Back in My Trump-Voting Hometown
Navigating divided, rural America and a case study in media manipulation
It had been three years. Three years since I’d stood on the shores of Lake Superior, staring at the ruler-straight, blue horizon in the distance, feet on round smooth stones, numbing in the clear water. Three years since the previously unimaginable flood that ravaged homes, roads, bridges, and took the life of my twelve-year-old cousin, the hardest funeral I’ve had to attend.
Three years and what did I come back to? A town and an area that seems to be drifting in two different directions, unraveling at the seams. Living outside of the US for almost a decade, one could be forgiven for thinking a global pandemic that killed almost seven hundred thousand of our fellow Americans would have people coming together more and realizing we need each other.
But, our chill college town and the surrounding districts can barely hold a school board meeting without it devolving into shouts and accusations, and the health department can’t issue a mask recommendation without getting death threats.
What happened to the sleepy old-copper-mining village I grew up in?
The bright summer sky was hidden behind a grey haze many of the days I was there, the sun often a bright red orb, blotted…
