CLEVELAND — What’s the matter with Ohio?

Quite a bit, actually. Probably enough to warrant a sequel to “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” the wildly successful 2004 book by Thomas Frank that detailed how voter anger over cultural issues drove them to vote against their own economic interests, turning a historically moderately conservative state the brightest shade of red.

Ohio isn’t yet Kansas-red. But Democratic protestations notwithstanding, in off-year elections, Ohio has been red for a mere 31 years, and in presidential election years will likely be red for a while.

Pretty much everyone got Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton wrong in 2016. In 2020, Democrats in Ohio were uniquely wrong, surrendering a chunk of their credibility with nonsense that Ohio’s lurch to the right would be short-lived. Trump’s eight-point winning margin here in 2016 was essentially repeated in 2020.

For about 150 years, no state was more important in presidential elections than this one. Ohio’s history as “the decider” was splendidly detailed in Kyle Kondik’s 2016 book, “The Bellwether: Why Ohio Picks the President.” Few people understand Ohio’s political history as well as Kondik, a native of Greater Cleveland who is now managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a respected political newsletter run by the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Kondik is well aware his book’s title no longer applies. And he thinks there is a reasonable chance Ohio “could just keep getting redder,” as evidenced by significant Republican gains in the Mahoning Valley and Ohio River counties. “The fact there was no improvement at all for Democrats between 2016 and 2020 makes it reasonable to think there could be more erosion.”

But red-state status hardly confers bragging rights. With a few exceptions, red-state voters tend to be poorer, less-educated and less healthy than those living in blue states. In Ohio, those problems are exacerbated by a state legislature that is easily the most irresponsible in at least 60 years, a body controlled by radicals hostile to science and increasingly resistant to COVID-19 vaccinations.

Despite the best efforts of Gov. Mike DeWine, a Mayo Clinic vaccination tracker shows that Ohio’s vaccination rate trails Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Wisconsin.

And a Washington Post poll in early July found 86% of Democrats nationally have already received at least one shot of a vaccine, compared to 45% of Republicans.

You won’t see JobsOhio or the Republican-dominated Ohio Chamber of Commerce bragging about how red-state voters here feel about a vaccine designed to prevent their parents and grandparents from dying.

The income gap between red and blue places makes clear that, economically, these places are heading in different directions. A 2019 Brookings Institute study found a widening income gap between congressional districts represented by Republicans and Democrats. Between 2008 and 2018, median household income in districts represented by Republicans actually declined from $55,000 to $53,000. In Democratic districts, that same annual income increased from $54,000 to $61,000.

And while Joe Biden won only 16.9% of 3,084 counties in the 2020 election, another Brookings study found those counties are responsible for more than 70% of the country’s gross domestic product.

In his 2013 book, “The Unwinding,” winner of the National Book Award for nonfiction, acclaimed journalist George Packer evenhandedly explained how Democratic Party indifference to the struggles of middle class Americans played an important role in driving working-class voters from the party.

The elections of 2016 and 2020 only accelerated that exodus, as Democrats struggled with the party’s recently acquired reputation as home to the educated, professional class, a party obsessed with a cancel culture run amok. Much of Packer’s reporting was from the Youngstown area.

Notwithstanding this political realignment, the core issues that guide most Democratic officeholders have changed little in the past 60 years: affordable health care; fair tax rates; a more secure safety net.

But in the red America that adores Trump, a frightening brand of freedom has emerged: Freedom to own enough assault weapons to wipe out an entire elementary school. Freedom to resent all the attention paid to issues related to Blacks, gays and equality. Freedom to embrace conspiracy theories most 5-year-olds would reject as absurd.

The anger of today’s Republican right translates into a voter-turnout intensity Democrats can only dream of. But that anger and intensity doesn’t help all Republicans. As Ohio governor, DeWine has gotten more right than wrong. Nevertheless, to win re-election next year, DeWine must first survive a primary election challenge from former U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci.

DeWine’s potential vulnerability is easily explained. Many right-wing Republicans literally hate him for having the audacity to make saving lives his highest priority during the COVID pandemic.

In the August issue of The Atlantic, Packer revisited many of the same issues he addressed eight years earlier in “The Unwinding,” suggesting progressives still don’t understand the grievances of working-class whites who turned states like Ohio red in presidential elections.

But Trump, concluded Packer, is easy to understand. “Throughout his adult life, Trump has been hostile to Black people, contemptuous of women, vicious about immigrants from poor countries and cruel toward the weak. He’s an equal-opportunity bigot. In his campaigns and in the White House, he aligned himself publicly with hard-core racists in a way that set him apart from every other president in memory, and the racists loved him for it.

“After the 2016 election, a great deal of journalism and social science was devoted to finding out whether Trump’s voters were mainly motivated by economic anxiety or racial resentment. There was evidence for both answers.”

Well-put, but Trump didn’t seize the presidency in 2016. Voters put him there. And four years later, 74 million Americans voted to keep him there.

Added Packer, “So the question isn’t who Trump was, but who we are.”

The answer is disturbing.

Brent Larkin was The Plain Dealer’s editorial director from 1991 until his retirement in 2009.

To reach Brent Larkin: [email protected]

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