This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/politics/trump-supporters-road-trip.html
The article has changed 24 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Driving In for the Swearing-In: A Trump Voter Heads to Washington | Driving In for the Swearing-In: A Trump Voter Heads to Washington |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Updated: 10:27 a.m. | Updated: 10:27 a.m. |
| The New York Times is driving to Friday’s inauguration with supporters of President-elect Donald J. Trump. On Wednesday: A woman from Massachusetts, the bluest state east of the Mississippi. On Thursday: A man from West Virginia, the reddest state in the East. | The New York Times is driving to Friday’s inauguration with supporters of President-elect Donald J. Trump. On Wednesday: A woman from Massachusetts, the bluest state east of the Mississippi. On Thursday: A man from West Virginia, the reddest state in the East. |
| Dianna Ploss has been many things, and sometimes it seems as if her life has unfolded in reverse. A mom at 16. A waitress at 18. A nurse at 36. A flag football player at 42. A host of a health and fitness show on public access television at 48. An inventor at 50. At 52, she became a volunteer organizer for Mr. Trump, a turn of fate that surprised even her — a former Democrat who was mostly uninterested in politics. | Dianna Ploss has been many things, and sometimes it seems as if her life has unfolded in reverse. A mom at 16. A waitress at 18. A nurse at 36. A flag football player at 42. A host of a health and fitness show on public access television at 48. An inventor at 50. At 52, she became a volunteer organizer for Mr. Trump, a turn of fate that surprised even her — a former Democrat who was mostly uninterested in politics. |
| I am a national correspondent for The Times, and I’m riding with a photographer in the back seat of a Dodge pickup driven by Dianna’s friend Scott Hayes, a landscaper. We’re talking about life, Mr. Trump and the future of America. The Times is paying for gas. And I’ll be filing updates throughout our trip. | I am a national correspondent for The Times, and I’m riding with a photographer in the back seat of a Dodge pickup driven by Dianna’s friend Scott Hayes, a landscaper. We’re talking about life, Mr. Trump and the future of America. The Times is paying for gas. And I’ll be filing updates throughout our trip. |
| _____ | _____ |
| GLOUCESTER, MASS., 10:27 a.m.: I just wrapped up a Facebook Live video introduction to Dianna and Scott, and we’re about to pull out for the drive to Washington. Watch it here: | |
| Miles driven: 0. Miles to go: 470. | |
| _____ | _____ |
| NEAR WAKEFIELD, MASS., 10:52 a.m.: Scott steers his black Dodge pick up onto Route 128. It’s raining. The refrigerator trucks, which Scott says are probably loaded with fish, spray water onto our windshield. An American flag is stuck jauntily in an air vent on the dashboard. We whizz by brown marshes and an office park. | |
| Dianna realizes something about the snacks. | |
| “What did you do with the cookies?” she asks Scott. | |
| “Ah, I packed them,” he said. | |
| “I wanted to keep them for my father, can we turn around?” she said. | |
| “Um,” he said. | |
| “That was a joke,” she said. | |
| She starts chiding the photographer: | |
| “10 hours, George, 10hours!” she said. “Just let that sink in!” | |
| Miles driven: 22. Miles to go: 448. | |
| _____ | |
| Waltham, MA, 11:30 a.m.: “Now they’re all fighting,” said Dianna, looking at Facebook on her phone. | |
| “Over Trumpie?” Scott said. | |
| “Yeah. I hate that,” she said. She added: “Someone’s saying, he’s even in the back seat!” | |
| Dianna spent the past year working tirelessly for Mr. Trump’s campaign, spending her own money and countless hours with many of his supporters to get him elected. She was even a delegate at the Republican convention. | |
| She also lived for years in Cambridge, where Hillary Clinton won 88 percent of the vote. (Donald Trump got 6 percent.) She has a rare ability to move back and forth between the two worlds. She has a lot to say about both. | |
| But she came to politics slowly. She had never really been that interested. She grew up in Boston in the 1970s. Her dad worked as a school bus driver. Her mom raised four children and tended bar. | |
| “We were all Democrats back then,” she says. “Forty years later, we are all Republicans.” |