On Florida beaches ‘wild card’ Trump has strong support but there are fears about what happens next
The Sunshine State has turned a deep shade of red – Trump’s win there is up 12% since 2016.
Lake Worth Beach in Florida is 1,000 miles from Washington DC but it feels like a million.
The sea is turquoise blue, the breeze whipping up the waves, dozens of people basking in the sunshine.
There’s a whiff of coconut from the beach bars, all of them packed on a warm Saturday morning.
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The US election earthquake seems far from their minds, but they’re more than happy to talk politics.
“Trump baby”, “Trump, of course”, “Trump all day”, is the most common response, when you ask.
That’s not surprising when the President-elect‘s adopted home, Mar-a-Lago, is just around the corner.
They’re not naive about how he’s perceived, but the word we heard a lot was “but”.
“He’s an asshole, I get it,” one resident told us, “but his policies are way better”.
“He’s a loose cannon,” said another sun-worshipper, “but people like a wild card, world leaders don’t know what he’ll do next”.
“People said he’d be a dictator, that he’d throw Hillary Clinton in prison, but he didn’t,” added a woman sitting nearby.
The Sunshine State has turned a deep shade of red – Trump’s win here is up 12% since 2016.
On these golden sands, there’s talk of a “Florida wave”, a political surge, rolling towards Washington.
Floridians shaped Donald Trump’s election campaign and are likely to shape his administration too.
But even here, at the centre of his political orbit, there are fears about what the next four years will bring.
When I asked two middle-aged women what concerned them most they answered in unison: “Women’s rights.”
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They don’t do small portions in the bistros on the beach, every meal served is a mountain.
Their neighbour, the 47th president of the United States, has a mountain of expectations on his shoulders.
I wish I had a dollar for everyone in this Trump town who told me he’d “Make America Great Again”.
The Democrats talked a lot about “the soul of America” but don’t appear to know what that is.
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Perhaps it’s the free spirit you find on this coast, far removed from the corridors of power in Washington.
