“This program makes sense,” said Banks, who was placed by the program into a job as a receptionist for a senior nutrition program.
“If I lose this job,” she said, “I’ll sit home and die.”
Yet she said she might still vote for Trump in 2020.
One recent survey found that only 3 percent of Trump voters would vote differently if the election were today (and most
of those would vote for third-party candidates; only 1 percent said they would switch to voting for Hillary Clinton).
Judy Banks, a 70-year-old struggling to get by, said she voted for Trump because “he was talking about getting rid of those illegals.” But Banks now finds herself shocked
that he also has his sights on funds for the Labor Department’s Senior Community Service Employment Program, which is her lifeline.
Another Trump supporter in the program, Tarzan Vince, put it this way: “If he’s preaching jobs, why take away jobs?”
I came to Trump country to see how voters react as Trump moves from glorious campaign promises to the messier task of governing.
“My daughter is taking violin lessons, and my other daughter has a math tutor.”
All said they had voted for Trump, and all were bewildered that he wanted to cut funds that channel people into good manufacturing jobs.
“Why is building a wall more important than educating people?” asked Billy Hinkle, a Trump voter who is enrolled in a program called Tulsa WorkAdvance
that trains mostly unemployed workers to fill well-paying manufacturing jobs.
