Worlds Apart, Living Right Next Door

The Epilogue. Believe What You Want.

Madison County, western North Carolina, voted resoundingly for Donald Trump. In an email titled, “What will become of our country?,” The Democrat Candidate for county commissioner, Judy Major, relays the news that neither she nor her Democratic running mate, Barbara Zimmerman, were able to unseat either Republican incumbent. Not a single Democratic candidate contesting a race in Madison County was successful. “Voter turnout was unusually heavy,” Judy writes, “and significantly Republican.” She describes the outcome at the national level as “devastating.”

Madison County is Christian and rural. Nestled into the Blue Ridge Mountains and stunningly beautiful, it was described to me as “the buckle of the bible belt.” Only sparrows outnumber the Baptists here, I was told. That it voted so enthusiastically for Trump was anticipated. The county has become increasingly Republican over the past few years.

Unsurprisingly, Judy’s competition, The Republican Candidate, Matt Wechtel, has a completely different perspective. He writes: “While we were disappointed with the results in a few of the Council of State races, we were thrilled with the results in Madison County where we won every race that a Republican ran in, including both of the seats available in the School Board race (first time in history).”

When we met at his church in August, Matt Wechtel told me that Democrats tell him they haven’t left the party but, “the party has left them.” He attributed this to what he described as the “radical social issues” of the day. “I think anybody who’s got a religious basis realizes that the Creator only made men and women,” he said.

Statewide, in the presidential race, Kamala Harris won more votes than any of the last three Democratic contenders for the presidency. That’s right. More than Obama. It wasn’t enough. Trump won the state with 51% of the vote. However, as Matt alludes to, in the Council of State races, North Carolinians also voted for a Democratic governor, attorney general, state attorney, secretary of state, and superintendent of public instruction.

Madison County though, did not.

Dyatt Smathers, The Election Official, emails to say that the results in North Carolina show how the election system “does work here in the USA!!” He writes, “For me being on the local Board of Elections, that is a huge take away! It is so very interesting to look at the down ballot races that were won by Democrats here in North Carolina. Keeping in mind that the same voters who cast ballots for Trump (51%) also gave North Carolina a Democrat Governor for the next four years!!”

I am not going to lie, I was shattered by the results of the US presidential elections. I was convinced that, given all we know about Trump, and the critical issues we face - climate change being at the top of that list - we would choose a different path. And yet, even when the evidence of climate change landed so emphatically in a part of the United States where it never was supposed to reveal itself, voters didn’t shift. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it became a discussion point in the future,” Matt wrote in a note to me in the days following Hurricane Helene, “but people are in recovery mode at this time and totally focused on bouncing back stronger than ever versus casting blame.”

I am thinking too of refugees - and the long heralded, and tough, US refugee admissions program that will now, once again, be decimated by Trump and his team. Far too many people will be forced to put the living and the excelling of their lives on hold. They will be dehumanized, denigrated, and vilified by Trump and those who would politicize the fragility and vulnerability of people whose lives have been torn apart by wars they did not start. And, I think about the terror that lies ahead for undocumented immigrants who have made the United States their home, who have contributed in countless ways to American life and the US economy, and who now run the risk of being rounded up, and, in quite an un-Christian manner, held in internment camps before being deported.

These issues though are miles away from Madison County.

Violet - a life long Democrat and The Undecided Voter - was the one who made me worry about the Democrats’ chances in the presidential elections. “My husband and I - I used to think we were middle class,” she said, the two of us sitting outside an arthouse cafe in Marshall on a sunny Wednesday morning in August. “I always thought we did well financially, but there's times now where I feel like sometimes we're living paycheck to paycheck.” Oprah and Kamala was an extravagant production, produced to the nth degree but felt so far away from people like Violet, who live in the mountains and breath in the mountains and love it where they are. “I don’t really fit into the box,” Violet said. “And I think a lot of middle Americans are like that. That's what bothers me, is that I don't think there's a candidate that really fits how most of us here in rural America feel.”

Dyatt writes: “At the end of the day, we are so removed from what happens in the nation's Capitol that we, while interested in the actions of the government, are much more concerned with why a box of cereal now costs $6!! All of us, Democrats and Republicans, have to pay the six bucks if we want to eat cereal!!”

In Madison County, they were not buying what Harris was selling: the $25,000 downpayment for first time homeowners was scoffed at here. “What do you think would happen to real estate?,” Dyatt asked over the din of a Saturday morning at the Wagon Wheel. He answered his own question: “Every house for sale will have $25,000 tacked on. Immediately!” At The Hardware Store, Kathy was indignant: “Who gave you $25,000 when you went out to buy your first house?” she asked her friend and unabashed Trump supporter, Mike. “And where are they getting the money?,” Mike continued the question before answering it: “From somebody else.”

Kathleen and Alanna at The Thrift Store are dealing with a lot. In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene they were served with an eviction notice. The shabby strip mall where their store is located, on the bypass outside of Marshall, is now in high demand because of its safe distance from the French Broad River. They have been asked to move out by the end of the month.

On the election results, Kathleen writes: “I’m DEVASTATED and angry. I know I will fight to keep the freedoms we are so lucky to have in this country. I am 68 years old and happy to have lived the majority of my life with those freedoms.”

Abortion was not a priority - at least not in the way that the Democrats might have hoped. Most women felt that it was an issue for the states and not the federal government. I was struck by the young women I met who, having had children of their own, would place the palm of their hand to their core and tell me that the issue was personal to them - and for them, that meant protecting the life of the fetus.

Kathleen writes: I believed them when they wrote Project 2025 therefore I am scared. I worry about my children and grandchildren, two of which are transgender. I am scared they will endure hardships and hate that no one should endure.”

Her apprehensions remind me of an encounter had by Barbara Zimmerman, Judy Major’s Democratic running mate for county commissioner. Stopped at a traffic light with the signage for her campaign on her car, a pickup truck pulls up beside her, decked out in Trump paraphernalia. The driver of the pickup yells out the word, “TRUMP!” Barbara looks over, and asks him if he is talking to her. He roars out the word, “WHORE!” before the lights change and he drives away.

“He called me a whore,” she told me. “I have never been called a whore in my life.” She is 70 years old.

The level of disinformation in Madison County was startling. Fear, fear mongering and false information were all around. Muslims “are coming in across the southern border,” Mike warned me, and they are planning to “kill us all.” Fear mongering at its finest. Variations on this theme were plenty at The Trump Rally too. ‘Biden’s decision to shut the XL pipeline means that the US is no longer producing oil and has to import all of our oil supplies from overseas.’ This is false. Like it or not, the US is producing more oil now than it ever has. ‘Abortions at eight or nine months are common in “Democrat” states.’ False. ‘Abortion used as contraception.’ False.

The news that didn’t filter through was also notable by its absence: Trump said he would be a dictator “only” on day one. “He said that?” Violet asked. Trump told Evangelical voters they would only have to vote this one time, “we'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote," he said. “I don't recall hearing that,” Matt admitted, “so I don't know what context that was in. I cannot either confirm or deny or defend that.” And, Mike at the hardware store: “I’ll have to find that and see what he’s actually talking about.”

There was an additional challenge. People didn’t want to listen. When I started to ask Violet about Trump’s economic plan, including his magic potion that is tariffs, she talked about Biden’s decision to cancel the XL pipeline. And while it was the week of the Democratic Convention in Chicago, she wasn’t planning to watch - only if it happened to be on the television while she was doing the laundry or the dishes. Mike at the Hardware Store told me he “watched a little but I got so mad I couldn’t see straight.”

Kathleen’s daughter, Alanna writes: “It is difficult to put into words how I'm feeling now post-election day. Seeing how the county I grew up in and contribute to everyday voted for the horrible, corrupt people that are happily voicing their desire to take away people's rights and throw us into a fascist theocracy, has shattered my heart. So many people will be harmed or die due to these decisions.”

“Sometimes it's hard to know what to believe,” Violet said. “I think there's people that sit and watch Fox News and they get one side, and they watch CNN, and they get another side, and you really don't know what to believe. And so it's very hard. I mean, it feels like we're in some kind of third world country, or some country, like dictatorship, where we're fed this information and propaganda, you know, where we're told what to believe.”

Violet talks about the algorithms. “Google,” she says, “they know what you like, so they’ll feed you more of it,” which, she is quick to say, “is maybe a bad thing.”

I wrote in my notes while I was there, ‘if Trump wins in November, make no mistake, this will be the victory of Fox News and all who disseminate false info,’ and I do believe there is some truth to that. It’s not the only reason the Democrats lost. But it certainly had a significant role to play.

Kathleen’s prognosis for the future is grim. “I know that this time next year, I will not recognize my country,” she writes, “I also know my Christianity will be tested. It will be hard to ‘love thy neighbor’ in these circumstances. I can only hope that I am up to the task.”

Alanna writes: “76 million people in this country decided that rape wasn't a deal breaker when choosing a leader. That's unacceptable.”

Matt writes: “As you know, I never bought into all the ‘sky is falling’ rhetoric and gaslighting from the left-wing pundits. President Trump served 4 years already and didn't do any of the things they are saying he will do when he already had the opportunity to do it.”

In Madison County, I was struck by how people could live so close to each other, literally side by side, and have completely different perspectives. An eco-artist living next door to an overt Trump supporter. A progressive candidate for the county commissioner living just down the road from someone who hangs a confederate flag from their barn. A Christian conservative who believes in the end times and who runs a store around the corner from a restaurant with an all gender bathroom.

Dyatt writes: “I have neighbors here on Banjo Branch that are Republicans as well as Democrats. We all look after each other and care deeply about the well being of our small community.”

Graeme Frellick, vice chair of the Madison County Democrats writes: “I can have friendly conversations with [people in Madison County], but not about politics. I suppose that I live in a liberal bubble, surrounded by friends in Marshall who are mostly very progressive in their outlook, but perhaps disconnected from the majority of Madison County residents.”

This separation, coupled with a whole lot disinformation, anger and suspicion, and social media algorithms which decide what I want to see in my feed and what you want to see in yours, is a deeply destructive mix for our democracy. Disinformation can - and does - literally run riot. It is the reality of how we live now. Not just in Madison County. Our news media has become compromised and undermined. We seek reaffirmation in our cocoons. We inoculate ourselves from opinions we disagree with.

Democracy cannot survive like this - believing only what you want to believe. Democracy is argument, discussion, debate. Democracy is not gerrymandering a district to allow politicians to pick their voters as opposed to letting voters decide on their politicians. In North Carolina, another bright spot: in a heavily gerrymandered state, the Democrats were able to flip a crucial seat in the statehouse and break the Republicans’ supermajority there, restoring the governor’s veto power.

Alanna writes: “I have to lean into the fact that I cannot let this country spiral for the future of my family and the world at large. I have a renewed sense of purpose to fight the injustices of this country (and county) for my sanity's and humanity's sake.”

Matt writes, “Actions speak louder than words and success is the greatest revenge. Overall, locally, there was an overwhelming sense of optimism. The public meltdowns, infighting and finger-pointing of the left have been rather comical.” 

We are already seeing some of what lies ahead. A president-elect who wants to forego Senate hearings for his cabinet appointees. A president-elect who will try to set back the climate agenda by who knows how many years at a time when we have no time to spare.

Kathleen writes: Trump and his cronies have already begun putting their evil plans into action.  Musk has said there will be economic hardships, Bannon and Miller are anxious to begin the mass deportation and put people in internment camps. 

I worry about our journalists and how we will get the truth.

Judy Major writes: “Still, when I find myself discouraged that I won't be able to influence County government as I had hoped, I am reminded that in this little county 5,061 voters did want me to be their commissioner.... not bad for a first time candidate!”

Dyatt Smathers writes: “Life will go on as we approach a peaceful exchange of power in the Capitol and the State House!  The future will be very interesting to observe from here on "the Branch”!!"

Addendum: It has been a full seven weeks since Hurricane Helene blasted through western North Carolina, killing 102 people in the region, and tearing whole towns apart. As winter approaches some communities are still without heat, and the boil restriction on drinking water has only just been lifted. There are many ways to support the community there. HelpMarshall.org is a favorite of mine, alongside support for the River Arts District in Asheville. Please consider supporting these communities. They have a long road ahead of them. Thank you.