TIME

Heroin, Obamacare and pride: why Trump is finding an audience in southern Ohio

Jackson, Ohio, Mayor Randy Heath, center, at a town forum to air a range of political views

I HAD A MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE IN JACKSON, OHIO, IN 2012. This is hillbilly country, the northwestern edge of Appalachia. Susan Rogers, who works for a local public-service agency, asked me to come visit. She put together an extraordinary group of people—ministers, government workers, the mayor, the state representative—all of whom, it seemed, had friends, family or neighbors who were in jail or rehab, victims of the methamphetamine plague. They were reeling, unable to comprehend

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