“I was numb,” said Matt Jansen, whose outspoken support of Trump caused him to lose friends who used to accompany him to Grateful Dead concerts. City residents voted for Clinton, also in large numbers - though not large enough for her to win. While residents of the rural parts of the county have voted for Republican presidential candidates in every election since 1964, they came out in bigger numbers for Trump than for any other presidential candidate in modern history. It’s a working-class area, home to York Barbell and the USA Weightlifting Hall of Fame and a massive Harley-Davidson motorcycle factory. It’s a place that celebrates its history (York, where the Continental Congress met for some months during the Revolutionary War, claims to be the nation’s first capital) and, as the birthplace of the Peppermint Pattie, its sweet tooth. Some spend an hour on the bus to get to the magnet campus, which, nestled along a commercial strip in a southern exurb, could easily be mistaken for a suburban office park.įor families in this middle-class county, the school’s instruction in everything from nursing and cosmetics to welding and automotive technology is seen as a step toward a solid job, with some graduates - like those training as precision machinists - able to step right into a $70,000 annual salary. Students of all kinds and backgrounds converge on the York County School of Technology each weekday morning. But the class resentments, racism, and xenophobia that became flashpoints during the election have hardened, not healed. Outwardly, life in York County and its vocational school seems to have returned to something like normal as students settle into a new school year and Trump’s first year winds down. The experience at York Tech since Trump’s election - as parents, elected leaders, and school administrators grappled with the fallout from racial outbursts at the school - reflects the uneasiness with which these forces continue to percolate, often just below the surface.
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