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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. In the 5th district are the posh Buckhead and the problematic Bankhead, the corporate 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 made headlines across the country as a dispute broke out between now sworn in President Donald Trump and Democratic Congressman John Lewis.
Lewis’ constituency in downtown Atlanta is “in terrible condition” and “contaminated with crime,” Trump railed last week via Twitter. 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, auto mechanic from the small town of Lawrenceville, Georgia, Trump’s tirade shows that he has chosen 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 nowadays because you might get shot there, said Arno on US radio. Especially in Atlanta you have to be constantly careful not to attack you.
“If you go to Atlanta, you are liable to get attacked.”
Deep resentment against the townspeople
Rural Resentment: This is how American researchers describe the deep resentment of the rural population towards inner cities and their residents.
“If we look at the election results in the US, we see a deep divide between 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. The residents of rural America voted for Trump by a large majority. The metropolises were Hillary Clinton land.
In few states this divide is as evident as in the southern state of Georgia. The metropolis of Atlanta is a democratic island in a sea of Republican-dominated constituencies.
In the Virginia Highland neighborhood of District 5, the infamous constituency of John Lewis, the stereotype of the crime-ridden downtown ghetto seems like a distant decal. Leslie Wolfe lives on a quiet street with well-kept red-brick houses, the front gardens steppe-colored and in 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 and their children meet in the coffee shop near Wolfes Haus. Forty percent of the population in the 5th district have a college degree. That is twice as many as the national average. Atlanta ranks 12th among the US metropolises in the crime statistics, and it is less dangerous here than it was a few years ago.
Leslie Wolfe has little contact with residents of the other Americas, the small towns and suburbs. And when she does, she feels uncomfortable, she says.
“I am 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 are complain about Obamacare, the health system, although they benefit from it themselves. But that’s just how they feel. “
She doesn’t mean to sound derogatory, she says, but she just thinks that Democrats are more progressive thinkers. The resentment against the other America: This is not just a feeling of the rural population, says political scientist Abramowitz.
“Many people in the metropolises, especially academics, look down at the people in the small towns, turn up their noses at the hillbilly. And the residents there know that. The antipathy is mutual.”
Rural people hope for Trump
Most residents of Thomaston, a small town of 9,000 in the middle of Georgia, probably don’t care what Atlanta townspeople think of them. Here you have other worries: Unemployment is a good eight percent; the national average is 4.7 percent. Decades ago Thomaston had a flourishing textile industry, but the factories are long closed. Now residents are putting all their hopes in 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 the economy, then maybe he will bring the factories back. Then there are jobs here again, and that’s what people want.
Alan Abramowitz is skeptical. As for the expectation of the citizens of Thomaston – as well as the hope that Trump will soon be able to patch the crack that runs through the country.
“The split will not go away anytime soon, because it reveals deeper differences – about race, about social and cultural values. Above all, the question remains: Can Trump, now that he is president, also deliver? Can he deliver the economic situation of his constituents better? And, will Republicans keep their supporters if they fail to keep their promises? “
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