Tale of Two Towns: one loves Trump, one despises him

In this election cycle, many Americans are trying to understand how anyone could possibly be supporting the other presidential candidate, and the exasperation is specially acute in regards to Donald Trump, an authoritarian figure who has promised, among other things, to jail his opponent.

For last week's Maine Sunday Telegram, I profiled two Maine towns on opposite sides of the divide. Turner and Hallowell are just 35 miles apart, they each have only a few thousand people, they're each perched on the edge of a larger city, and they have similar income levels and racial demographics. But one, a farming town, embraces Trump in the hopes he will best protect their Jeffersonian world, the other, a micro-city founded by Whig gentry, finds him anathema to everything they hold dear.

Here are links to the Turner and to the Hallowell stories respectively; enjoy. And thanks to all the people who shared their stories and perspectives with me.

And for your moment of zen, here's former Maine Warden Service officer John Ford, who writes cutesy books about his time with the service, speaking at the Trump rally in Bangor this week.