“The land is rough and rocky.  The weather can be brutal—too dry, too cold, too variable.  The economy is depressed, and many backcountry Mainers hold down more than one job and commute long distances.  Still they display a silent dignity, a stoicism, a belief in fairness and compassion at least for their neighbors.  They also vote Republican.”

While canvassing for voter turnout in the back hills of Maine this fall, I met a 16-year-old at the door of a small village house who refused to let me talk to his parents.  With teen-age defiance he said, “We are not voting!”.  I asked why.  He told me that voting was stupid, and it did not change anything.  The candidates were all liars, and they did not care about people like him. 

I came to like door to door canvassing, and I did a lot of it this fall. I chose to do canvassing, because I found that direct person-to-person conversations are often helpful in clarifying issues, correcting false information and encouraging potential voters to see what is really at stake in their decision-making.  I met people at their homes, in their yards and around their communities.  I saw the poverty and insecurity of backcountry rural life.  I also saw the strength and stubbornness that rural Mainer are known for.  Some were enthusiastic and thankful for my help and reminders about the voting.  Most were more withdrawn and clipped — “I’m all set”.  And some were outright hostile — “I’m voting for our President!”.

I saw how my experience differed from the polls and the pronouncements of pundits sitting in comfortable home offices who were predicting Donald Trump’s electoral defeat in the November election.  I saw what Donald Trump meant to back country people who had few champions or honest leaders.  “I don’t like his tweets, but he did what he promised, and I liked that kind of honesty”, was a refrain I heard often.

I have lived part time in these hills for nearly 50 years.  I know and care for the rural people of Maine.  I admire their directness and their hard work.  The land is rough and rocky.  The weather can be brutal—too dry, too cold, too variable.  The economy is depressed, and many backcountry Mainers hold down more than one job and commute long distances.  Still they display a silent dignity, a stoicism, a belief in fairness and compassion at least for their neighbors.  They also vote Republican.

Now, with the national election results complete, there are a host of questions in the air about why nearly half the electorate voted for the incumbent.  Nearly 70 million people voted for Donald Trump.  It might have been little more than a protest vote in 2016, but this fall most Americans were well aware of who this man is and what the Republican Party stands for.  For those who voted Democratic that knowledge has been the cause of four years of continual pain and disgust, but not so for the Republican voters.   They liked what they saw.

People did not necessarily like Donald Trump.  Some said, “I don’t like his tweets, but I like his policies,” or “I wish he would shut up”, but they were willing to differentiate his personality from his actions.  They spoke of him like they would a crass and objectionable uncle who says ugly things, but one who gives big gifts.  People I spoke with seemed aware that Donald Trump often lies, that he is misogynistic and openly disparaging of vulnerable groups and that he occasionally defends violence and white supremacist organizations, but they were willing to withhold their personal judgments on such behaviors in order to support a leader who is tough on immigrants, challenges liberals, advocates for law and order and is bellicose in foreign relations.  

My neighbors who voted Republican focus on these virtues.  They viewed the President as good on his word.  He promised to be tough on immigrants, to build a southern wall, to lower taxes, to extricate the country from foreign obligations, to bring jobs back to America and to grow the national economy and they praised him for moving forward on all these fronts.  “I like the fact that he did what he said he would do,” reported one of these neighbors.  This is Maine.  Mainers are known for being sullen, blunt, and direct.  They are likely to judge candidates more for what they do than what they say.  They are independent minded, voting more for a person and less for a party.  It was not surprising that the election results in Maine revealed a significant proportion of split party ballots.  

My brief chats at the door during the campaign revealed a solid localism.  Although my prescribed talking script encouraged me to discuss national issues and the fate of the U. S. Senate, such issues seldom were foremost on respondent’s minds.  Central issues were the economy, health care access and “keeping Maine for Mainers”.   Rural Mainers can be critical of their local officials, but they believe in and often participate in local government. They are willing to engage state politicians, but they do not trust the federal government.  To win a federal office a candidate must feel like “one of us”.  Arguments for replacing the current Senator were met with softly worded comments like, “Susan has been our Senator for so long”.  

Throughout my dooryard chats there was a notable conservatism, a nostalgia for “the way things used to be”.  The backcountry of Maine has long been losing out.  The mill economy, the pulp and paper economy, the dairy economy, even the potato economy have been on a long decline.   Small towns display boarded up retail shops and each year a portion of the youth move out to college-dependent careers and more prosperous cities.  The state population is among the oldest and poorest in the United States.  Looking forward, people want better services and more local jobs, but they fear loss—loss of their community, loss of their church, loss of their schools, and loss of their Maine way of life.

Fear marked the comments heard across the region.  The nightly news brings a flood of disturbing stories from across the country.  Concern about the covid-19 virus, the collapsing national economy, disorder and turmoil in the streets and a rising tide of diverse segments of the population tinge comments about the rest of the country.  Fear of others, particularly those of different races and religions, breaks through in comments about welfare recipients or those who are out of work.  Such comments align with the often-covered racism that lurks broadly across the country but can be seen more un-cloaked among rural Maine people who seldom see people of color and are prone to speak openly about their prejudices.

Nationalism also plays a role here.  Locals would call it patriotism and they are defiantly proud of their country.  The American flag in a window or on a flagpole is common at many homes in rural Maine.   Military service and the National Guard offer an attractive alternative to young people who are under educated and cannot find jobs. Parents of those folks praise the President for pulling troops out of the Near East and refusing to commit to any further military engagements.  Some of my neighbors speak highly of Donald Trump’s blunt and bellicose comments about other countries and his arguments for putting American interests first.  Making America Great Again rings sweetly to folks who believe in the moral superiority and military might of America.  

Finally, there is the news media.  Small city newspapers struggle on in back country Maine, but many of these are now owned or syndicated into the ideologically conservative Sinclair media network.  However, many rural Mainers receive their news from Fox News and base their opinions on right-wing talk radio shows that continuously blast out misleading information and analysis only acceptable to right leaning audiences.  Some of my chats at the door included statements so unfathomably untrue that they could only have come from these blatant propaganda-peddling sources.  If the only news one gets is Fox News, it is easy to come to prize opinions and doubt facts.  “Why do you listen to this stuff?” I ask a neighbor.  “Oh, I don’t believe it,” he responds, “I just think it’s funny”.

The largely white and often poor people of rural Maine voted for Donald Trump.  Sitting in comfortable coastal homes, it is easy for those who voted Democratic to ask. “How could they vote for such a monster; a monster who has done so little for them?”  Up close, knocking on doors that seldom open, living in a small rural town with barely more than a post office to give it identity, the answer to that question is clear.  Rural Mainers did not vote irrationally.  They voted for what they saw and what they heard. The stories that my neighbors hear daily are not based on fair and fact-checked journalism, but they shape the narratives common in rural Maine.  Fox News misinformation and expensive negative television ads were certainly factors in determining the electoral results and they did so effectively because they gave words to painfully held feelings among their audience.  

Many backcountry people of Maine feel hurt and angry.  They are mostly jobless, and many are nearly destitute.  The winters are cold, dark, and bleak.  They have little food or health security.  They feel left behind and disrespected by a national economy symbolized by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, hedge fund speculators and high-fluting professionals.  They see non-white people as beneficiaries of government protections, which seem unfair.  And they feel betrayed by a string of national governments that have done very little for their country and almost nothing for them.  As the 16-year at the door said, voting is stupid, it does not change anything, the candidates are all liars and they do not care about people like him.

Many of these people are searching for a leader, gentle or crude, who can speak to and for them; someone who is bold and courageous, someone who stands proud for their country, someone who can put cozy liberals out to lunch, and someone who can protect their way of life.  Donald Trump appeared to them to be all of that—he was tough, daring, iconoclastic, and patriotic, and more— he put on a good show.  

These folks are not going to easily convert to more progressive perspectives.  They have little incentive to do so.  Programs for increasing job opportunities and economic stimulus funds to help small and struggling businesses would be appreciated.   But such largess does not go deep enough.  Rural Mainers want to be respected and defended.  They believe that their lives and their communities are valuable and that given the opportunity they could contribute to a better society.  Reaching these people starts with listening—deep, patient, and respectful listening.  Door to door canvassing this fall offered a good starting point.   

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