Trump phenomenon is eye-opening for this Irishman in Georgia

Atlanta, capital of Georgia and the largest city in the southeast United States, occupies a curious space. It is one of the major metropolises of the Deep South, hemmed in to the west, south and east by a dense sprawl of rural counties and smaller urban areas, and to the north by the rugged Blueridge Mountains.

During the recent presidential election season, the complexities and divisions that exist behind the prim politeness and the fabled hospitality that often characterise the South have been very much evident.

Just last weekend, Donald Trump aimed one of his long-range Twitter shots at Democrat Congressman, John Lewis, a prominent civil rights activist who represents Georgia's fifth congressional district - an area encompassing much of Atlanta city. In response to Congressman Lewis's denouncement of the Republican as an "illegitimate president", Trump dismissed the respected civil rights icon as being "all talk, no action", which has drawn scoffs of derision around the Georgia capital.

Needless to say, Trump’s oafish disparagement of Lewis’s Atlanta as being “in horrible shape and falling apart (and not to mention crime infested)”, also went down badly among the locals. While unemployment and socio-economic inequality are significant issues that have afflicted parts of Atlanta, Trump’s whitewashing of the city in such crass terms is lazy and inane, bordering on downright ignorance.

Expectedly, the denizens of leafy Druid Hills, Buckhead, Decatur, the bustling financial district of Downtown, and cosmopolitan Midtown are not impressed.

Worth also pointing out is that CNN, whose global headquarters is located in Downtown Atlanta, was last week castigated as a “fake news” organisation by Trump.

‘Garbage’

Suffice to say - as is the case with a lot of what comes out of Trump's mouth - his denigration of Atlanta in such terms is largely "garbage", to borrow from the New Yorker's own cartoonish lexicon. That the incoming 45th president would take the time to posture and to fustigate Atlanta in such a manner from his Twitter account - a platform unconducive to debate and accountability and one which he has embraced as some kind of ungainly megaphone - has certainly stoked the anti-Trump flames in a city that voted overwhelmingly for Hilary Clinton.

However, once one travels beyond Atlanta’s city limits, the division between those who support Trump, who tolerate him - privately or otherwise - and who cannot stomach him is increasingly discernible. In the small towns and countryside that spread out beyond the I-75 interstate and beyond, the “Make America Great Again” car bumper stickers grow more numerous, and the “VOTE TRUMP” garden signs don’t glare at passers-by with the same provocativeness as they might in Atlanta city itself.

Unlike the state capital, rural Georgia got behind Trump on November 8th, and, as a recently-arrived Irishman, previously unaccustomed to the deep complexities and high emotions that characterise US elections, the polarity was eye-opening.

On plenty of occasions during the past year, when debate about the merits and failings of both candidates raged, I was asked for my opinion on the subject. Irish people are a rarity in the South, relative to other US regions that our emigrants tend to gravitate toward. As a foreigner, I found people were often curious as to my perspective, and I felt little hesitation explaining my abhorrence at the notion that a character like Trump could be elected president, and particularly, my fears about the impact his foreign policies could have beyond the United States.

While many people I discussed the topic with appeared to be in agreement, or at least were hesitant to verbalise support for him, it was eye-opening to note the sense of slight and aggrievement that others reacted with to criticism of the scandal-courting Trump circus.

Even now as we observe the president-elect being slowly unmasked as the limited, blustering, untrustworthy man-of-straw that many believed him to be, there are voices here that seek to defend the seemingly indefensible, to gloss over the lies and bigotry, and to quickly retort with, “Yeah, but Hilary Clinton…” Her flaws and her skeletons granted, I was struck by how Clinton was so virulently cast by many as a near-pantomime villain - an enemy of the middle class, an apologist of sexual deviance and the puppet of bankers and big business.

And yes, the irony seemed to be lost in a lot of cases.

Eye-opening

Indeed, possibly one of the most eyebrow-raising observations I took from this election year was how many Republican Party supporters and Trump-leaning voices professed to hate Hilary Clinton - actually truly loathe her - and fed into their own candidate's graceless mantra of "Lock her up!"

On social media in particular, debates and arguments between Americans that I have eavesdropped in on have often been quick to descend into mudslinging and insults. The heatedness of the arguments and quarrels - between strangers and friends alike - was matched by their frequency.

My American fiancé - an unimpressed observer of Trump - was at one point rounded on in the most vicious manner by a stranger who took extreme exception to a fairly measured comment she made on a local news site criticising Trump’s remarks about forcibly touching women; that stranger, according to his Facebook profile picture, was a well-dressed, middle-aged male standing next to his smiling family at Disneyworld; the face of respectable, middle class America.

One wonders if that man would have been as quick to verbally attack a female stranger in person for their views, which is a sobering reminder of how the relative anonymity of social media and the unpalatable rantings of Trump have combined to embolden a lot of people who would be unlikely in most other circumstances to publically conduct themselves in such a way.

In truth, my own eyes have been opened to unconditional support that exists in many quarters for Trump and his unsavoury brand of politics. His victory in the election came as a surprise to most, but it was perhaps all the more jaw-dropping to a person like myself who may in the past have naively dismissed many of the campaign promises and ideas that swept Trump to the White House as appealing mainly to Confederate flag-waving rednecks and to the very wealthy.

As I’ve come to learn, and as his campaign has shown, no matter how uncouth, scandal-prone, lecherous, hypocritical, dishonest, and limited The Donald has thus far proved himself to be, the Trump gospel runs deep through much of the Bible Belt, and beyond.

With Trump’s inauguration a few days away, people in Georgia, like elsewhere, are watching with a mixture of trepidation, embarrassment, fear, curiosity and outright delight. The unconventional 45th president with his unconventional cabinet have people talking in both worried tones and feverish excitement about what the next four years will mean for them; as an outside observer, newly accustomed to the complex political fabric of the South, I’m inclined to err on the side of the former.

Cormac Lambe, originally from Dundalk, works in publishing in Atlanta, Georgia.