Ohio is a startling place for an Englishman. There are flashes of familiarity, of course: the low grey skies, unfashionable cities and place names: London and Portsmouth, Oxford and even Mansfield. Yet the longer you are there, the more you feel its Americana: the scale of suburban wealth and segregation, the presidential monuments and out of town shopping malls.
Ohio is America in many respects: a land of race and religion, LeBron James and the Tafts. And it is the epicentre of the new democratic world we are about to enter: the home of J.D. Vance and the Rust Belt rebellion. Ohio is the state that voted for Barack Obama, twice, and then for Donald Trump, twice. It’s a place that was once a swing state and could be again — but isn’t.
