I don’t have to journey to Michigan or Ohio’s Rust Belt to witness the American divide; it’s right here in Illinois, an hour’s drive from my home in Chicago
Iride beside my father in his pickup truck before sunrise on a cold Thursday morning. The soy and corn fields are empty and will soon be frozen over. It is three weeks after the US presidential elections and we are on our way to the Calico Café for coffee with his buddies: retired farmers, construction workers, and truck drivers.
We approach the outskirts of Sheridan, Illinois, population 2,111 including the inmates of the Sheridan Correctional Center, and pass the American Legion Post 729. It’s a white concrete building that hosts Friday night fish fries. At the stop sign we turn right onto Robinson Street. A now defunct Super Gas station sits at the corner; it’s been vacant for almost 10 years.
We pull into the parking lot of the café, a converted grain elevator next to the train tracks.
My father still lives on the family farm a little over a mile outside of town. I am 77 miles northwest in a suburb of Chicago. I do not have to journey to Michigan or Ohio’s Rust Belt to witness first-hand the American divide. Donald Trump won Sheridan’s county, LaSalle, with 54.4 percent of the vote, and Hillary Clinton took Chicago’s Cook County with 74.4%.
We sit down at the counter and ask for coffee. The men are looking at me curiously and I introduce myself. There are hellos and appreciative nods. I joke they can keep talking about the elections because it’s what I came to discuss with them.
Gus, a big affable man in red flannel, chuckles and proudly declares he voted Trump. I nod, and sip my coffee. Smitty, the only Hillary Clinton supporter, shouts across the counter, “That idiot’s gonna get us into a war!” and soon after he grabs a takeout bag and exits through the back door.
My father, a staunch Republican, was incensed when Donald Trump became the Republican nominee. “How can people be that stupid?! He’s no Republican, hell we don’t know what he is. I might just have to go into the election booth on November 8, plug my nose, and vote Hillary!” On November 8 he did not do that. He left the ballot blank, the first time in 58 years of voting. He reasoned that if Illinois was a swing state like Pennsylvania or Florida, he would have voted Clinton, but “he didn’t want another Clinton in the White House.” He felt relief on November 9 that Hillary Clinton was not the president-elect, then immediately sick to his stomach at who was.
I lean onto the counter and turn to talk with Mike, a soft-spoken farmer in a camouflage baseball cap and jacket. He chose Trump because of rising healthcare costs. In his early fifties, Mike has medical issues. He makes too much money to qualify for Obamacare, but is swamped with medical expenses. He pays $750 a month for health insurance and an additional $10,000 in yearly out-of-pocket expenses. Healthcare is also a primary concern for Doc, a commercial driver with a masters in epidemiology. As a wounded war veteran he receives medical care through the Veterans Administration, but his six children do not. Doc didn’t support Trump, but he didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton either.
“I would have moved my family to Costa Rica if Hillary was elected.”
Everyone at the counter laughs, and this becomes the theme.
In fact the only time this otherwise polite crowd raises a voice or interrupts each other is when Hillary’s name is mentioned. They hate her. They call her a murderer, liar, and corrupt politician. It becomes blindingly clear that it was less a vote for Trump and more a vote against Hillary.
I turn to the only other woman at the counter, our waitress Angie, and ask her about Trump’s comments about women. “People say things they don’t mean,” says Angie. She says she’s heard worse. “Hillary and Bill were worse, but people stood by them.” A young man in hunters camouflage tells me he didn’t vote for Hillary because he’s against “women’s rights.” I ask him to elaborate and he stutters and shifts uncomfortably on his stool: “I don’t know.”
Donald Trump, though not loved, is a source of curiosity and entertainment. Most called him an egomaniac, but it was said with a touch of admiration. A local mechanic offers, “I like him because he is not a politician, and he speaks his mind.”
Doc thinks Trump should keep his Twitter account, and he believes the media is at fault for creating a sense of divide in post-election America. “If the paper you read or the news you listen to says Trump is a racist, sexist, and bigot, you will believe it,” he says. He doesn’t see racism as an issue in this country: “It’s more about low education, low income, and limited access to information. People are divided by the information given to them.” I wonder where this crowd gets its information on Hillary Clinton’s “crimes.”
We say our thanks and goodbyes. Once in the truck, my dad’s relief is palpable. “That went much better than I thought.” I agree. “You know,” he says, “not all Trump supporters are racists and misogynists, but I think about 99.9% of the racist and misogynists are Trump supporters.” I agree.
As reported by Ynetnews