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From bona fide swing states like Ohio to traditionally deep-red Texas, Dubliners across America are entering the final days of one of the most divisive general election campaigns in living memory. As part of a series on the race for the White House, TheJournal.ie has been talking to Clinton voters, Trump supporters, and independents in a range of time-zones between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts in recent days.
Why ‘Dublins’? We could just have easily have picked ‘Springfields’ or ‘Madisons’ but we are, after all, an Irish website – and many of the towns we chose to focus on have a strong Irish heritage. Add to that, if your peruse any list of communities called ‘Dublin’ in the US, you’ll find everything from booming Silicon Valley suburbs to industrial towns off Georgian highways. Here’s the latest piece in our series (you’ll find last night’s one here). We’ll have further installments in the coming week.
GEORGIA IS FAR from the reddest of red states – but anything other than a Donald Trump win there next week will be a shock.
If Hillary Clinton does manage to win the southern state, then we would most likely be witnessing a nationwide hosing of Trump.
In the last eight presidential elections, only Clinton’s husband was able to turn the Georgia map blue. And he did it only once, failing to do so in his reelection bid.
Four years ago, the state comfortably chose Mitt Romney with Barack Obama only really winning out in the state’s two big cities – Atlanta in the northwest and Savannah along the state’s Atlantic coast.
About halfway between the those two major hubs, just off Interstate 16 linking them, is Dublin, GA.
Being home to about 16,000 people, Dublin is not large but it’s the heart of Laurens County and its Irish connections see it nicknamed ‘The Emerald City’.
In some ways it’s quite mixed, Laurens County has a Republican congressman and Dublin’s sheriff is a Democrat.
Dublin’s make-up is also relatively even, between black and white residents.
But as with many towns across the nation, this presidential campaign has certainly tested harmony between the two main political parties.
If there’s one thing both sides can agree on though, it’s that 2016 is different.
“I’ve never seen an election like this,” that’s the blunt assessment of Ronald Schwartz, a Republican chairman in the area and the county manager for Donald Trump 2016.
Schwartz isn’t a lifetime Dubliner, he’s originally from Indiana and spent time in South Carolina before settling there. His grownup daughter still lives in South Carolina and says the feeling is the same there.
Part of the reason why this election is different from his point of view is that it’s been difficult getting help from the Republican National Committee.
The power structure at the centre of the party usually drives the supply of simple things like yard signs and bumper stickers, this time Schwartz says supply has been scarce:
They set up a campaign headquarters for Trump and locally we had 50,000 signs coming in last month that we could distribute. Then all of the signs all of a sudden went to North Carolina. And every sign that’s in our county and our area we in the Laurens County Republican Party paid for.
Schwartz was a Tea Party Republican. The activist movement within the party that took hold after Obama’s election might not be at the forefront anymore, but there’s little doubt that Trump is benefiting from it.
(There’s a race to be the Laurens County Sheriff running parallel to the election)
Trump was probably the candidate the Tea Party never found. Though he never needed their help to get exposure, his ideals and perhaps more accurately his words are exactly what they were looking for.
“Everybody’s fed up with Obamacare and the economy, ” Schwartz says.
For him though, it was more than that. He describes himself as a passionate gun rights advocate who owns two assault rifles and feels Clinton will ban them in office.
He supports Trump because of his stance on guns but also because Trump’s anti-establishment rhetoric won him over in the early days of the primary.
After campaigning for statewide Republicans looking for their Washington seats, Schwartz felt let down when they got there, even ignored when he tried contacting them.
“Nobody likes what Obama is doing on executive action but nobody’s doing anything to fix it,” he tells TheJournal.ie from his home in Dublin.
So when Trump came out and said we’re going to do this, this and this, I kind of jumped on the bandwagon. That sounded like a good idea to me because nobody could understand what the rest of them were doing.
“When you control the House and the Senate and you can’t pass a bill there’s something wrong.”
Two sides
Looking at the Presidential election from afar, it’s especially hard not to feel that race and racism is the major undercurrent bubbling beneath it.
An ABC News poll showing that just 3% of black voters support Trump makes the choice look incredibly stark. Doubly so when looking back at Trump’s primary campaign.
When the history is written about how he won the Republican nomination, his ‘Mexican rapists’ speech and his pledge to block US entry to Muslims will undoubtedly be seen as the two game-changing moments.
The angry rallies that followed are also fresh in the memory.
But Schwartz feels that, contrary to what is being said, “Trump is pulling minorities” even if some Trump supporters are nervous about doing so publicly.
There have even been cases of Trump signs being pulled down from front gardens.
“A lot of them don’t want to show support for Trump but the ones that do really want to do it,” he says.
I mean usually the politicians campaigning would have signs and they’d give them out but that didn’t happen this year. People actually are afraid to put them in their yard because they’re afraid they’re getting torn out.
Unity in the Community
Part of Schwartz’s job is building the future base of the party in the area, something he says will have to include more minorities because of changing demographics.
It’s going to be very difficult though. Wounds from this campaign are proving to be especially deep, as people from the other side of the fence can attest.
Monique Allen is a young mother and healthcare worker who’s originally from Boston but has lived in Georgia for the past decade.
A Clinton supporter but not a campaigner, she recently set up a neighbourhood group called Unity in the Community to move away from the divisiveness that has been growing in Dublin and elsewhere in the US.
Poor relations between police and minority groups have led to police killings and flashpoint violence in places like Ferguson and Baltimore.
People like Allen don’t want the same happening in Dublin and she wants to highlight that having different opinions doesn’t have to lead to confrontation.
As she puts it: “We teach our kids to be nice to one another but it seems some adults don’t have the same mentality. ”
“It makes people feel like they have to take sides and if they don’t take the same side as another person they’re automatically evil.”
We’re trying to let people know that it’s okay to not agree with the other person, but you have to be respectful. I mean, everyone has their own opinions and that’s why our country is where it is now. Everyone has their own opinions but you have to be civil at the same time.
While Schwartz was clear in his belief that this election is different, Allen was more strident. She says that of the three Presidential elections she’s been in Dublin for, “it seems like it’s the worst one”.
“It’s ugly, it’s really ugly this time,” she adds.
The Dublin branch of Unity in the Community is holding its first big day out just four days after the election. The event will feature typically American events like a pie eating contest and a chilli cook-off.
The Facebook page dedicated to the event says that it’s purpose is to promote friendship “between those from all walks of life”.
Allen wants it to be a day where people can put aside their differences for a few hours. She admits it’s very hard to escape talk of the election these days.
While working with patients and others she has to actively avoid engaging with people who want to talk about contentious political issues. If she doesn’t engage, things can get nasty.
She also feels that the election has brought racism more out into the open. It’s always been there, she points out, but Trump has made it more accepted. Even among friends.
“Personally, not speaking on behalf of my group, but personally yes I do feel that,” she says.
A lot of the people that I call my friends, when I hear they’re supporting Trump and supporting all the things that he says, it makes me think, ‘Well, I mean now I see you for how you really are. This is how you really feel?’
Early voting has already got well underway in Dublin, Georgia. It means that for better or worse the most divisive US election in at least a generation is nearly coming to an end.
With that in mind, groups like Allen’s may be exactly what is need to bring people together after a bruising few months.
“I’m hoping it’s easy to forget but particularly with this nasty election it might be a little hard to,” she explains.
It would be nice for everybody to just accept the results of the election either way and deal with it the best that we can, whether they’re on the winning side or the losing side.
That’s the hope anyway, but there’s a way to go. Not least because the immediate aftermath to the election could be more bitter than anything we’ve seen before.
Trump’s recent refusal to say whether he’d accept the result of the election worried many, including Allen. What it meant to his most fervent supporters is anyone’s guess.
But could it lead to violence in Dublin? Schwartz isn’t convinced.
“It isn’t something that would happen here,” he says.
“But you see people posting that it could lead to a revolution, it could lead to a civil war, it could lead to disruptions on the street. I mean it’s out there, I don’t know how widespread it is. But that talk is out there on social media.”
If that doesn’t worry Schwartz though, what does? Simple, a Clinton victory.
“I would truly dread it for my kids and the future of this country,” he claims.
If we held the House and Senate, the Republicans, we could maybe stop a lot of things, but when it gets into executive action and appointees to the Supreme Court they are lifetime appointments and that’s the scary part.
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How, in a country with so many ghost estates, can there be families who are homeless or living in these awful conditions?
Ghost estates are in the middle of nowhere and a lot of the houses are probably now condemned .
Right I’m gonna say it
If you decide to have children make sure you have sufficient means to do so, people shouldn’t have kids and expect someone else to foot their rent allowance bill.
It’s nearly becoming the norm now to have an attitude ‘ah sure the government will look after me’ unfortunately they won’t!
If you decide to have children you have to take into account your job, can you afford to have to have them, can you afford to feed them, can you afford to house them, I can’t afford to do any one of there things at the moment therefore I have no children,
If you want kids you have to be able to afford them, and not want them and expect someone else to bail you out when shit goes sour, this woman should have thought of all the what if’s
While I agree with you to some degree in what you say, you cant tar every parent with the same brush. A single mother could easily lose her job, what’s she suppose to do then? Social welfare should be there to help people who are struggling but it’s not there to give families a cushy life, but unfortunately that’s what has happened.
Lloyd, anyone can fall on hard times. You can’t cover all the “what if’s” or you’d never get out of bed.
What I’d like to ask this mother is this; where’s the father of your children?
On the father of the children point, hypothetically what if the father agreed to house the children, most likely with him, would that be sufficient? Or does the fact he knocked her up mean he should have to house and care for her as well for the remainder of her natural life? Custody invariably is granted to mothers in this country, but if a mother is living in squalid conditions & the father has a place of his own, does it not make more sense to award custody to the father & leave the mother to fend for herself?
I would generally agree Lloyd but you can’t account for everything and this lady has an autistic child. Anybody complaining about welfare in this country is an entitled idiot. It is ridiculously generous and a burden on the rest of us.
I agree Lloyd , if you don’t have the means you simply don’t have children taking care of the most vulnerable in society is a given but long term tax payers cannot continue to subsidise irresponsible lazy adults.
But she isn’t lazy she is looking after her children,also she has a child with autism do you know how difficult it is to mind a child with autism you obviously don’t have a clue.
Lloyd – you’re a fekin idiot !
Lloyd you don’t this woman’s circumstances. She could easily have had a job and a home when she had her kids . You can’t see the unforseeable . I had a good job , plenty of money well able to pay my mortgage. Then my younger disabled son got sick. I had managed to work throughout his childhood but it got to the point his care needs were too much. Then my father became ill and I was left with no choice but to leave the job I loved. I was lucky in the my mortgage was nearly finished so I had a home but honestly if you are renting you are often just one or two pay days away from homelessness. Things change and sometimes people need help. A child with Autism is actually a full time job anyway. You can talk from your smug position which clearly shows lack if experience and knowledge of what some people go through. Well good for you . It’s easy to berate people on the Internet when you don’t know their story and when your using a false name. Dumb and dumber wasn’t it? Enough said
And the pyjama ma’s are moaning cause they have to get the landlord to cut the grass.
Am I the only person who knows college graduates who are unemployed? Or people who worked for years and lost their job? What about women who followed all the advice above (got their exams, college, met a guy, got married & bought a house before having any children, who then where struck by some form of misfortune and had their ‘perfect’ life fall apart around them for some reason)?
Basic human compassion seems very easily forgotten by some here in the comments section. Walk a mile in that woman’s shoes please before you make all those harsh judgements, because the next time, it could very easily be you. Or me.
Those in need get tarred with the same brush as the freeloaders, it’s a pity but it’s true.
remember the woman sleeping in her car with 3 children, all over the news until it was suggested that she had a house, stopped paying the mortgage and walked away from it.
When this suggestion was made, the story vanished out of the media immediately………. I wonder why?
A mother should always have the support they need. The mother of an autistic child should never be put in a situation like this..
This government has created a ruthless social welfare/health care system that needs to be fixed because the people in need are getting hit not the lifers.
Ruthless social welfare system? Ireland has a very generous welfare system. In fact so generous that generations of singers freeload at the tax payers expense. While it is sad that this lady had to wait for a house, she did get one which is the main thing. We can’t expect the government to have hundreds and hundreds of empty houses, serviced and ready to go for all these situations. If that truly is what you want, are you, the tax payer, prepared to pay for it?
The welfare system has changed with this government and as I said it is affecting the worse off more then any of the people abusing the system.
I’m glad that everything has worked out for her and her two kids .. Glad to see that my taxes have helped her .
I for one am honestly happy that my taxes have been put to good use to help this Lady and many others like her.
I do sympathise with any family having to live like that but I have to ask, has this person done well in school? Gone to college or university and got a good qualification where they can get a good job? Most of us work, pay taxes, USC, rent or mortgage, bills and don’t receive any handouts while others expect housing, food, bills etc. to be covered by the taxpayer.
When you can’t change your circumstances, change yourself.
I think your missing the point of this article, what it shows is that the people that really need help from social welfare are falling through the traps, she has two kids, where is she going to find someone to look after them while she’s out “changing herself” as you put it.
I completely agree with you conor, the concept of achieving something through hard work and dedication does not apply to certain people, rather the attitude, I have 4 kids, so I need a 3 bed semi beside my Ma and their school which I have no intention of paying anything on
James she should have been prepared for the tough world before she had her kids
Lloyd life isn’t perfect, you cant plan for every eventuality.
I know life isn’t perfect but for anybody thinking of bringing children into this world, they should at least have a permanent home for them I.e. Buy a gaf, don’t expect someone else to fund you and your kids
I’m not missing the point of the article. Services are poor and something needs to be done. We all know that. However, there is children’s allowance, back to education allowance, rent allowance, fuel allowance, medical cards, etc. A friend of mine got pregnant 17 (she’s now 29) and couldn’t do her exams. At 21 she went to college part time, got her degree after 6-7 years and works full time earning a very good salary. She’s now doing her M.Sc. part time too. It was a set back but she worked hard and did well for herself. While I agree that services are poor and there should be mechanisms in place get people back on their feet, if Bridget in the article is doing nothing to better herself and provide for her family then she is to blame for her circumstances.
“I.e. Buy a gaf, don’t expect someone else to fund you and your kids”
How the hell do you know she didn’t ‘buy a gaff’, fall behind on payments, and get evicted. You know zero about her history, besides the tiny amount covered in the article, yet you seem to have reached an incredible amount of conclusions on her lifestyle.
Stop being such a dick, life is not as black and white as you seem to think it is.
Your assuming Bridget isn’t doing everything she can for her children, shes obviously one of the unlucky ones that fell through the cracks. This could of easily happened to your friend. Also don’t get hard on Bridget, where’s the father.
You don’t know that she isnt doing the same as your friend now that she’s in a safer environment.
I totally agree that people need to help themselves out of bad situations, you’re dead right that you should make sure you’re secure before having kids…unfortunately, sh*t happens and childrens immediate well being should always be put first.
That women would have had her kids taken off her if she left them in that pub alone to go to college. Not everyone has good support systems around them.
Well done to your friend, it’s not easy even if you do have help!
Reading fairytales again….
Cpm….good Man….you said so much in so few words
Conor a child with Autism makes a lot if things impossible and further study can be one. Apart from really high childcare costs for a child with a disability or Autism the fact that your child may not sleep at night means you are not exactly able for active reading or much else cognitively as you are just too tired. You get carers allowance and you are not allowed to do full time study or n fact part time study . Nothing more than 15 hoyra a week. Your can’t even volunteer with out department permission. There is no mechanism to upskill your self on that benefit and no support for care costs or respite care. That’s the reality of life with a disabled child
She was giving a roof over her head, In other parts of the world you be lucky to get a tent to live in, and you would be happy to have any kind of food to eat,and medical care ,some people do not relise how lucky they are to be born here, Why to you think so many immigrants want to make Ireland their home !
Yeah….she should give praise everyday that her children are hungry in Ireland and not hungry in some other place.
Once again a flurry – or perhaps more precisely, a slurry of anti single mother comments by the kind tolerant readers of the journal – Should have kept her knickers on, should have thought before having children, decent, clean living tax payers shouldn’t have to pay for the off spring of a floozy
Sure we all know that single mothers and their sprogs have brought down this country.
As I’ve said before, there are too many here who wouldn’t be happy until we’ve re instated mother and baby homes and laundries and made the scourge of society pay for the crime.
Deplorable, unsympathetic and misogynistic comments every time single mothers are mentioned!
Ann Marie….well written reply….it’s always the unfortunate/less fortunate who get attacked first.
Who paid the electricity bill for repeatedly boiling a kettle?
#notcheap
# cheapshot
Hope you never find yourself in the same plight as this woman and her children. What a cheap comment to make.
@jennie … That’s a particularly nasty and uncalled for comment .. Hope you never find yourself in a situation where you are in need of the kindness of strangers …
It was a shit joke, not a nasty comment. Go easy would ya.
@Jennie Do you currently work? Have you ever been in receipt of a social welfare payment? Your comment was nasty.
Lloyd,
A certain cohert have kids for the welfare money, 8 kids = 1040 euro every month for 16 to 18 years,not bad on top of everything else they get they get on welfare !
James P F:true.If you have a young family the government takes care of you.
James she has only 2….your theory just got blown out of the water
That comment wasnt directed about her ,just a certain group of people!
Your either a Troll or a fool. Somehow I think it’s the latter.
This comment for Jennie .
It’s crap that someone was in the situation that they felt the need to have to boil pasta and eggs in a kettle.
But I don’t think she entirely thought through her situation. Boiling a kettle repeatedly is not cheap. Someone had to pay for it.
It’s all Rock an roll on the dole…. Had she kept her knickers on and stayed in school or got a full time job she wouldn’t be living like that.
Ya jennie it’s those serial kettle boilers that really annoy me…they should have meters put on the kettles….stupid comment
She had no kitchen in which to cook, are you completely stupid..
So what would have you done, let the kids go hungry?
For all you know she stayed in school went to college had a full time job and had to give it up to look after her autistic son,it could have been all too much for the dad and he could have f**ked off,I presuming just like you are. Unless you know her personally you’ve no idea what she’s been through ad no right to judge or make stupid comments.
@ the animal
Animal….not out off you today only whataboutery.
@Sinead no children go hungry in this country.That is the reason immigrants have so many in order to get social welfare.
You are very naive Caroline if you think that there are not children going hungry in Ireland due to poverty or austerity measures.
very uninformed statement to say children don’t go hungry in this country
I used to go out with a girl while I was in college all she wanted was to have kids, I could not understand her logic, no proper job or home. we don’t know this woman’s circumstances but I’m sure do some people think the state will look after them just completely forget the cost of having children, food, child care, clothing etc. There is a lot of families struggling even with jobs I don’t know how single parents manage without intervention
@ Jennie, You are either a Troll or a fool, some how iI think it’s the latter
There are plenty of cold foods you can eat.
Was she paying the electricity? If she was that 50 to 100 euro per month more could have gone towards being able to afford somewhere with a kitchen.
There are plenty of cold foods you can eat
She wanted boiled eggs and pasta the cheat
Was she paying the electricity
Questions to make you feel even more shitty
Maybe you could donate her your out of date meat
‘@Jennie , Please tell me you are not a grown adult, because if you are, I despair that there are actually people like you in this Country.
@ Jennie, careful Karma is a bitch
Once again a mass of an ignorent society, shows no compassion to people who are in tough times, an there repeatitive patronising quotes such, my taxes pay for these people, and theres plenty of jobs out there. The ever grown americana capitalist society appears to caught on here, which creates a divided society, an well turns people into self rightious ars#ols..
He who cast the first stone…..
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but first look at what others would say about your life, the things you may or may not be judged on.
I’m delighted that this lady finally got a place to stay and a chance to start over…. She is stronger then anyone else here because she has to be for her son. She has as to fight daily in order to get him the basic rights every other person gets automatically.
So much for the despicable government trolls who infest this place with their lies about FG being economic saviours who have made this state an equal and fair country.
I know the same trolls hate facts but the fact is….FG are nothing but a pack of servile dogs protecting the wealthy and literally starving everyone else…w@nkers.
@Aideen Stevens:if you were in my shoes you would be bitter.
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