Trump’s war in Iran, gas prices and corruption dominate messaging as special election nears to fill Senate seat
It’s tough to beat the prices at Golden Dawn, an Italian restaurant that first opened its doors in 1932 on the north side of Youngstown, Ohio, and where a hamburger and fries today goes for $7 and a domestic beer just $2 at happy hour.
But the price that’s most discussed these days around its neon-lit, crescent-shaped bar is the $5 a gallon that gas prices are nearing at stations across this north-eastern Ohio city that is one of the state’s most prominent victims of manufacturing disinvestment. Where people differ is about what caused it, and who should take the blame.
“It’s because of that damn war” with Iran, said Tom Goodman, a 47-year-old who works odd jobs around town. An independent, he was never a fan of the president, but now thinks even less of him. “Trump can go ride back into the sunset on whatever white horse he rode in on because he didn’t help the country,” he said.
As a person who lives in Ohio, which is “flyover country” as far as most of the US is concerned, it’s interesting to see any attention focused on it.
But it’s dispiriting to see that in the face of an actual Fascist coup, the opposition is focusing on little-picture stuff like gas prices. That is to say: Inflation and “affordability” are real problems, I just have a hard time believing they’re going to be solved in and of themselves. The oligarchs don’t care about making daily life easy or hopeful for ordinary people, quite the opposite.
They are focusing on issues they have universal condemnation, and are undeniably the responsibility of the current regime.
If you try to rally around big picture issues, you better be sure everyone seems the same big picture, and agrees on what should be done and how to do it and who should do it.
There are people who think the war in Iran is gong great. There are those that think it’s going poorly, but that we can and should win. There are those that recognize it’s a disaster, but believe that it was necessary, or at least desirable to take action against Iran, just not like this.
But everyone hates high gas prices.
