He’s ‘One of Us’: The Undying Bond Between the Bible Belt and Trump

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — Sharon Hurd did not know that President Donald Trump had used the phrase “dumb Southerner” to describe his attorney general, but hearing it did not bother her.

“We’re ready for somebody to be that outspoken, because he seems to be getting the job done,” said Hurd, 73, a retiree who once owned a restaurant and a gift shop, standing on a street corner about an hour after Trump’s rally ended here this month. “He doesn’t try to take his words and make them please everybody, and I think that Southern people are noticing that.”

Few things have appeared to test the bond between Trump and the South, a political coupling of a thrice-married New Yorker and voters in the Bible Belt that seemed unlikely from the start. The president’s swing this month through deep-red Tennessee and Mississippi, where he basked in the warmth of supporters at political rallies, confirmed that despite the scandals and chaos that have churned out of the White House, their relationship endures.

“It is ironic that the warrior that they have found is a billionaire from New York, but he really speaks their language fluidly,” said Henry Barbour, a Republican National Committee member and party strategist based in Mississippi.

“I don’t think it’s about any specific set of policy positions, but it’s about somebody being a warrior for folks,” he said.

The relationship offers Trump benefits as well. In Johnson City, Tennessee, and in Southaven, Mississippi, this month, Trump was far removed from bruising headlines about the special counsel investigation into possible campaign collusion with Russia, his personal finances or allegations of affairs.

And although Trump often paints a rosy, and sometimes distorted, picture of his support, his descriptions of mutual love with his voters match reality in parts of the South — particularly outside cities and suburbs. In his 2016 victory, he won every Southern state but Virginia. In Tennessee, public polling shows his approval rating is close to 60 percent, far greater than his national average.

After decades of rejecting Northern candidates who were softer on issues they cared about, Southern Republicans have forged a deep, personal connection to the man they saw on television for years. Trump does the four things those voters love, rally attendees said: He wins, regardless of how fungible the definition of winning may be. He takes the fight directly to Democrats, unlike previous Republican presidential candidates who preferred comity over controversy. He does not bow to politically correct culture. And he does not condescend to them. After spending 2016 trying to prove his bona fides to voters who found his fame to be aspirational but who remained suspicious of his previous positions on core social issues, Trump has authenticated a relationship with his supporters, some of whom had previously needed proxies such as Vice President Mike Pence to feel comfortable. At a rally in the spring, Trump called Tennessee the “home of hardworking American patriots,” an assertion met with cheers.

Now, those voters, a key part of his electoral coalition, are inherently skeptical of the daily run of news stories about Russia and the Trump campaign, or less savory aspects of his personal life.

The mistrust of the national news media runs deep. Headlines that have dominated the national news, such as a payment Trump directed to silence an adult-film actress who alleged he had an affair with her, have been viewed suspiciously, or even batted away.

“Nonsense,” Lisa McCarter, 58, said from her front-row seat in the stands at the Landers Center in Southaven, Mississippi.

“I don’t even think the Democrats take that seriously,” her husband, Mike, chimed in.

At the rally in Tennessee, Pam Rutherford, 57, from Jonesboro, said she thought the news media had played up the issue.

“I feel like that a lot of it’s sensationalized to her behalf, along with the Brett Kavanaugh whole situation,” Rutherford said, sitting on steps outside the Freedom Hall Civic Center, where a line snaked through a parking lot and along several blocks some five hours before the president arrived to speak. She described what she saw as “holes” in the story of Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of trying to rape her in high school. He denied the allegation, and was confirmed to the Supreme Court this month.

Inside the hall, Eddie Bledsoe, 47, a telecommunications worker, wore a sticker supporting Marsha Blackburn, the Republican nominee to replace the retiring Sen. Bob Corker, also a Republican. But Bledsoe said he was not certain he was voting for her.

“This got stuck on me, coming in,” he said, pointing to the “Blackburn” sticker. “It didn’t matter to me. I was here to see my president.” Despite never having met him, Bledsoe said he felt a personal link and a sense of shared values with Trump.

“I don’t really look at him as a politician,” he said. “Even now, I look at him as just one of us. He doesn’t act like he’s above you, as a person.”

Ralph Reed, head of the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition, said that the coarsening of the discourse that Trump is criticized for has only added to his appeal among his supporters.

“There is a sense for which someone who’s from Queens can understand people from the South,” Reed said. “There’s this odd common bond between someone who grew up in Queens and someone who grew up in the rural or the exurban South, that for decades people have looked down their noses at them, and they’re tired of it.”

James Carville, the Louisiana-based Democratic strategist who helped steer Arkansas native Bill Clinton to victory in 1992, said Trump’s appeal is not solid across the South. In parts of Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia — where there are clusters of suburbs and major urban areas — Trump’s appeal is far more limited.

“Undoubtedly, if you go anywhere in Kentucky or anywhere in Mississippi, it’s a really devoted following there,” he said, noting Trump’s ability to connect more authentically with less religious working-class white voters, particularly men.

Seeing the reality-television star as a fellow traveler was a theme for one voter after another at Trump’s Southern rallies.

“He’s carried through with all his promises, as far as I’m concerned,” Lisa Morrow, a junior high school English teacher, said as she lingered near the area where the news media had been corralled.

Like Bledsoe, she was undecided about whether to support Blackburn, who is counting on Trump’s backing to help pull her over the finish line against the Democrat, Phil Bredesen.

But she was certain that Trump had been a smart bet in 2016.

“He’s a businessman and he doesn’t owe anyone anything,” she said. She had no issue with Trump’s three marriages — “at least he married Marla Maples!” she said — and was also doubting of the coverage surrounding Stephanie Clifford, the adult-film actress who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels.

By contrast, she said she had grown weary of Clinton’s personal scandals when he was in office.

Was there a contradiction? “It sounds like a double standard,” she conceded of her opinion. But Trump was just different, she suggested.

“I think the Good Lord forgave him, so I can, too,” she said.