For mother and daughter, Trump era lays bare divide
DEFIANCE, US: Donna Baldwin felt excitement when she went to a rally for President Donald Trump but when she got home, she was aghast-the media, she says, distorted what he said. Whenever she goes on Facebook, though, she has her own fact-checker-her daughter, Jocelyn Evans, who doesn’t hesitate to tell her that some of what she posts is “definitely not true.”
The mother and daughter in the bellwether state of Ohio, like so many American families, have seen the divergence in their core views-even their sense of what is real-widen in an era of political polarization and incessant social media.
But Baldwin and Evans-who bear a strong resemblance with their rich, dark blond hair-have also learned to avoid confrontations as they instead prioritize providing a solid upbringing for Evans’ two children, eight and four. As the US election season opens, a team of AFP journalists is taking the country’s pulse by driving from Washington to Iowa, which on February 3 holds the country’s first contest to choose presidential candidates.
Defiance, Ohio, population 16,663, is home to a General Motors engine part plant. On the road to Defiance’s small private college, multiple fast-food restaurants advertise job openings.
Baldwin, a realtor, sees the jobs as evidence of a healthy economy under Trump. Her daughter, who is studying to be an archeologist, is not convinced. “I have friends that are married and have children and both them and their husbands are working three of these jobs and they still aren’t making ends meet,” Evans, 34, said at a diner in Defiance’s historically preserved downtown.
Her mother, 59, calls herself “a realist,” saying, “not everybody is cut out for college” and that too many “live off government subsidies.” “Now there are so many jobs available and they won’t take any of those jobs.” Climate divide
Younger voters by significant margins picked Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in 2016, although older people, as in past elections, went to the polls in far higher numbers.
Baldwin and Evans do not fit neatly into political boxes. Evans, her upper arm covered by a tadpoledesign tattoo inspired by her son, first registered as a Republican, like her late father, and, disliking Clinton, voted for Trump. Her mother was long a Democrat but said, “I felt like the party left me.”