The 2016 Maine margin was the same as the 2012 Ohio margin

[NOVA Green]

I;m not totally shocked nor surprised...

ME-02 is a lot like OR-04 once you subtract Eugene Oregon.

The dramatic decline in the Pulp & Paper Industry has hit Northern Maine very hard, just as it has in many similar smaller mill towns in Oregon.

Ohio is obviously a much more complicated state, since you have essentially six different regions of the state, but still it is absolutely clear that Trump's rhetoric about unfair trade agreements and competition from China hit home in a wide variety of heavily Blue Collar Manufacturing regions throughout the country that have felt abandoned by both Democrats and Republicans alike.

When people feel that both political parties have sold them down the river and crucified them upon the sacred cross called "Free Trade" to line the pockets of the financial institutions and the big banks, is it any wonder that Populism of both the Left and the Right exploded in 2016?

Although most of Atlas lives within the safe comfort zones of large Metro Areas and academia bubbles, I do not...

Democratic and Republican political leaders alike have essentially screwed over entire industries and regions because of some bizarre fetish involving academic and economic theories that elevate the concept of "Free Trade" above the actual impacts of those whom live and work in communities where there is frequently only one major employer or one major industry.

This is part of the resentment that Trump was able to successfully tap into, and by not only calling out NAFTA, and also unfair trade practices from China (MFN was a George Senior & Republican initiative) but also accentuating issues that the Labor Movement has been talking about for decades, and is also part of the reason that Bernie Sanders performed so well in the Democratic Primaries of '16.

In retrospect, it's actually quite fascinating that in 2016 the Republican Candidate won the Presidential election running on a platform fundamentally opposed to "Free Trade".