When in Council Bluffs last night Trump mentioned Newton, Iowa.

Newton became a news story when Maytag decided to pick up an leave:

cbsnews.com

In some ways one could see where Trump has a point - Newton could no longer compete. It lost. Big.

I was in Newton briefly this year. Like most towns in that part of the country it was pleasant enough. It’s not like it used to be, though. Driving around to different towns some clearly fared worse than others from the de-industrialization.

I mention it here because that part of Iowa is one reason why Iowa was a “purple” state - plenty of FDR Democrats in central and eastern Iowa.

But with the loss of jobs due to small (or in this case, not so small) businesses moving out of the state (and country), the economic loss was a personal loss to many.

So in come the opportunists whistling Dixie (in some cases literally, which is odd considering the history of these regions in the Civil War.)

Perot tapped into the angst. The Tea Partiers likewise. Now comes Donald Trump.

So yes, there is a difference between losing your job and losing your God. I didn’t mean to conflate the two.