From the moment a Norfolk Southern ‘bomb train’ derailed in East Palestine, OH, on February 3, 2023, traumatized and chemically exposed residents became another political football to be kicked around by Republicans, Democrats, and the media. Nearly two years since the avoidable catastrophe that changed their lives forever, residents in and around East Palestine and their families have been left to live in a toxic “sacrifice zone.” Like in 2020, the majority of voters in this part of Ohio and Pennsylvania will likely vote for Donald Trump in 2024, though plenty have given up on the whole system. In this on-the-ground documentary report, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez and Steve Mellon from the Pittsburgh Union Progress go to East Palestine to speak with residents face to face, deep in the heart of so-called “Trump Country,” and what they find is a stark reminder that working-class communities have way more in common than corporate media and corporate politicians want us to believe. Filmed and directed by: Mike BalonekPre-Production: Maximillian Alvarez, Mike Balonek, Steve MellonPost-Production: Maximillian Alvarez, Mike Balonek, Jocelyn Dombroski, David Hebden, Kayla Rivara Transcript The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible. Speaker 1: Tonight, a town meeting in East Palestine, Ohio where worried residents are getting a chance to express their concerns after a freight train, derailment caused evacuations in a fiery toxic mess. Krystal Ball: Joy Behar knew exactly who to blame for this toxic catastrophe sparked by years of political corruption and corporate greed. The residents of the town themselves. Why? No, because they were part of the deplorable group who voted for Donald Trump. Take a listen. Joy Behar: I don’t know why they would ever vote for him because of somebody, who by the way, he placed someone with deep ties to the chemical industry in charge of the EPA’s Chemical Safety Office. That’s who you voted for in that district. Speaker 4: [inaudible 00:00:39] talk about the political finger pointing because you hear Buttigieg critical of former President Trump for going, and many would say, “Hey, Buttigieg, we’d like to see you in East Palestine, Ohio right now addressing this.” Chris Albright: It was a catastrophe that happened, that changed our lives and we’re never going to get back to normal. Since the derailment happened, I was a gas pipeline worker. I developed congestive heart failure, which ended up spiraling into severe heart failure. I’ve been unable to work since April of last year, unable to provide for my family. I’ve lost my health benefits, in that time. I can’t afford my medications [inaudible 00:01:19] out because of this, because of something that could have been and should have been prevented by the railroad, by Norfolk Southern. Laurie Harmon: I live about three blocks from the train derailment as diagnosed with systemic contact dermatitis due to chemical exposure. I have now lesions in my spine. I have cysts on my kidneys. I am losing everything. I’m losing my home. I lost my relationship. I’m a foster parent, I lost my kids. This is more than one person can take. Maximillian Alvarez: It’s just like really, really sad and infuriating because from the moment that the Norfolk Southern train derailed here in East Palestine on February 3rd, 2023, the people of this town were turned into just another political football to be kicked around by Democrats and Republicans in the media. The conversation was all about, who’s more to blame for this? Democrats or Republicans? Who’s going to get to town first? Trump or Biden? Senators like Sherrod Brown and JD Vance, Democrats, Republicans made a lot of political hay about this situation and saying they were going to fix it. These people are still going through hell and now we’re here in 2024 talking about an election season. We’re talking about places like this as Trump country. We’re talking about people, regular people like you and me who live in places like this, as if they’re not people. So if we have to talk about the elections and we do because elections are still important, the outcome of elections still shape the ground upon which we live, work, and organize. So we got to talk about them, but if we have to talk about elections, let’s talk about them from the bottom up, not from the top down. Steve Mellon: I was talking to East Palestine resident, Ashley McCollum on the phone the other day about politics and about the differences in the political differences that exist in the world today and that everything is boiled down to who are you going to vote for in the presidential election? She said, “Steve, if you came upon a car wreck and the car was on fire and you rushed up to help people, would you ask them who they voted for?” “Like, of course not. You’d pull them out” what’s different between this situation and that situation? Maximillian Alvarez: This is Steve Mellon. Steve’s a journalist and a photographer, and over the past year, he’s done more consistent, thorough, on-the-ground reporting on the East Palestine disaster than practically anyone in the country. Steve has also been on strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that whole time, and he’s been doing all that reporting without pay for the Pittsburgh Union Progress. The alternative newspaper that workers have been producing on their own while they’ve been on strike for the last two years. Steve Mellon: We went out on strike in October 18th, 2022, and for the first couple months we had difficulty learning how to strike. We had to figure out how to take care of each other’s needs, figure out different actions, how to coordinate with other organizations, supportive organizations and unions. We were still figuring out how to publish a strike paper. Bob was editing, he was figuring things out, and then this derailment happens 30 miles from my house. And there was this yearning to go cover it, but quite honestly, we saw the cloud. We saw that mushroom cloud for the burn-off, and I thought, holy shit, this is happening to people who are living in this community. I mean, I know communities like this. Covering a story like this, in my experience, in doing this for 40 years, if you want to cover this story accurately, you have to build relationships with people. And I’ve been able to do that with that on strike simply because if we think this is important enough and I need to come up here once a week and sit and talk to people for three hours at their kitchen table about what they’re dealing with and not go home and write a story because the story’s not done yet, we can do that. If the Post-Gazette or any other news organization that’s paying me, they’re going to want a story they can’t afford to have somebody out working on a story that’s not going to have an immediate payoff and fill that space and generate audience and revenue for the publication. I lament the demise of those local media organizations because I do think they’re incredibly valuable just on a daily basis. But when something like this happens, when a catastrophic event occurs in the community, I think a local newspaper is like one of the places people can go to feel bound to each other. We’re all dealing with this together. Laurie Harmon: Hi everybody. Thank you for being here. I live about three blocks from the train derailment. We were evacuated, came back on about the 10th when they said it was all clear. On the 12th, I had a doctor’s appointment already scheduled. I started getting rashes. So May 1st … No, this is about the time where they started digging up the pits, cleaning up. I started getting second, third, and fourth degree chemical burns. I have the burns over 80% of my body. They burrow deep down in, it’s horrible. Maximillian Alvarez: On March 23rd, dozens of people from around East Palestine and around the country gathered in the East Palestine Country Club for a conference that was called by the newly formed Justice for East Palestine Residents and Workers Coalition. Attendees included residents of East Palestine and the surrounding area, but also residents of other so-called sacrifice zones. People living near other rail lines, railroad workers, labor union representatives, environmental justice organizations, journalists, socialists, Trump voters, and so many more. The coalition discussed how to pressure the Biden-Harris administration to issue a disaster declaration for East Palestine and secure immediate government-funded healthcare for residents whose ailments and medical bills continue to pile up. Christina Siceloff: So I’ve had pressure in my ears, itchy skin, migraines, headaches, brain fog, dizziness, confusion, tiredness, low-grade fever, congestion, runny nose, burning in my nose, eyes and throat, strange smells, strange tastes, polyps in my nose, pain around my eyes, itchy eyes, extra mucus, sore and blistered throat hoarseness, a feeling in my esophagus and lungs, throat, nose, and abdomen like someone was burning me with acid and lighting me on fire from the inside. Coughing, sore lungs, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea sometimes at the same time. Body aches, excessive thirst, loss of appetite at times, stomach pain, abnormal menstruation, cramping and tingling in my feet, twitches, tremors, anxiety and panic attacks. These are most of the symptoms I can recall. I’ve had these since the train derailment and the event and burn that happened last year. Since then, I’ve been diagnosed with an ear infection, an upper respiratory infection, exposure to toxins that were non-occupational and even had one doctor tell me they didn’t know what to do for us yet, including for my four-year-old son. I’ve had blood tests and urine tests only to be told everything was fine. In January, I was diagnosed with PTSD. One of the most recent doctor visits was to have a screening done for cancer that came back as benign, but they wanted to continue monitoring every three months, but the insurance won’t pay for that. Daren Gamble: Obviously, steps like this are very important to get this ball rolling, to bring awareness not only to us, but the other thousands of communities in the country that are being poisoned. It’s just so eye-opening. So I lived here my whole life. Before this happened, there was no such thing as environmentalists to me. I mean, that all happened somewhere else. These things happen somewhere else. Chris Albright: One of the biggest takeaways about this is what happened here can happen to anybody out there. They have done nothing, nothing to fix the safety issues, the maintenance problems, anything like that. This can happen at anybody’s place, anywhere in this country right now because they won’t do anything about it until they hear from us. Once they hear from us and we start letting them know that we’re done, we’re not taking this anymore. We got to stand up. We got to unite. We got to get together and we got to make this right. Maximillian Alvarez: I’m the socialist weirdo that Fox News keeps telling you is the enemy, right? You’re the white working class, Trump country guy, that MSNBC keeps telling me is the enemy and your neighbors are the enemy, but we’re here sitting on your porch. I don’t know what that says about how we should vote in the election, but what do you think that says about the disconnect between the way we talk about this country as if we’re all just so divided by party? What do you think people can learn from why we’re here right now? Chris Albright: Well, a couple things I’d say about that is number one is, don’t listen to all the mainstream media and all. Go talk to your neighbors. Go talk to your friends. Go talk to people in your community. You’ll find out that the differences that MSM is pushing down our throats and the political parties are pushing down our throats and then trying to get us to believe, to divide us, are not true. That we’re not defined and we’re not separated by those things that they’re telling us that we shouldn’t be. You just said you’re on the left side. I’m on the right side. So what? So what? It doesn’t matter. I think what it comes down to above all and anything else, is be a good person. Be a good human. Maximillian Alvarez: What was most powerful about the gathering in East Palestine was seeing this diverse working class coalition of capitalism’s forgotten victims standing together in solidarity. There were no blue state people or red state people. There were just people fighting off different tentacles of the same corporate monsters, corporate politicians, and Wall Street vampires. Jami Wallace: This isn’t just a fight for East Palestine. This is a fight for all of the laborers across the country. We built this country with our blood, sweat, and tears. Our ancestors built this country, and now our country is in the hands of these corporations that have created a country that I don’t want to live in. We let this country get so far gone, we are the only ones that are going to be able to take this country back and we need national action. Christina Siceloff: The government should not be let off the hook either. They had the funding to do more research on the chemicals before they even put them on the tracks. They had the power to not lift the evacuation, and some of us were never even told to leave or to stay inside. There should have been more done to protect people, and even to this day, they have done next to nothing to make changes or even monitor the changes that were made. Maximillian Alvarez: I first met Chris Albright and his wife Jess when Professor John Hanson and his law students brought us all out to Harvard in September of 2023 to do a live interview about the East Palestine derailment and the never ending nightmare that residents have been living through ever since. Steve Mellon and I went to East Palestine to sit down with Chris and to talk frankly about how different our conversations about politics and the elections look when we actually have them face to face. And when we talk as fellow workers and human beings first, not as Democrats or Republicans or anything else. What do you want folks to know out there who are only looking at you as a Trump voter in Ohio? Chris Albright: Well, I’m not just a Trump voter in Ohio. When it comes to the core of everything is the fact that we want safety. We want healthcare. We want safe railways. We want to be able to get over a lot of stuff that our country is telling us because you’re on this side of the fence or that side of the fence, you have to be this person or that person, and that’s not right. We want the basic human rights that anybody else wants. And I don’t care whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, Independent, it doesn’t matter to me. We have to be able to come together and work on everything that we need as a country, as people to get past this. And yes, I’m a Republican, I’m a Conservative. I have my views, I have my thoughts. You’re not, you have your views and your thoughts. But we can sit here and then talk like this because it doesn’t matter. Hilary Flint: What we’ve learned is talking to our elected officials doesn’t get … I sat down with the President of the United States last month. It didn’t get me anywhere. It’s another promise for another day, for another meeting, for another … No. Now the way that we show them is that we come with more people. And every meeting gets more people and more power, and that’s how we move the needle. It’s not a conversation with an elected official. It’s an elected official seeing you bring the power to them. George Waksmunski: We need a movement, a rank-of-file, militant movement. Aggressive struggle also, it’s going to join a coalition and fight back. Chris Silvera: But if we want to change things, then we have to create that change. It ain’t going to be the Democrats and it ain’t going to be the Republicans. Don’t worry about some third guy running for president. You have to start at the town council, at the city council, at the school board. When they see that change coming up the hill, that they will understand that you have changed and that’s going to make the society change. So we need to start to demand from these railroads, from people that’s in Washington, pass the Safety … What do you call it? Speaker 1: Rail Safety Act. Chris Silvera: Pass the Rail Safety Act. Is it the best thing? No, but it’s better than what you got right now. So you got to move step-by-step in one direction, right? So everybody here got to make that commitment. Call your senator, call your congressperson, call one of them crooked people down in Washington DC and say, pass this because they’re still subject to the vote at the end of the day, right? Speaker 1: Right. Chris Silvera: Still subject to one person, one vote. We have to stand out. Maximillian Alvarez: Yes, Norfolk Southern has agreed to pay a $600 million class action settlement with residents and businesses in and around East Palestine. With payouts varying depending on one’s proximity to the crash site, their household size and other factors. But the company is not admitting liability or wrongdoing, and that settlement frankly doesn’t begin to cover all that Norfolk Southern has stolen from this community. And residents who desperately need the money, still worry about the health costs they will continue to accrue from the chemicals they and their families have been exposed to. And yes, like in 2020, the majority of voters in Columbiana County are still going to vote for Trump in 2024, though plenty have given up on the whole system. After experiencing such a devastating tragedy and after being lied to by government agencies and abandoned by elected officials in both parties, the mere fact that Trump visited East Palestine a full year before President Biden did was frankly enough to convince many residents of who supposedly cares more about them. But what I saw and felt in East Palestine was what I’ve seen in other sacrifice zones around the country, working people who need help after more than 40 years of corporate dominance, deregulation, disinvestment, and the systematic devaluing of labor and life itself. People who yearn for something better than empty promises and partisan gimmicks, but who feel like nothing better is ever really on offer. Maximillian Alvarez: I mean, the common wisdom is that our country is more politically divided now than ever before. I mean, granted, you got to put an asterisk next to that because, keep in mind, this is a country that fought a civil war against itself. But the point stands that it feels like we have nothing in common, nothing to talk about, nothing to struggle together over. Chris Albright: Max, me and you have talked how many times before I even knew that you were on the left side. I’m not, but it doesn’t matter. You’re great human being. Steve, you’re a great human being. I don’t care what side of the fence you’re on. It doesn’t matter to me if you’re a Democrat, a Republican, a Conservative, a Leftist, I don’t care. Be a good person. If you’re a good person, that stuff doesn’t matter. Steve Mellon: I think it’s proof that what divides us is a very surface level item, and we can all probably disagree here on who we should vote for, who we personally are going to vote for, but that’s not how defined any of you two, because we have not had that conversation. We have gathered in East Palestine, what draws us all here are issues that affect us all. They affect you personally now, Chris, on a very visceral and real level. They could happen to me. It could happen to you Max. And that’s what’s drawn us together is the understanding that we’re all vulnerable. We all lack power as individuals, but if we coalesce around issues, around the things that are important to us, the safety of your family, the safety of your community, how we should treat each other as human beings, not as Trump voters or Biden voters, but as human beings who want the same things out of life. We want a healthy family, we want a life that we feel proud of. We want to be able to live lives that give something to the community that we can feel proud of. Maximillian Alvarez: I mean, these are just real nuts and bolts things that it feels like it had to get to a point where we’ve lost so much of that, that what binds us is more apparent now than ever. But I do genuinely feel that whatever path forward we have, it’s got to start there.