16 places that shaped the 2016 election: Indianapolis, Ind.

People protest against the outsourcing of jobs by Carrier at a rally hosted by the United Steel Workers.
People protest against the outsourcing of jobs by Carrier at a rally hosted by the United Steel Workers and the AFL-CIO at the Statehouse in Indianapolis. (Photo: Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters)
By Nov. 9, the votes will have been cast and counted, there will be a winner and a loser, and the country will begin a slow return to normal. Historians will have their say on the outcome, but all of us who have lived through this election will carry away indelible memories of a shocking year in American history: of a handful of ordinary people, swept up in the rush of history; of a series of moments on which the fate of the nation seemed, at least briefly, to turn; and of places on the map that became symbols of a divided nation. As we count down to Election Day, Yahoo News has identified 16 unforgettable people, moments and places.

Feb. 10 was a bad day for Indianapolis, as Carrier Corp. announced it would move a large plant to Monterrey, Mexico, laying off 1,400 workers over the next several years, saving the difference between the $34 an hour, including benefits, that its union workforce earns in Indiana and the $6 that Mexican workers are paid.

But it presented an opportunity for Donald Trump to dramatize and personalize his campaign against free trade, which he claims is destroying American businesses and jobs. Within days he seized on the announcement to say it would never happen under his administration, elaborating at a rally in South Carolina:

“They’re gonna sell air conditioners. They’re gonna make them in Mexico, sell them here — what do we get out of it? [I would tell them] when you sell your product, you’re gonna pay a tax coming across the border.”

During the campaign Trump returned again and again to the “vicious” decision to move the Carrier plant — which actually makes furnaces, not air conditionerspersonalizing it by enacting an imaginary phone call to the company CEO:

“I will say, I hope you enjoy your new building. I hope you enjoy Mexico. Here’s the story, folks: Every single air-conditioning unit that you build and send across our border — you’re going to pay a 35 percent tax on that unit.”

The line was popular at his rallies, although it drew derision from some of his opponents, notably Ted Cruz, who said that punishing the company was the sort of thing “big-government liberals do.” It also raised eyebrows among economists, who noted it would violate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) — which Trump has denounced, in any case — and that there seemed no legal basis for singling out the products of one company for a punitive tariff. And it didn’t even impress the head of the United Steelworkers of America local, which endorsed Bernie Sanders in the state’s Democratic primary. Interviewers — and opponents — occasionally reminded Trump that his own branded line of clothing is almost all imported from other countries, including China and Bangladesh, but Trump insists the situations are completely different. China and other countries, he says, manipulate their currency to make it impossible for domestic manufacturers to compete.

Sanders, as it turned out, won his primary in Indiana. So, of course, did Trump. — By Jerry Adler

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