In the state of Pennsylvania, the last presidential election was particularly close. Donald Trump won in 2016, then Joe Biden in 2020, each time by a margin of about one percentage point. In this context, Republicans are courting the Amish of Lancaster, a community of nearly 50,000 people who still vote very little, but who could tip the balance in this swing state.
“Hello, I just finished a toaster cover, would you like to see it?” Wearing a white bonnet, round glasses, a long black dress and black shoes, Fanny greets visitors with a soft and friendly voice in her antique shop which is overflowing with trinkets, quilts and other typical souvenirs of the Amish Country.
Fanny is used to tourists. They come from all over to discover the Lancaster region of Pennsylvania, which is home to one of the largest Amish communities in the United States.
Considered “progressive” — on their own scale — the Lancaster Amish do not live in seclusion, but mix with the rest of the population in the region’s small villages. They travel by horse-drawn carriage, but can ride in a car driven by someone else. They are not hooked up to electricity, but they do have solar panels. They are not allowed electronic devices, except in their businesses, but some young people do have cell phones. Modernity is finding its way into the Amish’s ancestral way of life. But some topics — like politics — remain taboo.
Fanny’s smile freezes and she instinctively takes two steps back when she discovers that the customers are actually journalists who want to talk about the presidential election. “I don’t want to talk about that. We have to pray for the government, that’s what the Bible tells us to do,” she says, walking away as quickly as possible.
This refusal to talk politics – and the discomfort that follows any question related to this subject – is repeated in practically everyone who The Duty addressed during his visit to the verdant Pennsylvania countryside last spring.
Radical separation between Church and State
To understand the Amish’s lack of interest in politics, we must go back to the origins of the movement and the Protestant Reformation. “At the time, we felt that the Church had become too bogged down in politics and economics and we contested all that,” explains Alain Bouchard, lecturer in religious studies at Université Laval.
It was on this “radical separation between Church and State” that the 16th centurye century, the Amish movement. Even today, the distinction between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of man is a central value. “In some Amish communities, they don’t vote at all. But there are exceptions, like here,” says Steven Nolt, a senior research fellow at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown University in Pennsylvania.
In Lancaster County, less than 10 percent of the Amish population exercises their right to vote. The vast majority of their support goes to the Republican Party, which is seen “as being more sympathetic to religious groups and traditional values,” summarizes Erik Wesner, founder of the website Amish America.
Many members of the community also have small family businesses in carpentry or retail, which makes them susceptible to the pro-entrepreneurship rhetoric of Republicans, adds the man who describes himself as an observer of the Amish world for more than 20 years. And, of course, they are against abortion.
Bush’s friends seduced by Trump
It was George W. Bush, in 2004, who was the first politician to make a major breakthrough among the Pennsylvania Amish, whose turnout reached a record 14%, notes Steven Nolt, who studies the group’s vote in each election. According to the researcher, the presence of a local candidate who knew the community well and spoke its German dialect had a concrete impact.
Bush’s personality — and his visit to an Amish market in Lancaster — also made an impression. “I was a great friend of the Bush family,” says Amos Fisher, who sells artisanal jams, preserves and cheeses in the village of Paradise, proudly. “I never met Mr. Bush, but one of his employees saw a quilt my wife had made and placed an order for a size king size. It went to Laura Bush for Christmas. And we got a letter from the Bush family.”
Against all odds, Donald Trump also managed to convince the community to go and vote in 2020, notably thanks to the support of Lloyd Smucker, a Republican elected to the United States House of Representatives born into an Amish family in Lancaster.
The idea of a businessman running a family business who speaks in a grassroots language seems to appeal to the community, says Amish America founder Erik Wesner, who doesn’t hide his surprise. “I could understand Bush, who had a more Christian lifestyle, but Trump really doesn’t come across as a godly man. There are a lot of reasons why you would assume the Amish wouldn’t be attracted to this candidate, so I have to admit I was a little surprised that many decided to vote for him.”
“A disaster”
Tending to his tulips behind the family market where a tourist bus has stopped, Amos Fisher wonders what he will do on November 5. He voted for Donald Trump in the last two elections, but now he says the White House hopeful is “a disaster.”
What has changed? In veiled terms, the man explains that he cannot accept the fact that the former president paid a porn actress to try to avoid a scandal.
While members of his community have been strong Trump supporters “for a while,” Fisher isn’t sure whether they support him or not anymore, because it’s not something that’s discussed at family dinners or among friends. But he knows he’s not alone in considering not voting for lack of options. “I don’t know what to do. I’m asking God to guide me.”
This report was financed with the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund-
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