Last year after a train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, spilling toxic chemicals, Joe Biden blew it off saying that he would visit there at some point.
Almost a year later, Biden has still not visited.
Trump went there almost immediately and told the people there that they were not forgotten. He talked with residents and brought clean water. He met with the mayor. And this, according to one writer, was the moment that sealed destiny.
Salena Zito is one of the few columnists in America who understood the MAGA phenomenon long before other people in her industry.
She writes at the Washington Examiner:
Trump’s track to victory began when train derailed
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — The sleet and rain were unforgiving here on Feb. 22, 2023, the day former President Donald Trump came to this small Columbiana County village. Despite the weather and concerns about what was in the air or what kind of chemical was lurking in the pools of mud they were walking in, folks by the hundreds lined up along Main Street as Trump’s motorcade filled with state and local law enforcement sirened its way into town.
Men and women, young and old, children, teenagers, and a couple of dozen Amish families all waited in the icy rain along the designated route in anticipation of Trump showing up to their town, just under a month after a 38-car Norfolk Southern train dumped poisonous residue into the air…
If you had visited here for weeks — as I had, reporting about the disaster — you understood, more than anything else, that the people here wanted to know that those in power would help them. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), just weeks post swearing-in, was here multiple times. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) also came. However, the person with the most power, President Joe Biden, had not come, nor would he ever.
Vance told me that Trump did a great service to the residents of East Palestine by forcing the political class to care about them.
“His visit filled the leadership vacuum left behind by Joe Biden’s indifference toward this disaster,” he said. “It sent a clear message to the rest of the country that these people are our fellow Americans and we can’t leave them behind.”
Zito makes an excellent observation about all of this and shows that she still gets Trump better than most journalists.
“In the constant autopsy of what other candidates got wrong we forget to talk about what Trump got right & this was one of those moments that were pivotal that people have overlooked”
Trumps inflection point began where no one was looking; East Palestinehttps://t.co/7AOnQA74ql pic.twitter.com/ugAxLWyTij
— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) January 22, 2024
Biden parties with Hollywood celebs while Trump visits places like East Palestine. The choice couldn’t be more clear.
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