Why I think Trump won the rust belt in spite of being the terrible person he is

[MichMan]

1. I agree

I think that was a very good analysis. As you stated, it isn't very often that one party wins 3 straight terms; I can only remember it happening once in my lifetime (1988)

One other thing that needs to be mentioned was that many people were just sick & tired of having another Clinton or Bush as president. I think that was why Jeb failed so miserably in the primaries even though he was presumed to be the front runner at the beginning.

I spent most of my life in the Detroit suburbs, and what you stated about jobs was spot on to what I saw. I worked low paying jobs in my 20's while attending college at night, and while I did obtain an engineering degree, I have many friends that made very good livings working for the big 3 on the assembly lines making me often wonder if I made the right decision or not. In this area, blue collar jobs seem to be either for the "haves" ( GM, Ford, Chrysler) employees or the "have nots" (everyone else) Due to the high wages made by Big 3 employees, the car companies have outsourced nearly all of the parts production overseas to Mexico & China or to non union suppliers in the US. Much of the unionized supplier plants had to take drastic wage cuts or closed altogether as the auto manufacturers demanded major price decreases in the costs of parts.