On the night of Donald Trump’s second election victory, I was sat in a dive bar in the heart of Republican country: Mississippi. I’d lived there for some time earlier in the year, and was back visiting my partner with whom I now shared a drink, in solemn, depressed silence. A small boxy TV shared the news as it had done all day, but our two heads were the only ones turned toward it. In the corner of the bar sat a small group of fraternity brothers brandished in cotton Letters, and across the counter from us, a pair of young women. It was a quiet night, and the news of the shifted fate of the land of the free seemed to have made little splash on the civilian streets save our own quiet, despairing conversation. Our friend who had been the other side of the bar from us, supplying us our liquor for the night, was making ready to leave with us when the college bar exploded, however. Unbeknownst to me, the aforementioned fraternity brothers and young women had been quietly bickering across the room until, in a fiery outburst, the latter pair had told the men to “go to hell.” In a matter of moments, a stool had toppled over and a drink had been knocked flying to the floor. The bar staff (our friend) quickly moved to calm things down, and the women soon left. 

In my dissolute ignorance I hadn’t known what had caused it until later that night when my cognizant partner filled me in, and it was revealed unto me the tensions of the night. What had caused such a rift between complete strangers? The 47^th President of the USA. In the intoxicating fumes of cheap liquor and even cheaper moral spirits, the fraternity brothers had felt able to make several remarks as to the ownership of the two women’s bodies. While this is as common as bar fights for many, Donald Trump’s re-ascendancy seemingly gave courage to a group of men to mimic the words of Nicholas Fuentes, “your body, my choice.” The fraternity brother’s perceived victory, in Donald Trump’s election, of the quasi-silent majority of young misogynists in American culture has set a stunningly miserable precedent. 

Yet, a couple of months on, seemingly little had changed in the land of the free. Even that night as we left the bar, I found that the political landscape had little impact on the view of a starlit southern sky. Come the 20^th January however, as I sat in the same bar and watched as Trump signed executive order after executive order live on television, reality hit. The bar was unchanged both in quality and staff, and yet the little town I had grown to love seemed changed. Outside, a young man about my age paraded the streets in nothing but cargo shorts and an American flag. I was in a unique position a tourist and outsider to a momentous, deeply personal event for Americans on both sides of the political spectrum. The victorious quite literally paraded in the streets; commiserations in such an environment are to be delivered quietly among friends you know support you. 

Such is the dilemma of the South of the States, whose merits as a culture and community are (as I have experienced) boundless, but whose political ambitions put them at such severe odds with much of the Western world. During my time in Mississippi, “Southern Hospitality” was at the forefront of my experience with the local community. Were you to mention the fact that you have never had “real American BBQ” before, you would find five invitations the very next day; during the Superbowl I had a group of a dozen people endearingly teaching me the rules of the sport amid a flow of generous drinks. My glowing experience of Mississippi is constantly at odds with the reality of their politics. My own literature does little but add to the misery. Nevertheless (as I must remind myself), one would do well not to despair. It is easy to demonise the States, but to do so would be to further silence the voices already repressed by the words of Fuentes, Tate and Trump – for in the deepest corners of Republican territory there are many fearful of the future, and to give up on America would be to give up on them. It may well be naivety, but I am confident in the generosity and spirit of the historic American South to grow against the progressively dramatic decisions of the new administration. I am anxious to return not merely to see loved ones, but to see if the little town I fell in love with has changed.

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