Trump and Harris hold dueling rallies in Rust Belt



Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris made appearances across the Rust Belt on Friday but had very different messages for voters.

Both Trump and Harris held rallies in Wisconsin, with the Republican also making a pit stop in Michigan. In a race that will largely be decided by undecided voters or key demographics that may be up for grabs, the candidates have chosen contrasting messages to close with.

How does she plan to improve the state of affairs for Americans, and as sitting vice president, why hasn't she?

"Oh, it's good to be in the house of labor!" Harris remarked at her rally in Janesville, Wisconsin.

"I proudly stand with labor. I have my whole entire career. I always will," Harris continued. "This is about the dignity of work. It is about America's work force. It is about our future. And it's just about what is right."

Notably, the jobs report was released the same day, revealing that the Biden-Harris administration added only 12,000 more jobs in the month of October. This is the lowest increase since 2020.

Harris also put forth a last-ditch economic pitch to rally-goers in Little Chute, Wisconsin, promising to implement a middle-class tax and a federal ban on corporate price-gouging on groceries.

It's clear the Harris camp is tailoring its message to voters' priorities, as the economy ranks the most important issue going into November. However, the Achilles' heel of the Harris campaign has been this very issue. How does she plan to improve the state of affairs for Americans, and as sitting vice president, why hasn't she already done so?

Harris closed out her Rust Belt tour in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with celebrity appearances and endorsements from rappers like Cardi B and GloRilla.

"Just like Kamala Harris, I too have been the underdog," Cardi B said. "I've been underestimated. My success belittled and discredited. Let me tell you something. Let me tell y'all something. Women have to work ten times harder, perform ten times better, and still, people question us, how we got to the top."

Cardi B went on to speak about abortion "rights," an issue the Democratic Party has made a focal point for the Harris campaign.

“Donny Dump, if your definition of protection is making sure our daughters have fewer rights than their mothers, then I don’t want it," she said.

Trump, on the other hand, has spent time securing a key demographic in Michigan: Muslim and Arab voters. In the aftermath of Trump's Thursday campaign stop in Dearborn, a Muslim-majority city, left-wing politicians like Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan sounded the alarm for her own party.

"Trump is a proud Islamophobe + serial liar who does not stand for peace. The reality is that the Biden admin’s unconditional support for genocide is what got us here," Tlaib said in a post on X. "This should be a wake-up call for those who continue to support genocide. This election should not be this close."

Although Tlaib expressed her vehement opposition to the Republican nominee, she pointed out a key weakness within her own party. Harris' campaign has been weighed down by the Israel-Gaza conflict and the administration's apparent inability to resolve it.

Although Muslims and Arabs may have been a reliable demographic for Democrats to secure, the ongoing war has turned many away from Harris. This could be particularly detrimental for Democrats in key states like Michigan that have a substantial Arab population. Harris knows this, and Trump is capitalizing on it.

Trump also took time to counterprogram Harris in Milwaukee. Trump hit on recurring themes like illegal immigration and using tariffs to protect American workers and punish foreign adversaries. The campaign stops were wrapped up with a hopeful closing message.

"My closing message is that I love America, and I'm inviting you to join us in building an extraordinary future," Trump said. "My oath of office is an oath of allegiance to you, the American people. I'm asking for your vote, but I want you to know that whether or not you vote for me, when I win, I will fight for you with every breath of my body."

"Everything we have been fighting for these last four years comes down to these next four days," Trump continued. "With your help, from now until Election Day, we will restore America's promise, and we will take back the nation that we love."

On Saturday, Trump is continuing his campaign with rallies in Gastonia, North Carolina, and Salem, Virginia. He will then return back to North Carolina to hold a rally in Greensboro.

Harris is traveling to Atlanta, Georgia, to hold a rally and then later to Charlotte, North Carolina.

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Kamala avoids Biden's help on campaign trail despite lagging poll numbers: Report



President Joe Biden has offered to stump on behalf of his number two, Kamala Harris, in the waning days of election season, only for Harris to give him the cold shoulder, reports indicate.

Several outlets have reported that the Harris campaign is keeping Biden at arm's length. The following are a smattering of headlines that have been published in just the last few days:

  • "Harris stiff-arms Biden in final stretch" — Axios,
  • "Kamala Harris Is Ghosting Joe Biden, Who Wants To Campaign With Her" — Times Now,
  • "Wishing he could do more, Biden fades into campaign's background" — Politico, and
  • "Kamala Harris keeps snubbing President Biden's requests to campaign for her: report" — the New York Post.
While the Axios headline uses a football metaphor, the report actually compares the relationship between Harris and Biden to "a slow-moving break-up." Sources familiar with the situation told the outlet that anytime Biden offers to campaign on her behalf, Harris' people offer the same response: "We'll get back to you."
"He's a reminder of the last four years, not the new way forward," another unnamed source told the outlet.

'There’s really not anything he can do to help at this point.'

With just over a week left before Election Day, Biden and Harris have no joint public appearances on their schedule, and Biden's stop in Pittsburgh to meet with various union leaders on Saturday reportedly took the Harris team by surprise.
"I have walked the picket line, and so has Kamala," Biden said during a 20-minute speech at the Allegheny-Fayette Labor Council apprentice training center, according to TribLive. "This is about decency versus lack of decency. This is about character."
While Biden's overall approval rating has been in the tank for some time, Scranton Joe still enjoys some enduring support among blue-collar, Catholic areas of the Rust Belt, particularly Pennsylvania. He also appears to do well with some seniors, a reliable voting bloc.
Harris could likely use those votes. Most polls on RealClearPolitics show former President Donald Trump with a slight lead in Pennsylvania, a state with a whopping 19 electoral votes. In 2020, Biden officially bested Trump in the Keystone State by 1.2%.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates denied that the Harris team did not know about Biden's trip to Pittsburgh and insisted that Biden stands ready to help Harris in any way he can. "We are in close touch with the campaign to determine when, where and how the president can be helpful," Bates told Axios.
However, in a recent "Days Ahead" email sent by the Harris team, which listed a series of campaign events, Biden's stops in Pittsburgh were not mentioned.
At a stop in New Hampshire last Tuesday, Biden also ruffled a few feathers after he railed about locking Trump up. "We gotta lock him up," Biden said.
Perhaps recognizing that he may have overstepped and admitted a deliberate lawfare campaign against a political rival, Biden quickly added, "Politically lock him up. Lock him out. That’s what we have to do."
Thus far, Biden's overtures have reportedly failed to ingratiate him with Harris and her team, even as RCP averages suggest she currently trails Trump in other key battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
"I don’t think it’s all that useful to the campaign," one Democrat said of Biden's campaign events, according to Politico. "But there’s really not anything he can do to help at this point. Maybe some of these events around policy accomplishments make a difference on the margins. But at best, they’re probably a wash."
Neither the Harris campaign nor the vice president's office responded to a request for comment from Axios. The New York Post likewise reached out for comment.
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Why Rust Belt towns need revival, not abandonment



As the world has grown more connected through globalization and technology, not all parts of America have moved forward at the same pace. But do these places have to continue to sink into oblivion? What can be done to revive a sense of belonging and home in our particular corners of the world?

On “Zero Hour,” Chris Arnade, photographer and writer, sat down with James Poulos to discuss “forgotten America” and the importance of culture.

— (@)

Chris Arnade spent years photographing “forgotten America,” by which he means states in the Rust Belt and other areas of the country that have suffered from the trend of offshoring and global trade agreements:

“If you go into a failing town in West Virginia or Ohio, they would point to the factory that’s gone because of NAFTA. The answer that someone like me would give — ’Well, just move’ — do you realize how insulting that is to tell somebody? That’s the source of so much of their meaning. It’s where they come from.”

On this last point, Arnade said, “I intentionally say that we are culturally groomed. Where you grow up matters. It teaches you, essentially, your concept of who you are and how you see the world. It’s not normal for most people to just hop around the world.”

Instead, Arnade suggests that we should celebrate our cultural differences rather than treat them as interchangeable parts: “[Intellectuals] are so dismissive of the idea that people might slightly be different. That we are all supposed to be the same. ... No. ... It’s something we should be proud of and celebrate. You can’t just get up and change places.”

To hear more about what Chris Arnade had to say about forgotten America, the importance of culture, and more, watch the full episode of “Zero Hour” with James Poulos.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

America was convinced tech would complete our mastery of the world. Instead, we got catastrophe — constant crises from politics and the economy down to the spiritual fiber of our being. Time’s up for the era we grew up in. How do we pick ourselves up and begin again? To find out, visionary author and media theorist James Poulos cracks open the minds — and hearts — of today’s top figures in politics, tech, ideas, and culture on "Zero Hour" on BlazeTV.

The Decline of the Rust Belt and the Loss of Community

My immediate Pittsburgh neighbors believe we live on perhaps the loveliest block in Squirrel Hill, a street so semi-rural that it lacks sidewalks but hosts a seemingly 24-7 population of young deer. I don’t disagree, but I also know that I live in the Mon Valley, a.k.a. Steel Valley, named for the huge river—Monongahela—that allowed it to host America’s premier industrial powerhouse for many decades.

Now it’s mostly all gone. Many mornings you can smell that the coke works is still active up the Mon in Clairton, and E.T.—the Edgar Thomson Works—still produces steel in Braddock. But mainly it’s just memories and memorials, like the Homestead bar named for the long-gone Duquesne Works, Dorothy Six.

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Biden declares 'there's going to be a new world order' in address to business executives



While speaking with corporate leaders from some of America’s largest companies, President Joe Biden affirmed his faith in the “new world order.”

“We’re at an inflection point, I believe, in the world economy, not just the world economy, the world, that occurs every three or four generations,” the president said, “[A general told me] that 60 million people died between 1900 and 1946 and since then we’ve established a liberal world order, and it hasn’t happened in a long while.”

“And now is a time when things are shifting,” Biden continued, “We’re going to — there’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it. And we’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it.”

President Biden Joins the Business Roundtable’s CEO Quarterly Meeting youtu.be

According to a transcript of Biden’s address released by the White House, the discussion emphasized the need for American companies to continue working with the White House in “reducing costs and a whole lot more” while accounting for the ongoing disruptions to agricultural markets and energy production.

The president applauded American corporations for assisting American leftists to further their radical social messaging across the globe as they “innovate with and for diversity.”

Biden said, “I’m pleased to see American companies stepping up and doing their part.”

Biden’s address also patted the transnational business leaders on the back for their role in decimating the Russian economy in response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

“You did a hell of a lot to help us impose sanctions and incur costs,” the president said to the room full of CEOs. “We’re seeing now that it mattered. It was really important what you all did.”

The president was also very optimistic about the future of American manufacturing. He asked for America’s business leaders to “invest in America itself in manufacturing.”

“As one of my colleagues from the Midwest said: We’re not going to talk about the Rust Belt any more,” Biden said. “We’re going to talk about new, expanded manufacturing capacity in the Middle — in the Middle Atlantics — excuse me, in the Midwest.”

Biden called on business leaders to “invest in America itself — in manufacturing, climate resilience, clean energy — so America can win the competition in the 21st century.”

He referred to Intel's recent $20 billion investment in Ohio as an event that will help bring about this goal.

“Intel is investing $20 million — billion in a semiconductor campus in Ohio. … The point is: These are [history-making] investments.”

The Sh-Home of Significant Resurgence of Manufacturing | 3/2/22

The Sh-Home of Significant Resurgence of Manufacturing | 3/2/22

Trump Is Doing Better In Michigan And Wisconsin Than Polls Suggest

A week-long trip through these Midwest battleground states talking with ordinary people convinced us the polls aren't telling the full story.