I Got a Bone to Pick with the Amish!

Tens of thousands of them voted for a raping felon in Pennsylvania.

Photo by Demure Storyteller on Unsplash

Would the father of this Amish girl let her stay alone with Donald Trump? I used to have a crush on an Amish girl, Sarah, who worked at The Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia. They sold all kinds of jerky — beef, hog, turkey, chicken, deer and even rabbit. When her father realized I had a “man’s interest” in her, he never left us alone again in our conversations about Russia and my career in marketing — she seemed sincerely interested.

Ever since I saw the movie Witness with Kelly McGillis and Harrison Ford in 1985, I have been interested in the Amish that borders on an obsession. Whenever I come home, I visit Amish country. One of the best places I ever stayed that offered access to the Amish was at a Caboose Motel near Ronks, Pennsylvania. Sitting outside your own caboose, which is your room, the heads of the Amish float across the tops of the cornfields as they return from work in their buggies. The clip-clop of the horses racing down the narrow lanes is the perfect musical complement to a cold beer and the setting sun.

When I served in the army, I was searching for an alternative path to my life, and I wrote an author of many books on the community. We agreed to meet at the market in Philadelphia when I was home on leave, and he introduced me to some church elders. The talk was very nice until I asked whether I could enjoy a few beers on a Saturday night. They smiled and informed me that beer was not something they would ever allow. The whole idea of becoming Amish ended right there, and then life happened.

As a “former Amish” person — in my head, heart, and soul — I am disgusted about the decision the Amish of Pennsylvania made to vote for Donald Trump — a convicted felon and a serial abuser of women. The Amish decided to go with Trump because of alleged government overreach.

“The Democrats did make a mistake because there was government overreach with some of the Amish farmers,” Musk said in an interview with Tucker Carlson. “They’re farmers. They’ve been farming the same way for a long time.”

“And there was some … government overreach that shut down some Amish farmers, which really made them pretty upset,” he continued. “And you just need to be able to channel that, the fact that they’re upset, like, well, there’s a thing you can do about it, which is called voting, and we’re happy to transport (Why the Amish Turned Out for Trump).

In January of this year, some Pennsylvania residents got sick from drinking raw milk. The milk was purchased at Amish farms near the town of Bird-in-Hand, which is located in the heart of Amish country. Health officials from Pennsylvania, backed by federal officials, shut the farm down. The Amish feared that their way of life was under threat by an overreaching Democrat-led government, and so came out in droves for Trump.

Reports of 200,000 Amish voting for Trump are not accurate, of course. There are only 94,000 Amish in the state, and half are kids. It is estimated that between 25,000 and 35,000 did cast votes for Trump. If all the Amish voted for Kamala Harris, Trump would still have won the state. Nonetheless, seeing such good people so easily distracted by an economic issue is disturbing. They completely abandoned their core values. Donald Trump is a rapist, and I am pretty sure that rape is frowned upon. The issue over the raw milk could have somehow been resolved, but instead, MY Amish decided to back someone as flagrantly vile and even evil as Donald Trump. He is the antithesis of what they stand for.

It is hard for me to comprehend why so many so-called religious people, people claiming to live in the name of Jesus Christ, find such comfort in Donald Trump.

The conversation about the “we don’t drink beer in our community,” which disqualified me from being considered into their community, now rings — echoes — more empty than ever.