District 5 in Atlanta is a typical inner-city district: with rich and poor, black and white sections, with a socially and ethnically mixed population. The 5th District is home to the posh neighborhood of Buckhead and the troubled neighborhood of Bankhead, the headquarters of Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines, soup kitchens and homeless shelters, museums and concert halls, the universities of Emory, Georgia Tech and Morehouse.
District 5 also made national headlines when a row erupted between now-sworn President Donald Trump and Democratic Congressman John Lewis.
Lewis’ constituency in downtown Atlanta was “in a terrible state” and “crime ridden,” Trump tweeted last week. Lewis – an icon of the black civil rights movement – had previously announced that he would stay away from Trump’s inauguration in protest.
For Jimmy Arno, an auto mechanic from the small town of Lawrenceville, Georgia, Trump’s tirade shows he picked the right candidate.
“Let’s see, if you go to a movie theatre, you are liable to get shot.”
Going to the cinema or the mall is dangerous these days because you might get shot there, Arno said on US radio. In Atlanta in particular, you have to be careful not to be mugged.
“If you go to Atlanta, you are liable to get attacked.”
Deep resentment once morest the townspeople
Rural Resentment: This is how American researchers describe the deep resentment of the rural population towards the inner cities and their inhabitants.
“If we look at the election results in the US, we see a deep division between the big cities on the one hand and rural areas and small towns on the other.”
Says Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. Rural America voted overwhelmingly for Trump. The metropolises were Hillary Clinton country.
In few states is this division as evident as in southern Georgia. The metropolis of Atlanta is a Democratic island in a sea of Republican-dominated constituencies.
In the Virginia Highland neighborhood of District 5, John Lewis’ notorious constituency, the crime-ridden inner-city ghetto cliché seems like a distant decal. Leslie Wolfe lives on a quiet street with well-kept red brick houses, steppe-colored front yards and hibernation.
“I’m thrilled to be here. I’m originally from New York.”
She is happy here, says Wolfe. The physiotherapist, married and mother of three children, is originally from New York. This part of Atlanta brings you as close to the Manhattan lifestyle as you can get.
Little contact between town and country
Business people, scientists, artists and young mothers meet with their children in the coffee shop near Wolfe’s house. 40 percent of the population in District 5 has a college degree. That is twice as many as the national average. Atlanta ranks 12th among major US cities in crime statistics, and it’s less dangerous here than it was a few years ago.
Leslie Wolfe has little contact with residents of the other America, the small towns and suburbs. And if she does, then she feels uncomfortable, she says.
“I’m aware that I live in a bubble here. Sometimes my son has a tennis tournament in the country. Then I experience the division very closely. When people cheer that the Obama years are finally over. Or when they complain regarding Obamacare, the healthcare system, even though they benefit from it themselves. But that’s how they feel.”
She doesn’t want to sound dismissive, she says, but she just thinks Democrats are more progressive thinkers. The resentment once morest the other America: This is not just a feeling of the rural population, says political scientist Abramowitz.
“Many people in the big cities, especially academics, look down on the people in the small towns and turn up their noses at the backwoods. And the residents there know that. The antipathy is mutual.”
Rural population hopes for Trump
Most residents of Thomaston, a small town of 9,000 in central Georgia, probably don’t care what Atlanta townsfolk think of them. There are other concerns here: Unemployment is a good eight percent; the national average is 4.7 percent. Decades ago, Thomaston had a thriving textile industry, but the factories have long been closed. Now residents are pinning all their hopes on President Trump, says Mayor John Stallings:
“We’ve had high unemployment rates here, and if we have someone in the presidency, who is a businessman.”
If we have a president who is a businessman who knows business, maybe he will bring the factories back. Then there are jobs here once more, and that’s what people want.
Alan Abramowitz is skeptical. As for the expectations of the citizens of Thomaston – as well as the hope that Trump will soon be able to mend the rift that is running through the country.
“The division will not disappear anytime soon because it reveals deeper differences – regarding race, regarding social and cultural values. Above all, the question remains: Can Trump, now that he is president, also deliver? Can he understand the economic situation of his voters improve? And will the Republicans keep their supporters if they can’t keep their promises?”
