The DLC/Clintonite/Corporate Whore version of the Democratic Party really gave the Republicans a multi-generational gift by passing NAFTA and declaring that the United States didn’t need any manufacturing jobs because “everyone can either learn computers or retire!”
Not only does it allow Republicans to pretend to be the hero’s of the rust belt, but it allows lazy-ass journalists like Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times to churn out this kind of “Opinions vary on the shape of earth question” journalism:
To Democrats, the train derailment and chemical leak in the hamlet of East Palestine, Ohio, is a story of logic, action and consequences: Rail-safety regulations put in place by the Obama administration were intended to prevent just such accidents. The Trump administration gutted them.
To Republicans, East Palestine is a symbol of something far larger and more emotional: a forgotten town in a conservative state, like so many others in Middle America, struggling for survival against an uncaring megacorporation and an unseeing government whose concerns have never included the likes of a town of 4,718 souls.