LULA, Ga. (AP) – Patti Thomas owns a flower shop in the north Georgia town of Lula. Xavier Bryant runs an independent pharmacy just outside Atlanta. Looking toward the inauguration of an entrepreneur as president, the two share this expectation: Donald Trump will be good for business.
“He’s already proven he can turn things around,” the 52-year-old Thomas says, crediting Trump with Ford Motor Co.’s recent announcement that it would scrap a planned Mexico plant while expanding in Michigan. “Just his business enthusiasm, we’ve been lacking that.”
“My intuition,” the 33-year-old Bryant agrees, “is telling me that small business owners will win” in Trump’s economy.
But beyond that commonality, Thomas and Bryant – a white baby boomer from a tiny town and a black millennial from the big city – illuminate widening cultural fissures that help explain Trump’s rise and may well define his presidency.
Trump draws his strength from places like Lula, a railroad town with 2,800 residents and no stoplight in the central business district. He won almost 3 out of 4 votes cast in surrounding Hall County, which abuts the multi-county cluster that makes up metro Atlanta. Even with a growing Hispanic population, Hall is whiter than Georgia and the United States as a whole, and conservatism carries the day.