When an elderly man was filmed screaming “white power” as he drove through the largest retirement community in America in a golf cart, it was the latest installment in a culture war that Chris Stanley had seen unfolding for years.
“The battle lines are drawn,” he told The Daily Beast Stanley, who serves as president of the Villages Democrats Club in the huge, well-preserved retirement-oriented city of central Florida.
But the scene, which was amplified when President Donald Trump tweeted with approval before deleting the post this weekend, marked a sharp deterioration from just a few years ago, Stanley explained. In fact, political relations were relatively friendly until the Trump election.
“We live happily together,” he said. “We had our club, they had their club. They had their speakers, occasionally we got a speaker. “
A massive community of 55 and older in Florida, The Villages has been a longtime Republican fortress. Donald Trump garnered 70 percent of the votes in the area in 2016, the sprawling city equals a sort of Baby Boomer that refutes the widely publicized idea of declining political power among older whites in the United States.
But conversations with residents suggest that Trump’s election sparked a rise in hostilities that has escalated in recent months. The president’s tweet last weekend, from one of his supporters shouting the racist phrase during political duels at The Villages, showed how far relations have deteriorated.
“Now wherever we go they wait for us,” Stanley told The Daily Beast.
Tensions reached an infamous point on June 14. One rally, a large golf cart rally, was made up of Trump supporters celebrating the President’s birthday (some also had other messages like “blue lives matter” in their carts). Counter-protesters carried Black Lives Matter signs.
During the demonstration, Democrat Sharon Sandler told Villages-News that life on the left was difficult in the area.
“I can’t stand Trump. I think he is a pervert. I think these people are part of a cult and have been brainwashed, “Sandler said in a video on the store’s site. “This is really bad living here. Thank God we all have friends and we stay together, but it is very difficult to live in the towns as a Democrat and not as a Trump supporter. “
In the same video, someone yelled “where’s your white hood?” in a caravan of Trump supporters on golf carts.
“White power!” one of Trump’s fans yelled. The Villages-News reported that a fight almost broke out.
Stanley said the event was “annoying at the time, then it calmed down.” But it exploded in public consciousness this weekend after Trump tweeted the images.
The retweet “didn’t benefit anyone,” said Stanley. “I get it [Trump] he lowered it after 90 minutes. People said they didn’t know the guy was saying ‘white power’, which leaves us with: either retweeting things he hasn’t seen, or they knew he was saying ‘white power’ and that’s the part that interested him. think it’s the latter. “
It turns out that no one at The Villages wants to take credit for “white power.”
Villages’ administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Villages Republican Club, which also did not respond to requests for comment for this story, has rejected the cry.
“The Republican Club condemns the person who yelled ‘White Power’ at the grumpy Biden supporter in the video that is widely circulated in the news today,” the group posted on Facebook. “Everyone we have spoken to was very surprised to see such a racist statement here, because this is indeed ‘America’s friendliest city’, where everyone is practically color blind.” (The claims of racial “color blindness,” psychologists say, are effectively false.)
A “Team Trump” for Peoples Facebook page that strongly promoted the pro-Trump rally did not make such public rejection. Spokeswoman Suzanne Days said she had not felt any pressure, as this reporter was “the first person to call me.”
Days said he had not seen the meeting and thought it was a “real situation” that did not represent the atmosphere of the protest.
Stanley acknowledged that the video “is not representative of much of the people.”
“It is sadly representative of some parts,” he said.
Some of the political tensions that Stanley and Sandler alluded to playing online. The Villages has a colossal discussion forum with more than 100,000 members. But, in a sign of tenuous peacekeeping, political discussion has become increasingly verbose on the site. The site previously relegated all political discussions to its own sub-forum until the end of 2017. But on New Year’s Day 2018, the site disconnected the sub-forum, citing technical updates. Although the movement was described as temporary, the political space never returned. And see you soon, said some veterans of the forum.
“True civil political discourse was very rare,” one person posted in a thread asking where the political forum had gone, adding that the page “was a stain on this site … it is better to leave it removed.”
The site’s ban on talking about politics outside the political channel has been held, and moderators have since released updates reminding people not to say anything political on the site. (The discussions about race and COVID-19 and the occasional conspiracy theory inevitably enter those waters.)
Sometimes online animosity seeps into the real world. Earlier this year, another Trump opponent at The Villages, Ed McGinty, made headlines after launching his own protest in a golf cart, driving in a vehicle loaded with anti-Trump signs.
But late last year, the Democratic Club planned a golf cart rally to start the election season when things took a sinister turn.
Opponents of the Democratic Club, Stanley said, “were publicly posting about stalking and dropping roofing nails at the golf cart rally. Publicly posting about ‘we will stand on the bridge and drop rotten tomatoes on them. We will throw nails for roofs down. That went on for about 20 minutes until one of them said, ‘Wait, we used that golf cart path too. That could damage our golf carts.’ “
Comments on a local news site, reviewed by The Daily Beast, showed people speaking of the need for “additional trackers,” apparently to monitor the Democratic Club rally. “Now we expect these lefties to have 18 cars in their huge trailer,” the person wrote, adding the address of a house where the club was expected to return. “We dropped 175 roofing nails along the way.” (Although the site was aimed at Villages residents, anyone can make an account and comment.)
Another commenter repeated the request for nails, while a third urged people to “load the golf carts.”
The Democratic Club found no nails. But “when we got to our destination, they were there,” said Stanley. “They were waiting for us with dirty signs, insults and threatening gestures. It was ugly. It was very ugly. “
A Republican Club Facebook live post encouraged people to protest at the Democratic Club rally, citing a post by a private group of pro-Trump villagers.
“So is life for us now in the villages,” said Stanley. “I hope that from November 4 things will improve.”
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