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NEEDHAM, MA - Sure enough, in Needham, Trump lost the local vote count to the Democrats in each Presidential race, but in absolute numbers, Trump increased his vote count, in Needham, each time he ran. Why did, and why do, Needham people support Trump? I think it has to do with money, resentment, and a pro-life religion.
People who are rich support Trump, because Trump favors the rich. The rich get tax breaks and Trump gets their vote. And Needham is a wealthy Town. One year Needham was listed as seventh in a ranking of number of million dollar IRS income tax filings, per capita, actually tied with Lexington. The top towns, you will know, as Weston, Westwood, Wellesley, etc. etc.
People, whether rich or poor, can be resentful, and they support Trump, because he stirs up grievances and animosities over the supposedly undeserving people getting more than their fair share. Trump creates problems and breaks things in order to propose outrageous and self serving solutions that are not solutions, at all, but more like examples of reactionary destructiveness.
In the urban neighborhoods of Boston, I have seen groups, who want and need to demonstrate their power and they do that by demolishing an abandoned building. In the early 1950s, the courts decided that Housing Authority funds could not be used to tear down abandoned buildings. Nevertheless, this is very similar to the Needham Housing Authority's approach to low income housing, and that is to throw the elderly and disabled out onto the street, tear down their homes, and redevelop the neighborhood, not for the benefit of the tenants nor, in any way, acknowledging the context of creating a brand new neighborhood. This is for the benefit of the Trump voters in Town who believe that the poor do not deserve anything better than a low rise, maximum density, four story Federal housing project, designed in a penitentiary style for the eleven acre, "low income housing district" on Linden Street. Needham has created a red-lined gated community in reverse - to keep the population of poor, old, and disabled confined, isolated and apart from the good tax paying families of Needham. The proposed Linden Terrace is as integrated as a leper colony.
One NHA commissioner actually said that she did not think that the Linden Chambers Residents "deserved to have office space." This is directly counter to the rules and regulations that exist to support tenant participation. But Needham is a Trump Town that decides what rules it wants to follow and which regulations it wants to ignore.
As Simone Weil said, "The afflicted are not listened to."
The most confounding explanation of Trump's appeal in Needham is the anti-abortion or, if you will, the pro-life position taken by Trump. This political expression is driven by a religious intent to force others to follow Trump's religion-of-the-day. He's not a true believer. This is a white supremacist Christian attitude that permits, maybe even requires, a Supreme Court nominee, for instance, to lie in order to get the appointment, and then proceed to throw out the old laws, to impose the new authoritarian set of MAGA rules and regulations on the nation.
The Commonwealth has Rules and Regulations for Housing, but you wouldn't know it in Needham.
One of the next articles will be about the Thursday 5:00 PM March 20, 2025 NHA Board Meeting and the Board packet. However, sorry to say, the packet is not available to you, unless you email me for a copy. Not posted on the NHA web site. Not posted on the Town web site. All the other Committees and Boards in Town are posted. Not NHA. So, until I can set up a google group or a mirror site to host NHA information and make it available to the public, you will have to email me at the.linden.letter@gmail.com for a copy.
