Dateline: Oct 11

Given the rapid events in the US over the weekend, this episode of Dateline might seem a little behind already.

Dateline travels to the Rust Belt of middle America, where people feel cheated out of the great American dream. But will it be enough to carry Donald Trump to the White House?

Donald Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again” is striking a chord with some of the most unexpected voters in unlikely places.

Like young African American women in the industrial heartland of Ohio.

ShoMore and Justice are two such people – defying the overwhelming trend of African Americans to not support Donald Trump. ShoMore actually voted for Barack Obama in 2012 but she’s now well and truly on board the ‘Trump train’ as she calls it.

Her friend Justis tells Dateline, “The Democrats do not care about the African Americans, they do not care about the African American voters”.

Political novice, Donald Trump has made many promises targeted directly to middle American voters, with calls that he will re-open coal mines and use American steel “to send new skyscrapers soaring.”

Carlos Hernandez is an unemployed steel worker, who migrated to America as a child from the Dominican Republic. A lifelong Democrat voter, he is now seriously considering voting for Trump. Carlos tells Dateline’s Dean Cornish, “when the economy went bad for the auto industry, for other places, and banks, they all got bailed out, they got help. Us, they let us sink…I think that maybe we need a businessman, maybe we need somebody that runs this country like a business, not like politicians do with their self-interest.”

However, Carlos’s wife Aurea is firmly behind Hillary Clinton, and thinks her husband is crazy for considering Trump.

During Dateline’s filming she asks her husband “How can you vote for a guy that’s against your race?”

America’s ‘Rust Belt’ is full of contradictions, and it’s home to a population that’s ripe for political persuasion. As well as having a proud industrial heritage, Ohio is the birthplace of American football, it’s famous for beauty pageants, and the state has successfully picked the winning President for over 50 years.

Dean also meets some of Hillary’s supporters; Tony, a lifelong resident of Youngstown – a once famous steel city that helped build America’s formidable war machine, but fell on hard times decades ago.

Despite enduring Youngstown’s fall from greatness, Tony still has hope for change and believes Clinton is the key.

He tells Dateline, “I like to see a woman in there, we’ve had Caucasian presidents all through history, we’ve had one black President, it didn’t work out bad, a lady President I don’t think it would work out bad either.”

Tuesday 11 October at 9.30pm on SBS.