US voters hear a strong message in the presidential election: The fate of the country is at stake
5 mins read

US voters hear a strong message in the presidential election: The fate of the country is at stake

But she also realized that events like what happened in Charlottesville seven years ago can trick people into thinking that hate is exclusive to extremists.

“We all have to watch ourselves with these virulent rhetorical paths that we go down, because once you get down to it, it’s really easy to just mouth these phrases and hold on to these ideas,” Bro said. “We have more in common than we think we do.”

At an early voting office in Charlottesville, Dan and Ruth Suggs said they had cast their ballots for Trump. The couple, married for 53 years, did not see Trump or Harris as an existential threat to the nation’s future.

“It’s not the end of the world. No matter who wins, it’s still going to be the same thing,” says Dan Suggs. “The biggest difference is going to be the economy.”

They both disagreed over how the city handled the removal of the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a central park, a decision that sparked the 2017 rally. They said the city should have held a referendum on the issue and mishandled the protest.

“I believe in free speech. I don’t think anybody has the right to try to shut it down, and that’s basically what they were trying to do to the right,” Dan Suggs said.

Ruth Suggs said not everyone present was there to cause trouble.

“There were people who just wanted to hear what they had to say,” she said. “Trump was right when he said there were good people on both sides.”

Nineteen-year-old Kushaan Soodan’s parents are Indian immigrants. Eighteen-year-old Arturo Romero is from Mexico and immigrated legally to California in high school with his parents and younger sisters.

The two are now college students and acquaintances at the University of Virginia. But they see the choice quite differently, in part because of their experiences with immigrant families.

As Soodan registered UVA students to vote on a new Friday, he said the election is critical to preserving democracy and making a statement that hate should not have a home in America.

“That kind of hatred — we’ve already seen what it can cause,” Soodan said, standing near the campus corridor used seven years ago by the “Unite the Right” marchers. “And I think this election is one of the ways we can do that where we can say, no, we don’t want this, we don’t like this.”

Romero said he feared a Harris victory would push the country to the point of no return. He defended Trump, saying his words were often misunderstood, including when he suggested that migrants who are in the US and have committed murder do so because “it’s in their genes”.

Romero said Trump was not talking about all immigrants. He said he had seen Mexico change for the worse as more migrants began traveling to the United States. He said crime was on the rise and he doesn’t want the same thing to happen to America.

Romero praised Trump’s overall impact on the economy, the border and the nation’s international stability, and he felt that Biden’s policies had fallen short: “If we get four more years, this is not going to be reversible.”

Born and raised in Charlottesville, Leslie Scott-Jones has lived her life aware of the worst consequences of racism. So she was baffled after the “Unite the Right” rally to see the news media present it as shocking.

“How did you come to believe we lived in a post-racial society?” said Scott-Jones, who is Black. “Because the rest of us have had a very different experience.”

The violent encounter was a “bubble that burst,” she said, but “the pot is still on the stove.”

Still, it was a deeply painful moment for Scott-Jones, who was at an event for artists when she heard crashing sounds that turned out to be the vehicle attack on counter-protesters. She stopped what she was doing and rushed to help.

Scott-Jones, who is a curator of learning and engagement at a local African-American heritage center, said she has heard pleas to save democracy with her vote, but they don’t seem convincing. She thinks the system needs to be rethought.

“This country has not worked for black people since we got here,” she said. “Why would I want to save something that literally treated my people as property for hundreds of years?”

She said she is voting for third-party candidate Cornel West and hopes the United States can one day live up to the ideals it espouses.

Could the country descend into political violence and deeper divisions after the November elections?

“It’s a concern,” Scott-Jones said. “But I honestly don’t think it depends on who’s in that chair.”

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Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

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