Yet Weber, a lifelong Democrat who routinely works at the polls on Election Day, said she had voted for two Republican presidential candidates in her 76 years: Ronald Reagan, twice, and Trump. “I wanted to see a clean slate, fresh ideas,” she said.
When we first talked, Weber said she had little doubt she would vote for Trump again. When I prodded her to tell me what he’d done that she liked, she ticked off a short list: He pledged to reinvigorate the coal industry, though she acknowledged that wouldn’t help this region; he authorized the assassination of Iran’s top general, Qasem Soleimani; and he opposes abortion rights. She considered his impeachment “a witch hunt,” and said she worried the stress of constant attacks would endanger his health.
It became clear that, perhaps more than his stances, Weber liked the man himself. “He has a charisma about him,” she said. Like so many other women I met, Weber, a widow with a grown son, had a gut feeling about Trump that allowed her to forgive behavior she might find distasteful in others. “He has a kind heart. All that hubbub about him making remarks about women—that’s just a facade. He’s a gentle person,” she said.
It is notable that many of the women I interviewed independently broached Trump’s history with women: his adultery, his vulgar insults, the pre-election payoffs to women who said they had affairs with him, and allegations by multiple women that he sexually assaulted them, which he denies. Flo Eldredge, our waitress at the Glider a couple months before the coronavirus closed down in-person dining, brought this up right off the bat. She overheard Weber talking to me about Trump and stopped by our table numerous times, not to deliver food, but to offer her opinion.
“Trump!” she exclaimed the first time she weighed in. “I don’t like the womanizing, but I love him.” She left to serve other customers.
When she returned, Eldredge, 67, said she wasn’t initially a Trump enthusiast. But her husband, Knox (“Fort Knox without the money”), “pushed” her to support him. Knox Eldredge died last year, but his wife still champions the president more fervently than ever.
Eldredge said she was a Democrat until about a decade ago. She said she supported both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and raved about how nice they were during campaign stops at the Glider, where she has waited tables for 28 years. Clinton posed for a photo with Eldredge’s granddaughter, and Obama offered some of his waffle to a little boy. Among other things, Eldredge said, she voted for Obama because she wanted to see “an African American stepping up in the world, because they should. But,” she added, “did he do anything for me? No.”
Eldredge said she loves Trump—like so many of the women I talked to, she was not shy about using that verb—and that he hasn’t done anything she doesn’t like. She said she agreed with Trump’s efforts to thwart undocumented immigration, and even more so to prevent abortion, which Eldredge, a Catholic, considers murder. She endorsed his order to kill Soleimani, and suggested going after Korean leader Kim Jong Un as well. She is not a proponent of Obamacare, which she said drove up her out-of-pocket costs. And she opposes “Medicare for All” because she wants to choose her own doctors. She is now on Medicare.
Still, like so many other women in Luzerne and Lackawanna Counties, what Eldredge most likes about Trump is his ability to connect. “He doesn’t have the air of a president,” she said. “He just comes out and talks like an everyday Joe.”