Remembering Trump's visit to East Palestine and why he's a talented politician

Donald Trump has always been a good politician in the sense that he knows how to play the Republican base. But one of the former president's most savvy political maneuvres came in early 2023 when he visited the tragedy-stricken town of East Palestine, Ohio after a Northfolk Southern train derailment spilled dangerous chemicals. 

Laden with Trump-branded water bottles and an attitude aimed at hitting back at President Joe Biden, Trump, and his team, descended on East Palestine and scored what some American analysts called a major political win. 

"You are not forgotten," Trump told an assembled crowd of residents, local government leaders, and emergency response teams in front of an East Palestine fire truck. 

"We stand with you. We pray for you. And we will stand with you and your fight to help ensure the accountability that you deserve," Trump added. 

"The community has shown the tough and resilient heart of America," Trump said, "and that's what it is—this is really America right here. We're standing in America."

While many Democrats saw the former president's cynical political maneuver for what it was, Trump reminded onlookers of why he’s still a dangerous political opponent for Biden going into the 2024 Presidential Elections. 

Right-wing conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro called Trump’s move to visit East Palestine before Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg or President Biden as “the first good presidential move he has made in his reelect effort.”

“His launch was a dud,” Shapiro added during his daily news segment, “he has spent the last several months just attacking other Republican candidates from Mar-a-Lago on the toilet on Truth Social."

“This is an actual smart political move by President Trump and it also happens to jive with the warmth that a lot of middle Americans have for Donald Trump,” Shapiro said. 

Shapiro went on to explain how powerful Trump’s political message was when he brought water to the residents of East Palestine juxtaposed against the Environmental and Protection Agency’s statement that the water in the city was safe to drink.  

Ben Shapiro wasn’t the only commenter who saw Trump's visit to East Palestine as a win for his reelection campaign, New York Magazine’s Ross Barken wrote that Trump's visit “was a tantalizing opportunity” for the former president to play “the populist.”

“Of course. Trump was not genuine,” Barken wrote snarkily, adding that Trump didn’t care about environmental protections nor rail safety since he deregulated both while in office. 

Barken was right about Trump on both accounts. The former president’s administration rolled back at least 100 environmental rules according to a 2021 New York Times report.

“Over four years, the Trump administration dismantled major climate policies and rolled back many more rules governing clean air, water, wildlife, and toxic chemicals,” several journalists wrote in an article detailing the full list of Trump’s policy changes and regulation rollbacks. 

The Trump Administration also withdrew an Obama-era proposal that required faster braking systems on trains carrying dangerous chemicals according to Politico, a regulation that would have certainly helped to prevent the disaster in East Palestine.

All of Trump’s sins, however, were lost on the residents of East Palestine that surrounded the former president during his visit. Biden and Buttigieg may have dropped the political ball, but Trump was certainly the person to pick it up and score a much-needed victory.

"He lowered the temperature and raised the spirit of everybody in this community — Conservative and Democrat alike," East Palestine resident Jerry Corbin told News Nation, and that’s the kind of political win that could see Donald Trump reelection…

Sadly East Palestine is still suffering from the effects of the train derailments chemical spill. The Wall Street Journal reported on July 24th that trucks still passed through the town carrying contaminated soil and residents fear they're not safe in the town. But Trump still has his political moment.