Tearing us apart: SC voices shout across the Trump divide

When supporters of President Donald Trump rallied at the State House Monday, two women quietly protested the new Republican president, holding signs while sitting on a bench nearby.

A Trump supporter carrying a U.S. flag walked by the anti-Trump pair and barked, “He’s not your president because you aren’t Americans!” Later, another man commiserated: “Isn’t this nice there aren’t too many (pro-Trump) people here supporting this crap?”

So it goes, more than a month after Trump won the White House.

The campaign is over, but South Carolinians are organizing, planning rallies and urging each other to get involved in politics.

But their messages are separated by a gulf of disagreement.

One side supports Trump, believing he will follow his campaign slogan and “Make America Great Again.”

The other side fears Trump’s Cabinet appointments and wonders where his proposed travel restrictions and other policies will leave immigrants, LGBT youth and the nation’s standing in the world.

The one thing that unites the pro- and anti-Trump forces? The politics of anger.

I’m right.

You’re wrong.

And, not only that, you’re ignorant, uncaring and – don’t get me started – just shut up.

Perhaps it isn’t quite that bad.

But there is something about the November election that some in South Carolina – and across the nation – seem unable to move beyond.

With the passion still bubbling, a look at divided South Carolinians:

‘A danger to this country’

Until recently, Miriam Johnson’s political activism took the form of writing letters to the editor.

Last Monday, however, the 70-year-old Columbia resident sat quietly with a friend on a bench at the State House, holding signs criticizing President Trump and watching as dozens of his supporters rallied nearby.

Johnson’s sign, featuring a picture of Trump in a mid-sentence scowl, read: “Insecure. Narcissistic. Paranoid. Vindictive. Impulsive. Detached from Reality. What possibly could go wrong?”

“All he’s interested in are the photo ops and the rallies,” Johnson said of the new president. Eventually, she predicted, Trump will tire of being president and “walk away, and then we’ll have (Vice President Mike) Pence.”

Johnson said she decided to get more involved – attending recent women’s and people’s marches, and a prayer vigil for immigrants in Columbia – after Trump was elected.

The new president is dangerous, she said.

“You can’t go around saying that the news is fake just because you don’t like what people are saying,” Johnson said.

“He really is a danger to this country when he argues against the press, when he talks about waterboarding, when he supports legislation that would deny rights to LGBT individuals, when he promotes policies that deny women the choice of reproductive rights.”

Johnson said her goal in protesting is to show others that “there are other people that are on the other side. We’re the opposition party. We’re not the enemy, as Trump insists on calling us. We’re the other side of the argument.

“I feel I have to be here,” she said. “What’s going to bring the change is when you have 600 people here … or 1,200 people. … That is what is going to get their attention.”

‘Everybody loses their minds’

Chase Brown thinks the election of a new president should be an occasion that brings Americans together.

“I don’t see why it always takes a natural disaster to bring the community together, but when we elect a president, everybody falls apart,” said the 42-year-old Army veteran. “When a tornado hits, everybody bands together. But when a president (is elected), everybody loses their minds.”

Monday’s rally wasn’t Brown’s first public show of support for Trump. He helped organize a similar event in his Red Bank community on Presidents Day.

Brown said he attended Monday’s pro-Trump rally at the State House because, amid the protests across the country, he wanted the new president to see he has a lot of support.

But, as he waved a “Trump” campaign flag on the State House grounds, Brown said he hopes he and the Trump protesters can find common ground.

“There’s going to be policies, there’s going to be legislation, there’s going to be anything and everything that we’re not going to agree on,” he said. “But that doesn’t make us any less American, any less human, any less neighbors.”

Brown said he welcomes the anti-Trump protests, if it means more people are engaged in politics and thinking about what’s best for the country that he fought for.

“I’m glad they’re exercising their First Amendment rights,” Brown said. “There are too many people who died … to give them that right.”

But he worries protesters are getting caught up in a “mob mentality.”

“I hope they don’t just go through this mob mentality of ‘I’m protesting’ … and they don’t know what they’re protesting.”

‘Feel the threat of immediate harm’

Marcurius Byrd, a University of South Carolina law student, was involved in politics and demonstrations before the November election.

But now – after Trump’s win, and actions taken by his administration – “people are protesting because they feel the threat of immediate harm,” said the 32-year-old from Blythewood.

“For me, the election was a sign that people who have been struggling and have finally had a break in life, finally getting equal treatment, equal rights … are having all of that taken away from them.”

Byrd pointed to proposed restrictions on travel from Muslim-majority countries, the rollback of protections for transgender youth to use the bathroom of their choice, and the Department of Justice’s decision to drop its challenge of a Texas voter ID law.

“All the things I thought we would be making progress on, we’re now just protesting to just hold on, to keep it even the status quo,” he said.

Actively involved with social justice groups, including the S.C. Progressive Network, Byrd said the protests have achieved the goal of delaying “bad things from happening to good people.”

Byrd credits anti-Trump protests for causing the GOP-controlled Congress to not move more quickly to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.

He said he hopes the protests encourage people to pay attention to politics at all levels and to get involved, including running for office. The protests, he said, are only a temporary fix.

“If people can actually get over themselves … to have a conversation, I don’t think (protesting) would be necessary. The problem is no one is going to do that,” he said, counting himself among that lot.

“The people who try to do that usually get massacred … and no one listens to them.”

‘When America was great’

Nancy Drew, of Cayce, joined Monday’s pro-Trump rally “because there’s a lot of negativity out there. There’s a lot of rallying going on, a lot of protesting. And people need to know, we voted for him, we still vote for him. Every day, we vote for him.

“We know he’s going to do the right thing,” the 68-year-old Drew said of Trump, adding she believes he was put in the White House for a purpose.

“I remember America when America was great. ... It almost makes me want to cry,” said Drew, holding a “Make America Great Again” sign.

“I remember being able to run through my neighborhoods to play every day. And then when mama called us to supper, we went inside. But we were safe. My children didn’t grow up with that. I want my grandchildren to have that.”

Now, she fears extremists and says there are efforts afoot to take over the United States and institute Islamic Sharia law. She supports Trump’s travel restrictions, saying the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks could have been prevented with better vetting of immigrants.

Moving forward, Drew said she hopes Trump’s opponents will back off and join supporters to give the president a chance to do his job.

“See what he does. Let’s hold him accountable. I believe that he is going to live up to that. This is not about, right now, whether somebody’s a Democrat or a Republican, but truly whether we are Americans or not.”

‘This one felt more personal’

Cheyenne Lamar and her mother, Heather Lamar, were upset when the presidential election results rolled in on Nov. 8.

Heather Lamar, 39, of North Augusta, had taken other presidential elections in stride. “You win some. You lose some. But this one felt more personal,” she said, adding that Trump had not stood up for minorities or women.

Her daughter Cheyenne, a 21-year-old anthropology major at the University of South Carolina, said Trump has received a pass for saying things the country would find unacceptable if said by anyone else, including his predecessor, President Obama.

The mother-and-daughter team started a Facebook page to seek out people who feel the same way. They planned a State House rally, thinking they would attract 20 to 30 people.

Then, the Facebook page “blew up really fast,” with several hundred “likes,” Cheyenne Lamar said.

Internet “trolls” also came to the page, including a man who posted that he was from the Ku Klux Klan and was coming to make sure they didn’t burn any U.S. flags.

Ultimately, the rally was peaceful. People passed a megaphone, saying how the election affected them.

The speakers included a 16-year-old girl who said she was gay and feared she had lost her rights without getting the chance to vote yet, Cheyenne Lamar said.

One benefit of the rally, the duo said, was to connect people with ways to get involved, through signing petitions and calling lawmakers – from local office holders all the way to the president.

“You can call the White House and talk to all kinds of people,” Cheyenne Lamar said.

‘He’s not the devil in disguise’

Before he got on the Trump train, Allen Olson was a supporter of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s short-lived run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2015. When Walker dropped out, it led to an epiphany for Olson.

“When he dropped out, I heard one of Walker’s donors complaining he should have been informed,” said the 54-year-old Irmo carpenter. “That’s when I realized it’s all about the special interests. That’s why I got excited about Trump because he was funding his own campaign.”

Olson sees parallels between the anti-Trump movement and the early days of the tea party movement. Olson should know. He was an active member of the Columbia Tea Party in 2009. He dismisses the current wave of anti-Trump protests as “astroturf” – meaning fake grassroots created and funded by liberal special interests.

“The Democrats have lost the middle class,” Olson said. “They’re not able to get them back right now. It’s just going to be a one-party system unless Democrats learn to work with Trump.”

Olson thinks that is possible. He noted Trump isn’t a traditional Republican. “Before he ran, most Republicans thought he was a Democrat.”

Now, Olson suggested, Democrats could get on board with Trump’s calls for more infrastructure spending or expanded child care, maybe even reform of the health care and immigration systems.

“I honestly believe there is common ground, if they just get past the venomous talking points of the far left and see that Trump actually has their interests at heart,” he said.

But in the short term, Olson doesn’t think that’s realistic.

“Trump’s just going to have to push his agenda, and then – when the economy starts improving and everything else starts improving, and people see he’s not the devil in disguise – they’ll actually understand that Trump is all for them,” Olson said. “He’s their voice.”

This story was originally published March 4, 2017 at 1:24 PM with the headline "Tearing us apart: SC voices shout across the Trump divide."