One narrative emerging around the surprisingly resilient Donald Trump portrays the brash billionaire as a final card laid down by Republican blue-collar voters who see their way of life — and their political clout — draining away in a bathtub spiral.
Trump has been a man of last resort before. Right here in Georgia, in fact. And if his Republican presidential machine doesn’t seize upon the tale in the next few weeks, as he and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas battle for Southern votes, then someone in the Trump campaign will be guilty of gross incompetence.
It happened in 1986, in the midst of the worst farm crisis since the Great Depression. In Burke County, on Georgia’s eastern border, farm after farm was folding.
On Feb. 4, Lenard Dozier Hill III, a third-generation occupant of his cotton-and-soybean acreage, was about to have his land sold out from under him. ” That morning, it was going to be auctioned off at the courthouse steps, so he committed suicide,” said Betsy Sharp, his daughter. ...
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