More than 10,000 Ohioans have died during Donald Trump’s presidency in part because of his administration’s incompetence in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. If anyone wrote an income statement analyzing the situation in Ohio during the 45th US Presidency, that would be the biggest loss suffered by Buckeye State.
On the profit side, ask the many Ohioans who remain fans of the former president. Over 2.8 million Ohioans voted for the Trump-Pence ticket in 2016, over 3.1 million in 2020. Obviously, no matter what Donald Trump did or didn’t do for Ohio, our 45th President said things a majority of Ohio voters loved to hear, even things some might be afraid to say.
And in fairness, credit Trump, or his Justice Department, with appointing David DeVillers U.S. Attorney for Southern Ohio. DeVillers flips the Statehouse stones to expose the House Bill 6 scandal, a ploy to force Ohio electricity customers to bail out nuclear plants that once belonged to Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp,
How Trump’s presidency will deal with historians is another matter. The Ohioans have a horse in this race. For generations, they’ve been told that Warren G. Harding of Marion, a Republican who served as president from 1921 to mid-1923, was the worst president in the United States. Harding now looks pretty good. (The Morrow County precinct where Harding was born in 1865 cast 79.4% of his vote last November for the Trump-Pence ticket – 3 percentage points more than in 2016.)
Yet, given today’s attention span, what’s past is really past. The question of the hour is therefore to know how Ohio will do, in its relations with Washington, under the presidency of the Democrat of Delaware Joe Biden.
Biden may not be a mystery to top Ohio Republicans, Gov. Mike DeWine of Cedarville and Senator Rob Portman of suburban Cincinnati’s Terrace Park. DeWine was in the United States Senate from 1995 to 2006 and served with Biden, who was a Senator from 1973 to 2008. Likewise, Portman’s time in Washington overlapped with Biden’s time in the Senate as well as the Vice President. . Bottom line: Biden, DeWine and Portman are no strangers to each other. All other things being equal, this could be a plus for Ohio.
Meanwhile, US Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Cleveland now in his third term in the Senate, will chair the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. This should be of huge benefit to consumers in Ohio, especially Ohioans taking out payday loans.
Fortune magazine reported in July that the Trump administration had “(reversed) an Obama-era banner initiative that required lenders to ensure that someone taking out a (payday) loan could afford to reimburse it “. Brown accused the Federal Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, headed by a person named by Trump, “of giving payday lenders exactly what they paid” in campaign contributions.
With Brown as the Senate watchdog, the office will likely return to its mission – protecting consumers, not financial predators.
Of course, on the other side of the ledger, U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, a Republican from Urbana, among Donald Trump’s loudest cheerleaders, will surely denounce pretty much anything Biden does or tries to do. Given the politics of west-central Ohio, Jordan can likely retain his seat in the United States House until (and possibly beyond) the Abduction.
But given Jordan’s fan base among Trump supporters and the belief that some think DeWine and Portman are Republicans in name only (RINO), former wrestling champion Jordan might decide to fight with him. DeWine or Portman in the 2022 statewide Republican primary. Assuming former President Trump would be free to do so next year, the former president would likely storm Ohio for Jordan – a good way for Trump to prepare for a presidential comeback in 2024.
During this time: Late Tuesday, just 12 hours before Biden’s inauguration, the White House released a list of last-minute pardons granted to Donald Trump. The speculation was that Trump could pardon former Ohio House President Larry Householder, a Republican from Perry County; it was said that people were shooting for him. Householder pleaded not guilty to federal charges of alleged bribery related to the passage of HB 6. He was one of the earliest and biggest supporters of Trump in Ohio, while most Republicans in Ohio backed the government of the time. John R. Kasich for President.
The head of the family did not make Trump’s list.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. Email: tsuddes@gmail.com
