Some seniors are packing mace and stun guns in their golf bags as the national political divide plays out in The Villages
By Cleve R. Wootson Jr. Washington Post July 4, 2020
THE VILLAGES, Fla. — Sharon Sandler was already irritated as she walked toward the growing line of golf carts preparing to parade around one of her retirement community’s town squares for President Trump’s birthday.
Sandler, who is in her 60s, had spent the early afternoon of June 14 at an anti-racism vigil that sought to honor the memory of people killed by police, but whoever controlled the Villages’ sound system wouldn’t lower the volume, she said, so a solemn moment was pierced with a hydrant of Fox News.
Within minutes, Sandler’s silent protest devolved into a profanity-laced screaming match, with Sandler at the center. The confrontation would later draw international outrage when Trump, last Sunday morning, shared a video showing one of his supporters at the parade pumping his fist and screaming, “White power!”
The tweet was deleted hours later and the White House said Trump had not heard what the man had said. But to Sandler, who settled here a decade ago, the episode showed what Trump’s presidency has done to political discourse in a community that bills itself as a friendly, laid-back place where people 55 and older can live like millionaires on a retiree’s budget.
“I thought it was ‘America’s friendliest hometown’ like it says in all the brochures,” she said. “But I’m here, and it’s not.
“Even a lot of the Democrats down here were not supportive of me as they said, ‘they go low, we go high,’ and all that other crap. I just think it’s time for all of us to open our mouths and say enough is enough.”
Trump ‘white power’ tweet set off a scramble inside the White House — but no clear condemnation
The Villages, an hour’s drive northwest of Orlando, is one of the nation’s largest retirement developments, a place where residents can be seen golfing on executive courses and inline-skating down sunny streets. Almost everyone who lives there is white, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and the community has long been a reliable bucket of Republican votes in a pivotal place, with residents routinely courted by state and national politicians.
Although Republican numerical advantages have persisted for years, locals say tensions began to escalate, much as they did across the country, in 2016, the first time Sandler slapped a “Dump Trump” sticker on her golf cart.
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Some Republican villagers decided that the community’s Republican club wasn’t supportive enough of the president and started clubs like Villagers for Trump and Veterans for Trump, where they could meet with like-minded neighbors, bring in outside speakers and organize the occasional golf cart parade.
Now, political fights lead at times to physical fights, prompting some septuagenarians to pack pepper spray and stun guns into the golf carts residents use to dart around the 35-square mile community,according to some locals.
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