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Asheville, North Carolina – Calling this city of 95,000 a progressive bastion in a purple state is a gross understatement. This is where Che Guevara would have been elected mayor if not for the fact that he is a cisgender male.
How does a city full of angry leftists react to being newly minted? President Donald Trump doesn't just show up In a region devastated by Hurricane Helen, but bringing with it millions in federal aid? Well, it's complicated.
Josh was a good example. He is 41 years old and works at a brewery with three locations. The one on the hilltop in Asheville survived, the one near the river took 2 feet of water and is salvageable, and the one closest to the river took 20 feet of water, and its future is uncertain.
Josh is no fan of Trump, but he also recognizes how much help this area needs, and has shown a somewhat grudging appreciation for Trump. Visit the bad orange man.
“We wouldn't protest against it,” he told me. “In times like these, you have to look beyond politics.”
Asheville residents struggle to return to their normal lives and help each other get by. (Fox News Digital)
Trump supporters may find this ungrateful, but believe me when I say this represents a shift. It's not that Josh doesn't still think Trump is a fascist, or poses an existential threat to the republic, but the sheer magnitude of the need in western North Carolina takes precedence.
It was a similar story with Corey, a self-described anarchist who moved from Maine to North Carolina a few weeks before the storm. Now his truck is totaled. But as a welder, after a month of volunteer work, the rebuilding process keeps him busy and working.
“He makes me miss George W. Bush, and I hate George W. Bush,” Corey told me when he brought up the subject of Trump.
When I asked Corey why he disdained Trump, I heard a familiar answer. “He's arrogant, he's a bully, I don't like him.” However, he continued, “We need help.”
President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump wave as they board Air Force One, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, for a trip to North Carolina and California. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
This was the general attitude throughout the city. The harshest criticism I've heard of Trump and his visit is that it might be divisive, or politicize a situation in which people have put politics aside. But even this criticism seemed lukewarm.
Make no mistake, Asheville hippies won't be trading in their ethically sourced Grateful Dead T-shirts for MAGA hats any time soon. But they also aren't setting their purple hair on fire over Trump, which is new and welcome.
“I never thought it could be this way,” Josh told me. “I have family that doesn't talk anymore because of politics. It wasn't like this before.”
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I asked if he thought this could change. After all, I pointed out that Trump couldn't run again, to which he quipped: “For now.” But he understood my point, and even acknowledged that Democrats were backing away from some of their extreme positions and moving to the center.
It's too early to say that the country's temperature is cooling when it comes to politics. For nearly a decade, hating Donald Trump has literally been a defining personality trait for many people. That won't change one dime, but over time, it could change.
Trump certainly wasn't being heralded as a hero here in Asheville, where he was just 25 minutes away in rural, red-hot Swannanoa on Friday, but there wasn't much evidence of him being held up as a villain.
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Trump supporters have been thrilled and rightly impressed by the president's first week of hyperactivity, with a deluge of executive orders and almost overwhelming transparency from the public speaker after four years of sleepy, silent Joe Biden.
But perhaps the bigger story, although quiet, is that this time Trump will not face headwinds of resistance, as he did in the past. Instead, many Trump haters, while still haters, seem willing to give him a chance.
Is this a turning point for our country? Can we go back to the time when we judged people based on their words and actions, rather than who they voted for? I hope so. Because that would be an America that is frankly unstoppable.
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