GIBSON - Charles Lamb spent decades as a chef and bus driver for entertainers, and crossed paths with Donald Trump a few times over the years.
“He spoke to everybody. He was real friendly,” said Lamb, who once met the future president-elect at a World Wrestling Entertainment event. “I’ve done shows in just about every casino he has. He seemed like an honest man.”
It wasn’t just his personal encounters with Trump that made him a supporter on Election Day, though.
“Obamacare is killing people around here,” said Lamb, who’s come back home to open a Southern-Cajun restaurant called the Heritage House with his family. “We have 70 and 80-year-old men who are coming around wanting to do odd jobs because they’re starving. There are a lot of people around here wanting change.”
If it sounds like Lamb is speaking on behalf of his community, he could very well be. Trump handily won Georgia Tuesday on the strength of support from rural and exurban voters. Glascock County, where the 6 percent unemployment rate exceeds Georgia’s overall 5 percent rate, turned out for Trump in the highest percentage statewide. Nearly 90 percent of ballots cast in Glascock County supported Trump, while Democrat Hillary Clinton found support in Atlanta and its suburbs.
“This community typically is a Republican community,” Glascock County Commissioner Lori Boyen said. “I believe in years past, the feeling was, why bother? This time there was a feeling of hope.”
In the days following Trump’s stunning upset, residents in Glascock County where the county seat, Gibson, is about an hour southwest of Augusta, were happy and maybe a little surprised their guy prevailed.
“It was exciting but I have to be honest with you: I didn’t think there was a chance he was going to win,” Lamb said. “This was the first election where I’ve sat down on the couch and watched from beginning to end. I said, ‘This can’t be happening.’ To see the states start rolling in was amazing. It was almost like going to a Super Bowl.”
Afterward, Lawanna Andrus felt the impact of Trump’s victory in a personal way when a serviceman she knows, who’d pondered leaving the military if Clinton became president, decided to reenlist.
“That kind of told me a little something there,” she said.
Hometown Market owners Rachel and Fred DeLoach felt Trump’s win was a validation of values rural communities hold dear.
“I’m not a devout Republican or Democrat either one. I vote for the individual I think can do the best job,” said Fred DeLoach, who responded to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. “America has slid downward. We need to get back to where we were years ago. It’s gotten way too liberal. We need to get back to some values and morals.”
Brian Pritchett, a sheriff’s deputy in neighboring Warren County, felt confident Trump would come out on top.
“My thoughts were the same as pretty much everyone else in this county: we were sick and tired of the way this country was being run. We knew we needed a change, a positive change, and we got that in Donald Trump,” said Pritchett, a former Glascock deputy. “The majority of the country sees through the political mist we’ve been dealing with and are just sick of it. It’s not that I’m anti-government. I work for a government agency. I’m bound by the law.”
In the days following the election, protesters have taken to the streets in cities across the country, including Atlanta, outraged at the outcome.
Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid summed Trump’s victory this way: “White nationalists, Vladimir Putin and ISIS are celebrating Donald Trump’s victory, while innocent, law-abiding Americans are wracked with fear – especially African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Muslim Americans, LGBT Americans and Asian Americans.”
Still, Pritchett is hopeful that the nation, polarized by the nasty campaign season, will be able to unite.
“Just because you and I think differently doesn’t mean we can’t be friends,” he said. “I have hopes he will bring the people together, eliminate the separation not only between the races but political views and different religions. We’re so divided and that’s just not right. If we just start loving one another and accepting we’re all different - each and every one of us - we can start getting along again and start bringing this country back together.”
Unity might be simpler to achieve in Glascock County than in larger, more diverse areas. The rural county south of I-20 is home to just under 3,100 residents, a slight decline from 2010, according to U.S. Census data. The population is is 88 percent white and tight-knit. Here’s an example: on Thursday afternoon, Terry Usry and his cousin Eston Usry were having lunch at Usry’s Diner on Main Street. Afterward Terry Usry headed back to work at Usry Mobilehome Supply (just around the corner from Usry Street), where his son Anthony Usry works.
“Everyone felt like they had a United States when they woke up on Wednesday,” said Anthony Usry, for whom illegal immigration was a key issue this election season. “If you have open borders, you don’t have a country. It feels like we’ve got a country now.”
Another Usry, Charles Usry, struck a note that sounded familiar after spending some time in town: “We need a change, and I feel like Hillary wasn’t the change we needed.”
McKenzie Perry, who at 18 is 60 years Usry’s junior, voted for the first time this election, also for Trump.
“Hillary was a liar and didn’t care about anybody but herself,” said Perry, a Glascock County High School senior who plans on welding school after graduation. “I think it’ll be good when Trump builds that wall. I knew he was going to win. He’s going to make America great again.”
Still, even within this likeminded heart of Trump Country, some divisions exist.
“Frankly, I just took the lesser of two evils,” said Eston Usry, who is retired after a career as general manager at The Warrenton Clipper in the county next door. “It wasn’t so much Donald Trump. I thought Hillary and Bill and Obama - you can’t trust them.”
He was motivated by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s handling of the the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya: “She knew it wasn’t a video. I knew it wasn’t a video. Everybody knew it wasn’t a video.”
In the days following election, anger in many parts of the nation at Trump’s victory had him fearful of a different kind of attack.
“I’m just hoping he won’t get assassinated,” Usry said of Trump. “The way the country is right now, there’s so much hatred. I’m afraid for him.”
Back at the Heritage House, which opens in a couple of weeks, Elizabeth Ann Lamb was planting flowers as her son Charles Lamb, the former celebrity chef and bus driver, got the kitchen squared away. She was thrilled to learn of Glascock County’s chart-topping support for Trump.
“Are you serious? It’s a good surprise,” she said. “I think Mr. Trump has not been in politics but I think he will surround himself with people that will make him very strong. I believe he listens.”
She researched the candidates and issues thoroughly before casting her vote this year. She was well aware of Trump’s divisive comments about immigrants and women. His success in business and her dissatisfaction with politics as usual informed her vote this year, but she did note some caveats.
“I don’t believe what he believes about everything,” she said. “He’s said a lot of things I don’t agree with. Basically it shakes out that he was the best person for the country at this time.”
Contributing: David Barnes
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