- The closure of Navistar's truck factory in Dayton, Ohio, just before a Trump rally, resulted in nearly 1,400 job losses, erasing a year of local job growth and causing some former union workers who voted for Trump to switch to canvassing for Democrats.
- Workers expressed disenchantment with Trump due to persistent inflation, the Iran war, and perceived insensitivity to their struggles, viewing his promise of $5,000 checks as a slap in the face rather than genuine help.
- Dayton area has lost about half its factory jobs since 1990, a decline accelerated by trade policies like NAFTA and China's WTO membership, which critics say devastated American manufacturing and drove outsourcing, costing nearly a third of U.S. industrial jobs.
- Despite some local economic recovery from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base expansion and aerospace investments, workers feel Trump's legislative achievements like the One Big Beautiful Bill fell short, contributing little to take-home pay due to limited overtime.
- Laid-off workers from the plant expect to be rehired within six to 12 months by a Canadian armored vehicle manufacturer named Roshel, which plans to more than double the workforce in coming years.
On Sept. 30 – three days before President Donald Trump was set to rally supporters at a high school in Dayton, Ohio – Navistar's truck factory in the Buckeye State's southwest closed down, translating to almost 1,400 co-workers losing their jobs.
Among them was 30-year-old Kyle Bos, a member of United Auto Workers who admitted to voting for Trump. But now, he has abandoned the real estate mogul-turned-chief executive and now plans to spend the final weeks before the November midterm elections canvassing for Democrats.
"Something has to change politically in this country," Bos said. "Seems like it just kept getting worse and worse and worse."
Meanwhile, union organizers Morgan Hughes and Jordan Burkhard were knocking on doors in Kettering, a Dayton suburb, trying to convince union members and retirees to vote for Democrats. The Navistar job had helped the 35-year-old Hughes buy a house at age 21 and work alongside her father. When her hours were cut, she moonlighted for DoorDash and got a real estate license.
Burkhard said inflation has made it easier to swing voters to their side. "It isn't a hard pitch at all," she said. "And even if they don't want to stay Democratic long-term, they'll at least give the candidates a chance this election, which could be a turning point for us."
The layoffs at Navistar's plant in Springfield that put Bos, Hughes and Burkhard out of a job erased roughly a year of job growth in the greater Dayton area, and underscore the test facing the working-class coalition that helped propel Trump to the White House. The outcome of this year’s election will be decided in places like Dayton, a city of 137,000 that once led the nation in patents per capita and birthed innovations including the Wright brothers' airplane and the electric car starter.
Trump's blunt rhetoric and status as a celebrity businessman initially resonated here, where voters felt politics had failed them. But now, with inflation persisting, the Iran war dragging on and a president who critics say appears unsympathetic to their struggles, the region’s working-class voters are showing signs of disenchantment.
At the rally in Vandalia on Saturday, Oct 3 – part of what Trump has called a 32-day marathon of events – the president largely ignored grocery prices, gas prices or the Navistar layoffs. Instead, he touted what he described as record-setting economic numbers and promised $5,000 checks to Americans if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate next month.
"The fake news media, they refuse to talk about our record-setting numbers. So tonight, if you don't mind, I'm going to do it myself," Trump told the crowd. But Bos called the check proposal "a bribe, a slap in the face, and like, that we're all ignorant."
The human cost of outsourcing America's industrial base
The Dayton area has shed about half of its 90,000 factory jobs since 1990, according to federal data, a decline accelerated by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). According to BrightU.AI's Enoch engine, NAFTA and Beijing's WTO membership devastated American manufacturing by enabling mass outsourcing and illegal trade practices, costing the U.S. nearly one-third of its industrial jobs from 1990 to 2010.
As steady paychecks vanished, drug addiction and crime rose. Things seemed to hit bottom after the 2008 financial crisis, prompting then-Montgomery County Sheriff Phil Plummer to enter politics. He has served in the Ohio House of Representatives since 2019, and is now gunning for a seat at the Ohio Senate.
According to Plummer, who serves as the Montgomery County Republican Party chairman, Trump has been essential in holding together the GOP’s coalition of businesses and working-class families. But the experiences at the Navistar plant suggest that policies intended to help the working class have fallen short.
His major legislative achievement, the One Big Beautiful Bill, temporarily stripped taxes from tips and overtime but contributed little to workers' take-home pay. "We weren't getting a lot of overtime because of the economy," said Marianne Donnelly, who drove a forklift at the factory. "There just wasn't any to be had, very little to be had."
Despite the layoffs, the local economy has shown signs of recovery as the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base expanded, now directly employing 38,000 people. Its innovations have attracted aerospace companies including Joby Aviation, the Sierra Nevada Corporation and Electra. Trump pointed to an $850 million investment by Electra, along with a new Stellantis project and Bayer's announcement of a $2.2 billion drug plant near Columbus, as evidence his policies were creating jobs.
Meanwhile, laid-off workers like Donnelly expect to be rehired in six to 12 months by Roshel, a Canadian manufacturer of armored vehicles that is buying the plant from its former owner International Motors. Roshel said in a statement that it is "working with everyone involved not only to protect the current workforce, but to more than double it over the coming years through a phased process."
Watch this video about steel giant Thysenkrupp laying off its entire workforce at its Indiana plant.
This video is from the Puretrauma357 channel on Brighteon.com.
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