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Charlotte North Carolina

I've been enjoying the heat and the sunshine in a southern town called Charlotte.   Considering how old it is (1768) I was unprepared for what the city is now large (hot too, almost 36c this afternoon), and very modern.  

This trip is entirely the fault of our daughter, she wrote her Final's thesis on our farming activities.  Discussing how we moved up the value chain at a commercial scale.   The use of greenhouses (less relevant in the US) and of year-round production.   The invitation came because she had been invited to speak to an agricultural college seminar on farming, and I was the case study.

All this has nothing to do with what I am writing about, it's just a context.   The vast majority of participants were wealthy landowners from the Southeast of the United States, a group as conservative as the bunch of farmers I meet at our local pub one Thursday a month.

I was mentioning that these men (yes I know, what can I tell you, they are mostly men) who had voted their entire life for the Tories were now contemplating voting for Labour.   I mentioned that I found it amazing what level of disgust had to be to push them to vote for a party they abhor.  The amazing thing was several of the men said, they had the same feeling for the Republicans now, they felt betrayed by their party, who controlled Congress and did no work but instead conducted witch hunts for the past three years.   Several said two things, their donation to Republican candidates was near zero this cycle, they probably would not vote, and if they did go to vote they may vote for Biden.   

These men, who were in their late 50s had been members of the Republican party for 30 years and were now contemplating voting for the other side... strange.

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