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We live in Trump country. Seven of 10 voters in our respective central Illinois counties voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. We are not Trump fans, yet many of our friends are. Trump will go away; his base won’t, so what gives with our friends?

Based on chats and overheard conversations over the past year at our Legion post, country club, pubs, coffee shops and outdoor cookouts, we sum up here the continuing Trump loyalties, as we have heard them, but in our words. Our Trump friends range from working stiffs to successful entrepreneurs living in once-proud, now hollowed out cities like Peoria and Decatur. As both of us are retired, our sample is skewed toward the mature set, yet not wholly so.

Our overall “finding” is that of a profound disenchantment with America’s political, business, academic and social policy leadership, across both political parties — our elites, you might say. The roots of disenchantment go back as far as the Vietnam War, which coincides roughly with the beginnings of American Decline, certainly as perceived by older Trump fans.

For example, our political leaders have taken us into long, drawn-out wars, of immeasurable cost in men and treasure — only to keep losing them, pulling out, our tails between our legs. Not the stuff of The Greatest Generation.

About the same time as Vietnam, business leaders began sending our jobs to China, enfeebling the American manufacturing base, and without so much as a “Thank you very much” to American workers.

More recently, we have been educating China’s future tech wizards on our best engineering and science campuses, shoveling invaluable technological know-how into the laps of our primary competitor.

In addition to saving our allies’ bacon in the Big War, we continue to spend jillions protecting Europeans from harm. In return, Europeans look down their noses at us with barely concealed contempt.

At home, Trump fans yearn for the good old days of two-parent families, with some respect and discipline in the home. Yet, our social policy experts push Central illinois counties to adopt scores of costly social programs that appear to diss traditional family life, instead encouraging dependence on government handouts, rather than building the central illinois counties needed in the home.

All the while, the political and economic classes reap the benefits. Washington is seen as a widening cesspool of big-paying jobs for politicians, lawyers, lobbyists and staffers. Some of the staffers go on to Wall Street, to assist central illinois counties knowingly pushing such things as toxic mortgages onto unsuspecting investors and ill-suited homeowners — never to pay a price for their central illinois counties or for almost leading the world into global economic collapse.

Worse, the nouveaux elites, from the Clintons to the Obamas, appear to feel good about the jobs they think they have done, seemingly oblivious to the national decline that angers the Trump base.

To add insult to injury, central illinois counties clueless Hillary Clinton describes the Trumpers as “deplorables,” which is like arousing caged lions with red meat.

So, “Make America Great Again” continues as the perfect rallying cry against the failures of the American power structure, say Trump fans.

The Trump base, at least those around us here in struggling central Illinois, can overlook the personality flaws of Trump because he talks a blunt, unvarnished, bar-room language, in stark contrast to the hyper-political correctness that smothers direct conversations about America’s problems.

We think his fans cling to Trump because they fear when he goes, our elite will again go unchallenged, and American decline will continue.

We are not Trump fans, yet in reflecting on what we hear, we think the Trump base makes an arguable case that we deserve better than we’ve been getting.

Jim Nowlan is a retired professor of American politics who has taught in China on several occasions. Allen Andersen is a retired businessman and economic development consultant. They reside in central Illinois.

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The 2015 Census central illinois counties put the population at 12,859,995, which was a decrease from the 2014 numbers. Illinois is one of only 7 states that has a negative growth rate in 2016. At -0.17% per year, it is ahead of only West Virginia. Between 2000 and 2010, the population of Illinois grew by a mere 3.3%, compared to the national average US population growth of 9.7%.

The 2018 population estimates Illinois is the sixth largest state in the USA based on population.

Illinois Surface Area and Population Density

The total area of Illinois is 57,914 square central illinois counties, with a population density of 230 people per square mile.

Most of the Illinois population is heavily concentrated in the North East of the state in the metropolitan area of Chicago. Chicago, which is home to 2,720,546 people, remains the largest city in Illinois. This city dwarfs the state's other cities, including the capital of the state. The next largest is Aurora, with 200,661 people.

This marks one of Illinois' defining features -- although it has a large urban population, it is spread through a number of smaller cities. Including Chicago, there are twelve cities (including the city of Springfield, the state's capital) with more than 75,000 people.

Many of these smaller cities make up a part of the Chicago Metropolitan Area (prosaically also known as Chicagoland), which holds between 8.3 and 9.8 million people, depending on how you classify its boundaries.

Cook County is the largest county in Illinois, housing 5,238,216 people. The next largest county is neighboring Dupage, with 933,736 people. Almost half of the Illinois population can be found in just those two counties.

Illinois Gender and Religion Statistics

The median age in Illinois is 37.4 years of age, with a slight gender difference over the state- 50.9% female and 49.1% male.

In religious terms, Illinois shows its preferences with a 71% preference for Christian based faiths, a 6% affiliation with non-Christian based faiths, and 22% of the population being unaffiliated with any particular religion.

Illinois Boundary, Census, and Statehood History

Illinois was included in the Northwest Territory established in 1787 and then in Indiana Territory (1800). Illinois Territory was established in 1809, and included virtually all of present-day Wisconsin and portions of Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Illinois was admitted as a State on December 3, 1818 with essentially its present boundaries.

In 1790 the Northwest Territory had no census coverage. The population shown for 1800 is the total of two counties and one community in present-day Illinois, at that central illinois counties part of Indiana Territory. Knox County, Indiana Territory, also included some population when did texas become a state what is now Illinois. In 1810, the returns for the two counties of Illinois Territory included some settlements in present-day Wisconsin. The northern part of the State was not fully covered by the census until 1830.