abducted and killed for organ harvesting receive "Make America Great Again" baseball caps, while families losing five or more members get the hats, a $100 Target gift card, a challenge coin featuring Trump properties, and a day pass to Mar-A-Lago during the summer off-season, with opportunities to visit the gift shop and order lunch. Thomas has made the trip; Hodgkins is waiting to sell a few rifles from his collection of more than 175 AR-15s to pay for bus tickets.
"I think that was just a bit too much," Hodgkins remarked after being reminded of the new health care program. "It wasn't so much that Abbie (Hodgkins' 13-year-old granddaughter, now presumed dead) was killed so that rich people could use her liver, heart and kidneys. It's that her organs might be going to Mexico or Saudi Arabia. That kind of pissed me off. If we're going to make America great again, this program ought to be helping Americans, y'know?"
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