Examining the Present (and, Hopefully, the Future) of Trumpism in "Trumpistan"
Residents of Pickens County, South Carolina, voted for Donald Trump by the largest margin in the state. Times are good there. Will that continue under Trump?
PICKENS, SC — The Village Inn restaurant is the informal government seat of the city of Pickens, South Carolina, the actual seat of the same-named county of 138,000 that extends from the Blue Ridge Escarpment in the north to Clemson University and fast-growing suburbs of Greenville in the south.
As waitresses in Trump T-shirts filled coffee cups and Fox News played on a wall-mounted television, a group of regulars convened around the so-called “Table of Knowledge,” which is, in fact, two tables pushed together at the front of the restaurant’s dining room.
As usual, the main item on the agenda this morning a week after the inauguration of President Donald Trump was a general discussion of his latest doings.
None of the diners crowded around the table had a problem with his pardoning of the Jan. 6 rioters or the dismantling of USAID.
They were all for the administration’s drill-baby-drill energy policy, for its cutting of a (falsely) claimed $50 million payment for condoms in Gaza, for its focus on restoring traditional gender norms.
“Trump just wants to get back to common sense,” said Ronnie Durham, a Table of Knowledge regular. “If you squat to pee, you’re a girl. If you stand up, you’re a boy.”
Village Inn owner Pat Granger briefly took a seat to say that the reason she supports Trump is simple — Democrats support abortion.
“Abortion is number one for me. That’s murder. I don’t care how you look at it, it’s murder,” she said. “Those women know how to protect themselves. They’re stupid.”
All in on Trump
Welcome to “Tumpistan.”
Pickens County has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1976, but its fervor for Trump has been so pronounced that it earned the above nickname in Washington, DC during his first term, said Kevin Bishop, US Sen. Lindsey Graham’s former communications director.
“You could probably use that as a joking name,” said Bishop, who now runs a political consulting business. “I mean, you know, that’s what it is.”
Trump chose the county as the site of one of the rallies that kicked off his last campaign, in July 2023, when Pickens native son Graham, derided as a Trump “lickspittle” in the national press, was lustily booed for not being obsequious enough.
In 2024, the 76 percent of the vote Trump received in Pickens was the highest of any county in this bright-red state.
Such loyalty is one reason the county makes an ideal petri dish for examining the impacts of Trump, for tracking how his most avid backers fare under his policies over the next four years (starting with, a little later in this story, an early update).
Another reason: the baseline conditions of the county’s economy and its religious and public institutions, which are good, going on very good.
In other words, by choosing Trump — as well as electing three super-MAGA County Council members in the 2024 Republican primary — Pickens voters have applied a radical political fix to a county that is far from broken.
Trump supporters here cited immigration and attacks on the traditional Christian order as their main concerns. In Pickens, these seem to be distant threats.
It is home to more churches per capita than any county in the nation, said Rocky Nimmons, owner of the weekly Pickens County Courier newspaper. He didn’t know the source of that statistic, he said, but does know the paper receives so many church announcements he can’t fit them all into each edition.
“I have to split up my church page,” he said.
Only a few of the people interviewed said they personally know even one transgender adult, nor were they aware of any local teachers pushing gender transition on students.
There has been no major wave of undocumented immigrants, dangerous or otherwise, in a county where the rate of violent crime is one of the lowest in the state, and where, according to the latest figures from the US Census Bureau, 89 percent of the residents are white.
Granger waved away a suggestion that her main argument had prevailed now that the state has passed a ban on almost all abortions on the strength of the US Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling ending Constitution protection for the practice.
“I don’t care what the Supreme Court says, I answer to this man up there,” she said, pointing skyward. “Thou shalt not kill.”
Signs of the (Good) Times
How about the kind of economic hardship that has historically driven dramatic political change, with the Great Depression paving the way for the New Deal being one of the more benign examples?
Mostly, it’s a nonfactor.
Though plenty of residents complained about the price of gas, none of them reported any acute financial suffering — “I haven’t missed any meals,” Durham said — and the local economy is regularly described as “booming.”
Across the street from the Village Inn, the Twelve Mile Defense gun store was packed with inventory and customers.
“As I tell everybody who calls me with information about billboards or advertising, ‘I don't need any help here,’ ” said owner (and Trump voter) David Harned. “I’m blessed.”
Many of his buyers are flush with money from construction work, he said, especially building million-dollar homes on Lake Keowee for retirees attracted to the county’s scenery and low taxes.
Regional home values have increased more than 30 percent in the past five years, said Realtor Veronica Schofield, whose market includes Pickens as well as other Upstate South Carolina counties.
“Our growth in this whole area is just exponential,” she said.
Though some people still call Pickens a “poor county,” and its per capita income lags behind the state average, it has had remarkable success in attracting manufacturing jobs to fill the void left by the decades-old departure of the once-dominant textile industry.
The county unemployment rate was below 4 percent in December and dipped to a recent low of 2.9 percent in 2023. Seventeen percent of its workers are employed in the manufacturing sector, where the average annual annual wage in 2023 was more than $67,000, according to Upstate SC Alliance.
The 13 percent growth in the county’s GDP between 2020 and 2023, meanwhile, was the sixth highest among the state’s 47 counties.
And that was before one of Picken’s most recent economic development coups, attracting the German automotive company, ElringKlinger, which last June announced plans to build a $40 million battery-component factory in the city of Easley expected to create 115 highly paid jobs.
Schools “Second to None”
Such investments are a testament to a range of assets in Pickens, said Ray Farley, executive director of the Alliance Pickens economic development organization.
A massive loan taken out in 2006 allowed the county to complete, among other projects, four new high schools. Though this capital campaign was controversial, the School District of Pickens County remains a major point of local pride.
Thirteen of the District’s 22 schools are ranked as either good or excellent by the South Carolina Department of Education.
“Second to none,” is how the schools are described on the Pickens Alliance website, and the District’s Career and Technology Center is “the state’s number one technical high school,” Farley said, who added that representatives of prospective businesses tell him it’s “really more like a technical college.”
Then there’s the actual flagship of higher learning in Pickens — Clemson — which is not only the county’s largest employer, but has played a crucial role in attracting business while contributing a total of $6.4 billion to the statewide economy, according to an economic impact study published in February.
A key example of these contributions: the school’s International Center for Automotive Research (ICAR), which has helped establish the region as a hub of the car industry, anchored by the BMW plant in Spartanburg.
Said Farley at the time of the ElringKlinger announcement, “We’ve got a really good research university here, Clemson, that happens to have a rock star ICAR campus close to the ElringKlinger campus.”
In Trump’s Crosshairs
But Clemson not only serves as one of the main pillars of the county economy, it also stands out for its vulnerability to Elon Musk’s chainsaw and Trump’s attacks on scientific research and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
Of the $2.1 billion in expected revenues this fiscal year, according to its budget, $244 million was slated to come from federal grants and contracts.
That sum included, according to a recent quarterly report, federal funding to research renewable energy technology, which Trump has derided, and breeding crops resistant to climate change, which he has dismissed as a “hoax.”
The administration has been especially aggressive in targeting schools it sees as bastions of liberalism, such as Columbia and Pennsylvania universities, and Bishop said, weeks before actions against those institutions were announced, that Clemson might be protected by its conservative reputation and track record.
But the statewide Post and Courier newspaper recently reported that the school is one of 45 universities under federal investigation for possible discrimination in their DEI programs and, in February, wrote that Clemson faculty had been advised to limit spending to “mission critical” expenditures.
Did that belt-tightening directive have anything to do with threats to federal funding? Are any of those highly touted research projects in jeopardy because of proposed cuts?
Joe Galbraith, a Clemson vice president of communications, didn’t respond to those questions. But Claiborne Linvill, who represents the Clemson district as the only Democratic County Council member, said last month she was concerned about the prospect of some of the administration’s first actions.
These included proposals to freeze National Science Foundation (NSF) funding and eliminate the portion of National Institute of Health (NIH) grants covering administrative costs.
“It would be extraordinarily disruptive to industry, to this state and to this town, if this funding freeze goes forward,” she said.
The NSF freeze was later rescinded and the NIH cuts stalled by a court order, which gets to a larger truth about many of Trump’s actions, including his on-again, off-again tariff policies: At this point, it’s too early to know the impact of the administration on either Clemson or manufacturers doing business in Pickens — including several international firms.
But ElringKlinger is a clear example of an enterprise facing potential threats.
The company is deeply invested in advancing alternative forms of transportation, “focusing its efforts on the . . . environmentally friendly production and sale of pioneering green technology,” according to its website.
Trump-friendly federal legislators, meanwhile, are poised to slash EV tax credits and other support for electrification, according to a recent Washington Post story, which included an especially grim forecast for the sector the ElringKlinger plant is intended to supply.
If the lawmakers’ plans are realized, the story said, “between one-third and two-thirds of battery factories running by the end of this year would be at risk of closure. Most of those plants are concentrated in Republican-led districts.”
“Galvanized” by MAGA
The county’s economy may also suffer under the new hardline County Council, said both Linvill and former Republican County Council member Henry Wilson.
Wilson was one of two Council members defeated in the June primary, victims of a bitter intra-party feud initiated by what a Post Courier story called “hard-right conservatives galvanized by the MAGA movement.”
With the notable exception of re-elected Council Chair Alex Saitta, Wilson said, few sitting elected officials were conservative enough for the local Republican leadership and its newly energized supporters.
They appeared at a series of Council meetings to slam the county’s robust library system as a purveyor of pornography. And some of the school officials they attacked as too liberal, Wilson said, “make Rush Limbaugh look like Nancy Pelosi.”
The county’s base property tax rate is the tenth lowest in the state and Wilson said he worked to keep it low as a self-described “practical fiscal conservative.”
It was his practicality that led him to vote for a 2021 property tax assessment that last fiscal year raised $6.7 million to repair the county’s notoriously crumbling roads, which Wilson sees as a major obstacle to economic growth.
Saitta and the two new Council members, on the other hand, ran on a platform of cutting the road tax and eliminating the dedicated millage rate for libraries.
They also oppose what Saitta has characterized as overly generous tax incentives for new industries.
At a Council meeting on March 3, he slammed a proposal to provide a long-term freeze on the property taxes of a prospective business — code-named Project Pigeon — in addition to granting a “steep discount” for its purchase of land from the county.
“I think that’s unfair,” Saitta said about the property tax break, and his proposal to eliminate it passed with a 4-2 vote.
“Ronald Reagan would say that's government choosing winners and losers,” Bob Fetterly, the chair of the county’s Republican Party, said of tax incentives. “We're not supposed to do that.”
Linvill voted in favor of the tax break for Project Pigeon and said such investments have a long track record of benefitting the county.
“All of these projects have proven to have an incredible return on investment,” said Linvill, who called the council’s now-prevailing position on incentives a “horseshoe issue,” meaning Sattia and his allies have taken a stance so far right it has circled around to a traditionally liberal position.
Another example of this trend is the county’s restrictive 2023 Unified Development Standards Ordinance, which limited the density of development in large swaths of the county.
Both Wilson and Linvill voted for this law with the understanding that it would be revisited to address the need for increased density where appropriate to accommodate growth and affordable housing.
But Saitta expressed no such reservations on his campaign website, on which, under the heading of his top-listed priority — “Preserve Our Small Town” — he wrote: “There is too much growth!”
“We’re basically killing the next generation’s chance to succeed here,” Linvill said. “But that, I believe, would be a success story for many people.”
The “Constitutional Conservative”
Saitta declined to comment for this story and neither of the new County Council members responded to requests for comment.
Fetterly, on the other hand, was eager to talk, at least initially.
Pickens is a “traditionalist part of the country, not a conservative constitutionalist part of the country,” said Fetterly, 53, an engineer who moved to South Carolina from Idaho twelve years ago.
Among the state lawmakers failing his litmus test for conservatism is Rep. Danny Hiott, R-Pickens, the House Majority Leader who is well known across as an opponent of gun control, gender transitions for minors and, especially, abortion.
“This is my 21st year in the legislature,” Hiott said, when asked about Fetterly. “I went back and had my staff look and I voted on 14 abortion bills in 20 years. And I have voted pro-life every single time.”
But Hiott hasn’t done enough to penalize doctors who help minors transition, said Fetterly, who dismissed him as a “sellout.”
Graham, meanwhile, is “absolutely an enemy of anything constitutional, anything truly pro-American,” he said.
Speaker of the US House Mike Johnson doesn’t pass muster, Fetterly said, because of his support for budget-busting spending bills.
Though Ron Paul’s libertarian beliefs are more in line with Fetterly’s vision of constitutional conservatism, he said, he “absolutely supports” Trump.
“He has great appeal to a lot of people with common sense, people who want to get things back to normal, if your normal is, you know, a constitutional frame of government,” he said.
Did he have any concerns about Trump’s efforts, clear even in the early days of the administration, to seize the constitutionally granted powers of lawmakers and judges?
“I don't, because we're in an emergency mode. I think most people don't understand how close we are to defaulting on our debt,” he said. “Once we do that, frankly, who gives a rip what any document says.”
Good for the Newspaper
Fetterly didn’t respond to follow-up calls. Neither did Nimmons, though his main reason for voting for Trump, was based most clearly on the prospect of economic gains that, the President has acknowledged since taking office, might not come to pass for some time.
In Pickens, Nimmons’ nuanced view of Trump qualifies him as a contrarian, which matches his college football rooting interest; in a county where orange-and-purple Clemson banners are as common as Trump signs, his wood-paneled office features a large framed photograph of the University of South Carolina stadium.
“I’m not going to wear a MAGA hat,” said Nimmons, 61, a burly county native and former professional wrestler. “I’m not your standard Trump voter.”
Yes, he’s anti-abortion and worries about easy access to gender transition for teenagers. But he also supports reasonable gun control and gay rights.
“I don’t think we should judge a person right or wrong because of how they feel about a partner,” he said.
The main reason he voted for Trump: Local businesses feel more confidence in the economy under Republican presidents, he said, which ultimately benefits the paper.
“I’ve noticed our better bottom lines have been during Republican administrations,” Nimmons said in late January. “Mom-and-pop businesses think, ‘I’m going to do better, so I’m going to run more ads in the paper.’ ”
That Booming Gun Store
Harned, 47, the owner of Twelve Mile, was one of the few Trump supporters willing to go on the record this week to provide a review of the administration’s performance during its first two months.
I visited Twelve Mile twice shortly after Trump took office, once on an afternoon when the store was so busy that Harned didn’t have time to talk and again just before it opened two mornings later, when Harned was free to expound on his political views.
Gun control laws are actually tighter than most liberals realize, he said, and there is room for further, reasonable deregulation.
But to explain the main reason Trump got his vote, he pointed to one line on a form for federally required background checks that, he said, sums up the “nonsense” that flourished during the administration of former President Joe Biden.
Under options allowing buyers to identify themselves as “male” or “female,” Harned pointed to a third choice, “nonbinary.”
“My point is,” he said, “this is taking a very serious piece of paper and turning it into a joke.”
This week he said that none of the administration’s early actions had changed his views, not even the mass firings of federal workers.
“Once this is disrupted, I don’t believe it’s just going to stay in total chaos,” he said of federal operations. “It’s just going to be a good place to start and rebuild, to make the proper changes for our future.”
Trump Fan in Pumpkintown
The windows of Pumpkintown General Store, named for a crossroads community in the shadows of Table Rock Mountain, remained blanketed with Trump banners nearly three months after the election.
No surprise, then, that owner Bill Alexander, 78, identifies as an enthusiastic Trump supporter — so much so that, he said, he’d vote for him to fill a (constitutionally prohibited) third term if given the chance.
He applauded all Trump’s cabinet nominees, especially Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has since been confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
“I love him,” Alexander said.
He approved of the cuts to USAID and the above-mentioned payments for condoms, though he had the money going not to Gaza but to the Taliban.
He was one of the few people interviewed experiencing a serious financial crunch, which he expected Trump to ease. Despite his business’ name, it’s actually a restaurant specializing in breakfast items, and his price for eggs had recently more than doubled, he said in early February. “I figure I’m paying 56 cents per egg.”
That price will come down under Trump, he said then, as will the cost of diesel fuel, which, as a retired truck driver, he follows closely.
“I know it will,” he said, because of Trump’s efforts to lift the Biden administration restrictions on offshore drilling.
“We’re going to get it out of the Gulf of America,” Alexander said. “That’s why he changed the name to the Gulf of America, so it's not banned.”
Contacted this week, he said Trump had more than lived up to his promises.
Any reservations at all? Any shock, for example, at seeing Trump’s treatment of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House?
No, Alexander said: “Zelensky’s a con man. He was getting more money out of Biden than he knew what to do with.”
Any worries about the volatile stock market or reports of plunging consumer confidence?
Not with Trump in charge, he said. “It’s going to turn around.”
Email: brevardnewsbeat@gmail.com
Your usually excellent article painful to read.
Dan, thanks for showcasing the heartbeat of America in Pickens. Our President seems to be backed strongly by folks who get what he’s about—common sense, freedom, and putting America first. You nailed it with how good things are there: booming economy, low unemployment, and a community that’s thriving. That’s no accident based on the values in that community—it’s the kind of foundation the president is building upon, not tearing down.