The trade deals can't be blamed on any one man or party - both were responsible, but for decades no man but Ross Perot gained national traction running against them.
While America's Catholic bishops - hardly a political force since their silence when John F. Kennedy promised voters his Catholic values would have no impact on his governance - are silent on this frightening shift in the Democratic Party, priests with the courage to speak out have garnered national support over 1.1 million views on YouTube.
At the same time, a Republican Party wedded to corporate tax breaks, free trade, and anti-union policies has been overtaken by a president committed to fighting the culture wars, bringing industry back to the country through whatever trade measures are necessary, and winning the support of unions put in last place by Democratic environmentalists and open-border advocates.
The shift is making headways: When the Republican chairwoman of Bethlehem's Northampton County set up a voter-registration booth at a demolition derby, she told us, she gained more than 2,000 signatures, including a number who wanted to register for "The Trump Party." Back up north in Luzerne County, a Biden rally last weekend was surrounded by tailgating, parading Trump supporters waving the blue flags of his campaign.
Luzerne's Valeria Price, 37, said she's haunted by her grandmother's intent to vote Republican for the first time in 2016 - not because she was going to leave the party she and her husband, once a local Democratic councilman, had loyally supported all their lives, but because Price didn't ask her why she was leaving before she passed.
"Who is my party?" Price asked when we stopped by the newsstand where she works the register.
It's an amazing thing to see: Party loyalty that runs so deep - and is connected to so many past battles - voters struggle with an identity crisis when confronted with the reality that the Democratic Party has long left Mass-attending Catholic workers behind.
Sunday, November 1, 2020
In Pennsylvania, Undecided Voters Are Torn Between Faith And A Party That Was Once A Way Of Life
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