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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forumslargest retirement community in America is pro-Trump - the Villages in Florida
The Villages is Americas largest retirement community, a carefully planned, meticulously groomed dreamscape of gated subdivisions, wall-to-wall golf courses, adult-only pools and old-fashioned town squares. Its advertised as Floridas friendliest hometown, and its supposed to evoke a bygone era of traditional values when Americans knew their neighbors, respected their elders and followed the rules. It has the highest concentration of military veterans of any metropolitan area without a military base. It has strict regulations enforcing the uniformity of homes (no second stories, no bright colors, no modern flourishes) as well as the people living in them (no families with children, except to visit). And it is Trump country, a reliably Republican, vocally patriotic, almost entirely white enclave that gave the president nearly 70 percent of the vote.
Older voters are Americas most reliable voters, which is why baby-boomer boomtowns like The Villages represent the most significant threat to a potential Democratic wave in Florida in 2018and the most significant source of Republican optimism for many years to come. Because while the Villages may look like the past, with its retro architecture and gray-haired demographics, it sells like the future. This master-planned paradise an hour northwest of Disney World has been the fastest-growing metro area in the United States in four of the past five years. And as the baby boom generation continues to retire, The Villages is continuing to expand into nearby cattle pastures, luring more pensioners to this fantasyland in the sunshine, gradually swinging Americas largest swing state to the right.
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Its not a coincidence that The Villages supports the nations largest American Legion postor that signs in its bar declare: NO NFL GAMES ON POST TELEVISIONS. Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 2 to 1 here, and in interviews, they generally expressed support for Trumps tax cuts, as well as his hands-off approach to Medicare and Social Security. That has helped blunt the perennial Democratic pitch to seniors: Choose us, because Republicans are coming for your checks. But what really attracted them to Trump were issues that had little to do with their pocketbooks or their daily liveslike his opposition to sanctuary cities, or his insistent rhetoric about strength, or his attacks on Muslims, MS-13 and protests by black athletes. They feel like Trump is on their side in a cultural war against cop-haters, their perception of scheming foreigners, global warming alarmists, and other politically correct avatars of disorder and decline; they thought President Barack Obama was on the other side, standing with transgender activists, welfare freeloaders and Islamic terrorists. And when Trump vows to make America great again, they sense that he means more like The Villages.
They want an America thats a little more like it was when they were growing up, and thats what Trump is offering, says Daniel Webster, the areas conservative Republican congressman. Dennis Baxley, the areas equally conservative Republican state senator, points out that The Villages offers that, too, with safe streets, light traffic, artificial lakes that provide a real sense of serenity, and hundreds of support groups for every imaginable malady or hardship. Its a throwback to when they were children in 1950s America, without actual children.
It really is like living in a village, where theres law and order, and people take care of each other, says Baxley, who owns three funeral homes in The Villages. Trump tapped into that sense that the rest of America isnt like that anymore, that some people dont have to follow the rules.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/06/18/florida-senior-citizens-vote-election-2018-218758
Cha
(297,731 posts)Demovictory9
(32,475 posts)LeftInTX
(25,567 posts)Crutchez_CuiBono
(7,725 posts)One or two of those, and, it'll be Democratic overnight. Glad they are all in one spot though. The last of the jobbers w pensions and healthcare. Brought to them by unions and living wade jobs. I'm sure the guy in the picture thinks he really stands out as a eligible bachelor. One hurricane, thats all she wrote.
Solly Mack
(90,787 posts)They grew up in exclusionary enclaves where everyone looked and thought like them.
Shielded from the realities of the country and what life was like for everyone else.
Part of the dominant culture where all the faces on TV and the big screen were white faces or white faces using black-face to mock and denigrate others.
Or where there were actual black faces those black faces were treated as buffoons or played roles befitting their expected place - maids, butlers, and slaves.
They want that America back - where their white skin affords them all the rights and protections America offers and everyone else knows their place and acts accordingly.
Demovictory9
(32,475 posts)But Guy Knaak says that as Trump rose to prominence, he started hearing openly racist diatribes about Obama: A lot of folks around here had a problem with a black president. Another Villager named Oren Miller, a 68-year-old former logistics manager for Caterpillar in Illinois, told me that at a block party six months ago, he mentioned how nice it was that an African-American neighbor picked up litter on her daily walk.
People responded with pure racism, Miller recalls. I thought we were past that in America.
Solly Mack
(90,787 posts)Nonhlanhla
(2,074 posts)They grew up in Apartheid America, and they want it back.
JI7
(89,276 posts)klook
(12,170 posts)At least these cretins keep to themselves.
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)Back when they were growing up, the top marginal tax rate was 90% and >50% of workers in the US were UNION, and that's a HUGE reason why things were so good, and why we had a thriving middle class, but hey ... they got their's when the getting was good, so f*** all y'all, time for low taxes and screw the unions ... as long as the pension checks keep coming.
Fuck these assholes. I hope Rebublican-empowered scam-artists take them for all they're worth ... or climate change floods their little palaces.
Demovictory9
(32,475 posts)onethatcares
(16,188 posts)people coming down to Floriduh in order to avoid income taxes and to avoid paying any taxes on things they don't like.
Then they run the governmental system ragged wanting all the services they had "up north".
YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)Demovictory9
(32,475 posts)The main developer of The Villages, Gary Morse, was one of the nations top Republican donors before his death in 2014, and his family-run firm has continued to support Florida Governor Rick Scott who is now running for Senate against incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson as well as the local Republican Club and other GOP causes. The company also controls the right-leaning local newspaper, The Daily Sun, and the local radio station that gets piped into the town squares through loudspeakers; Miller expects that as Election Day approaches, theyll launch an all-out propaganda blitz for his opponent. And in The Villages, yard signs and door-knocking campaigns are forbidden.
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The company does set a conservative tone. The leaders of the Democratic Club recently asked for financial support like the Republican Club had gotten; the company wrote back that it had chosen to focus our giving in a different direction. The Democrats also gave me a memo the company circulated on last Februarys Life Without Immigrants Day, demanding the names of any laborers who skipped work so they could go on a list of radical individuals ineligible for employment by any vendor serving The Villages: These protestors are trying to cause harm to The Villages! These actions cannot and will not be tolerated! The company also controls a charter school for the children of employees, and according to the Democrats, threatened to expel any student who walked out of class for the March for Our Lives gun control rally after the mass shooting in Parkland. The local march had to be moved to the weekend.
Kentonio
(4,377 posts)If they're all in Florida, then they're not diluting the vote in other states.
dameatball
(7,400 posts)In addition to being a bastion of racist paranoia, they suck water out of the ground like crazy.
Takket
(21,634 posts)Ill throw it on the pile with the other 10 that come out every day.
ProfessorGAC
(65,212 posts)Contradictory nonsense. The same people pushing the low taxes are those that want to reduce SS and Medicare. Idiots.
And, i'm seriously thinking about moving there in retirement. At least 1 in 3 agrees with me. Better than none.
Vinca
(50,310 posts)It's mind blowing for me to think that people of my age (and I always thought it might be nice to retire near a beach) can't see beyond their own selfish, little world. These people should be ashamed of themselves, but the Trump cult members from young to old do not comprehend shame.
spanone
(135,886 posts)they must have been assholes in the sixties.