Many of Mansaray's neighbors feel the same. 'And I feel like we're living that right here.' 'We're in this very divisive environment in our country,' she said. A far-right Republican insurgency now controls her local government, and the rifts that have grown over the past few years are still tearing her community apart. I can't vote for him.''īut ever since Trump won and transformed the Republican Party in his image, she has felt like her whole life and worldview have been under attack. That changed in the 2016 presidential election. For her, conservatism meant taking care of people and treating people with respect. Mansaray, 59, had always voted Republican.
But over the past several years, she said, she has watched her middle-class, family-oriented, historically Dutch community on the shores of Lake Michigan abandon the principles she always thought it held dear. Marcia Mansaray has lived in Ottawa County, Michigan, her entire life: growing up, going to college, marrying and raising her children there.
