AMBOY — Thom Rogers can tell you exactly how many homeless veterans live in the Amboy area.
“Twenty-nine,” he said.
Rogers is a cook at the Countree Kitchen & Timbers Saloon in rural Amboy. He’s also a veteran. He paused from grilling chicken sandwiches and Tater Tots recently to explain why he voted for Donald Trump for president.
“What are we doing to help the veterans? Nothing. Except what the community steps up to do,” he said.
He believes Trump will focus more on helping the people who live within the nation’s borders.
In the week since the election, it’s become even more evident the country is divided. In Clark County, like much of the nation, the split falls along a stark urban-rural divide. If you look at a map of the region’s voter precincts, along the waterfront and downtown Vancouver is solid blue. It’s covered by a large halo of red that reaches into the outer edges of the county.
Take Amboy: There aren’t many voters, 449 in all. But 72.4 percent of them cast their votes for Trump.
Closer to the waterfront and downtown Vancouver, 63.5 percent of the 1,159 voters of Precinct 120 cast a vote for Hillary Clinton.
On each table setting at the family-owned cafe in Amboy is a pamphlet coined “Table Scraps.” This month has some Thanksgiving-related jokes, riddles and other items to distract while waiting for food. But according to a photo posted with an online review at Yelp, at one point one of the mind benders included was, “Would you like to know the difference between a radical Muslim and a moderate Muslim? A radical Muslim wants to behead you. A moderate Muslim wants a radical Muslim to behead you.”
One morning last week, the rhetoric wasn’t inflammatory, and even some of the ardent Trump supporters weren’t in favor of a blanket Muslim ban. Furthermore, they thought it was unrealistic.
Sherrie Fisher, the owner of the restaurant, said she discovered the quote after reading the Yelp review. She went through each of the pamphlets and tore that page out.
“That’s not us, that’s not who we are,” she said, adding people can cast their vote how they please but regardless of their views, in Amboy they take care of one another.
“We promote unity,” she said.
Ernie Fedrick, 88, was enjoying a cup of black coffee, killing some time.
He really wanted to talk about the first .22 his father gave him and the sweet dog he recently adopted from a rescue shelter, but he veered into politics for a while.
“Trump was the only choice,” he said.
Fedrick believes Trump truly cares about the country. He likes that he was “already a big shot,” and he pointed to reports that Trump isn’t going to accept his presidential salary.
Fedrick doesn’t think Trump will accomplish everything he said on the campaign trail, and he’s fine with that. He’ll do his best, he said. He’s hoping Trump will unite the country.
“We need to pull people together instead of tearing them apart,” he said.
Most of the people enjoying their breakfast at the Countree Kitchen on a recent morning backed Trump.
Dana Fisher, whose family runs the restaurant, said she didn’t cast a vote.
She was overwhelmed by what she believed to be half-truths circulating on social media — Did you hear the one about the Pope endorsing Trump? — and was too busy to try to confirm all the stories she was hearing. Her husband, a Trump supporter, is an avid Fox News listener, which she felt represented one side. Other networks supported Clinton, she said, and social media seemed to be all over the place.
“Where are the facts?” she asked.
Doug Facundus, a veteran and lifelong National Rifle Association member, jumped in: “I don’t watch anything but Fox News. It’s all one-sided. So, you pick the side you agree with.”
The latest voting results still have Clinton in the lead by 385 votes in Clark County. This election cycle could ruin the county’s reputation as a presidential bellwether. County voters have picked the winning president in all but four elections since 1900.
Vancouver blues
In Vancouver’s Uptown Village, where the majority of Precinct 120 voters favored Clinton, the crowd at Dulin’s Cafe had a very different reaction to the election.
Spirit Young, 40, of Vancouver said he voted for Libertarian Gary Johnson, but after Trump’s victory, he regrets the decision.
“I wish I had voted for Hillary,” he said.
Young and his wife are in the midst of adopting two girls from Africa.
“They will be immigrants from Africa and female,” he said. And later, “I’m concerned about the hate Trump illuminates.”
Kevin Grosz, 62, and Dawn Grosz, 57, both of Vancouver, didn’t vote.
“I’m not proud of that,” Dawn Grosz said but added that she was conflicted about the whole thing. Dawn Grosz said she considers herself a Republican but couldn’t stand behind Donald Trump. “Just the disrespect and the lack of dignity in the way he communicates. It’s horrifying,” she said.
Shari Jensen, 51, of Hazel Dell and Marlia Jenkins, 62, of Vancouver are both Clinton supporters.
The two were on their lunch break. Both have jobs working for Clark County.
Jensen said she understands people were ready for a change. “People who supported Donald Trump, he spoke to their values,” she said. “Something they hadn’t heard in a long time and they came out in force to vote for him. Unfortunately those values are destructive.”
Jenkins said the most recent election cycle “hasn’t been an intellectual exercise, it’s been an emotional exercise.”
She advises all the people taking to the street to protest Trump to save some energy.
“For the next four years,” she said.
