海角大神

Here on Ho Hum Hollow Road, Luke Garrett knows he鈥檚 a dying breed: A chicken farmer who has watched three kids go off to college and fly away, only to return to the ramshackle farm at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Yet聽on Tuesday, Mr. Garrett, a Republican, watched as 13,000 Walton County residents became part of an unexpectedly powerful movement that propelled Donald Trump to the presidency, giving him 80 percent of the county's votes.

Small counties had never seemed so overwhelming on election night maps. Mr. Trump won because white voters in rural areas and small towns chose him by huge margins, while urban voters were cooler toward Hillary Clinton. The heartland often seen only as emptying out, increasingly irrelevant, and naively traditional roared back, big time.

鈥淭his is rural America screaming: 鈥楽top overlooking us,鈥� 鈥� said MSNBC's Chuck Todd Tuesday.

Not everyone in farm country was enthralled with Trump, says Garrett, adding: 鈥淚 don鈥檛 even know if it鈥檚 about us being ignored.鈥�

鈥淏ut unlike past Republican candidates, including Mitt Romney, he was able to relate to people, to common people.鈥�

While rural America has voted Republican for several decades, Tuesday became a rubber-booted stampede. Polling places at little Baptist churches here in Walton County looked just as busy, sometimes busier, than Atlanta鈥檚 in-town neighborhoods.

Just days before an election many thought Mrs. Clinton would win, perhaps comfortably, Trump showed up in the small rural town of Kinston, N.C. 鈥� a billionaire courting farmers and cattlemen.

鈥淧eople asked why Trump was going to small places and having rallies. 鈥楾o make yourself feel good?鈥� 鈥� says Al Cross, director of the Institute of Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky. 鈥淣o, he was exercising his organic turnout strategy, to generate enthusiasm and a feeling of purpose and being part of a movement among rural people. And it worked. Typically, the rural vote is a little bit less than urban. But that switched.鈥�

In addition, there was the聽sense, both in the Trump campaign and among those he courted, that there was something more than politics at stake.

鈥淭rump understood that the conservative side of politics is no longer a party in the sense that we think of coalitions of interest groups, and has become more of a social movement,鈥� says Mac McCorkle, a public affairs professor at Duke University, in Durham, N.C.聽鈥淲hile there is a prairie fire social movement in rural America, the Democrats want to say, 鈥業t鈥檚 all the Koch brothers or elitist manipulation.鈥� But it鈥檚 something that is clearly real and powerful. He may be riding on top of a tiger, but you鈥檝e got to give him a lot of credit for understanding that.鈥�

鈥淚t鈥檚 a triumph of a movement to be heard even more than it is a triumph of Trump, and it鈥檚 something that鈥檚 not necessarily conservative the way we understood it,鈥� he adds.

A portrait from rural Georgia

To James King, a Monroe, Ga., resident, Clinton became as much of a motivation as anything Trump said. Clinton, he says, betrayed an 鈥渦nderlying mentality鈥� that disrespected traditional rural ideals. That may not be entirely fair. Clinton, after all, once proposed a federal Office of Rural Affairs. But that idea never percolated up this campaign.

Many Americans saw evidence of darker motivations behind the rural Trump vote. 鈥淭his was a white-lash against a changing country,鈥� CNN commentator Van Jones said Tuesday. He said聽immigrant families are 鈥渢errified鈥� and suggested that he knows Muslims who聽are considering leaving the country.

Jack Brooks, a retired Marine and martial arts instructor who waved Trump signs outside a Newton County polling place聽Tuesday, said he didn't think of it that way. But he added that Trump's proposed聽ban on some Muslims聽entering the country聽鈥渋s about super-vetting immigrants from places that have showed a proclivity for hurting Americans.鈥澛�

For Mr. Garrett, the chicken farmer, Trump鈥檚 rhetoric has raised old racial and cultural fault lines, at least here in the South. In one Kentucky county, voters chose a Republican for local office who had once depicted the Obama family as apes. 鈥淗ere at the farm, we have always gotten along with black people, and I hope it stays that way,鈥� Garrett says.

'A leader for聽that the people'

There have been growing signs 鈥� missed by Democrats 鈥� that rural America had started growing disgruntled, some say. United States Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at one point offered his resignation to President Obama, saying the administration lacked any focus on rural America. Mr. Obama convinced Secretary Vilsack to stay by appointing him to chair a commission investigating an opioid crisis, but he appears to have missed the underlying warning.

鈥淗ere鈥檚 Vilsack, giving a warning that 15 percent of the country is feeling disrespected and disregarded, and Obama should have put two and two together there,鈥� says Professor聽Cross of the Institute of Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

Trump鈥檚 promises to rewrite trade deals to give rural America a better shot at jobs have resonated here in Walton County. Yet, according to lifelong resident Gerry Maffett, the Walton County seat of Monroe is 鈥渙ne booming little town right now.鈥� The postcard county courthouse is bracketed by a busy downtown brimming with traffic.

The fact that much of rural Georgia is making gains economically under Obama underscores the extent to which the shift has been cultural and political.

Gail Epting, a manager at a local manufacturing plant, voted for Trump聽because Trump seems to have heard a cry of distress from America鈥檚 rural reaches.

But like Garrett, who says many here held their noses in some ways to vote Trump, Ms. Epting hopes that Trump doesn鈥檛 read his win as a mandate to punish other Americans on her behalf. She hopes the office shapes Trump as much as he shapes the office.

鈥淗e鈥檚 ready to be a leader, almost,鈥� she says. 鈥淗e is so headstrong, but I hope he will open up and make sure he鈥檚 a leader for all the people. One person does not have all the answers for the whole world.鈥�