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The Current Transcript for October 10, 2016

Host: Piya Chattopadhyay

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

I was watching this band of thugs storm out of Syria into Iraq killing, raping. So I started to get the idea maybe my skills that I learned in the Canadian military would be an asset to the Kurds.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: When many of us first heard the news about ISIS atrocities, we called for someone to take action. But Dillon Hillier went one step further and decided to take action himself. As a Canadian Army veteran, he'd had experience in fighting a war and so he travelled to Iraq to volunteer to fight with those facing ISIS on the frontlines. Now Dillon Hillier has returned home and he'll join me to share his experiences in half an hour. Also today—in the United States these days, it is the all-important question.

SOUNDCLIP

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: I want to ask if you’re a Hillary man or a Donald man.

VOICE 1: I’m a Trump guy. He kind of appeals to what America was 20 years ago. The good old boys, not taking no crap and fixing things and there’s right and wrong and no grey area. And I like that.

PC: America is definitely a nation divided and in the US where you live can say a lot about who you're voting for. In rural Virginia, it's Republican country but this year not everyone's on board. The Current hit the Crooked Road through that state to try to make sense of the election, its candidates and its voters. And we found some pretty great bluegrass music along the way. We'll have that story in an hour. And with just a month to go till Americans vote for their next president, we're starting today on the campaign trail with the fallout from a wild weekend that ended with last night's presidential debate.

SOUNDCLIP

HILLARY CLINTON: It's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.

DONALD TRUMP: Because you’d be in jail.

MODERATOR: Secretary Clinton.

PC: Well, it was full of blows—some high, some low—with the candidates trying to nail down those remaining undecided voters. It may be hard to believe but there really are still some Americans who haven't made up their mind. Trump? Clinton? A third party? Or not to vote at all? The clock is ticking but did last night's debate change anyone's mind? We'll find out in just a moment. Hi, I'm Piya Chattopadhyay sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current.

Round 2: Trump and Clinton square off in second presidential debate

Guests: Cory Crowley, Kelly Grace Gibson, Chris Robling

[Music: Theme]

PC: Last night's second presidential debate between Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump was must-see TV for anyone who cares about the American election. Their previous debate a couple of weeks ago was widely seen as a win for Clinton according to polls and pundits and she's seen a bump in her poll numbers in the last few weeks. Trump's campaign meanwhile has been in free fall after old recordings surfaced on Friday in which he made lewd comments about women. Trump has issued an apology for the remarks, he did so on early Saturday but that didn't stop a number of Republican leaders from condemning him and in some cases asking him to step aside. More than 150 Republican leaders have now said they don't support their party's nominee. But the goal of the candidates in these debates is to sway undecided voters and various polls say as many as 10 per cent of American voters don't yet know how they're going to cast their ballot on November 8. Cory Crowley is one of those undecided voters. He's a political consultant who worked for the John Kasich campaign for the Republican nomination. We've reached him in Alexandria, Virginia, but Cory votes in his home state of Iowa which is a crucial swing state. Cory, hi.

CORY CROWLEY: Good morning. How are you?

PC: I'm okay. Tell me where you are at. You were undecided going into last night's debate. Did you see anything that helped you make up your mind this morning?

CORY CROWLEY: Well, I think at least it made me a little more comfortable with the fact that Hillary Clinton's probably going to be the president. I think that she did a much better job of keeping her calm than she did in the first debate. She looked a little more presidential just in her reactions and kind of those off-screen moments while Donald Trump was speaking and the cameras were still on her and so at least I guess it left me feeling a little bit better because I think she's going to win the election. No matter where my vote ends up, I think she'll win it. And so at least I feel a little more comfortable at this point with her than I did before the debate.

PC: So you still don't know though or do you know? Are you going to vote come November 8th?

CORY CROWLEY: I'm going to vote. I’m for sure going to vote. I don't know. No, I still don't know who I'm going to vote for to be honest with you.

PC: Hmm.

CORY CROWLEY: And I normally I vote early. You can start voting 40 days in advance in Iowa so I normally vote by mail. But this year I'm going to wait and vote on Election Day because I might not make my decision until I walk into the voting booth.

PC: How have you voted in the past?

CORY CROWLEY: Usually always Republican. Actually always Republican. I voted for one Democrat sheriff one time. But beyond that, always Republican. But this year it does not—I don't think I'm going to be able to vote for Donald Trump.

PC: And why is that? What—I mean you watched his performance last night, you've been following what's happened over the weekend and those comments. Why not Donald Trump? For a guy who says I've always except for one time for a sheriff—deputy sheriff—voted Republican.

CORY CROWLEY: Yeah. Well, I think in large part because his defense that this is locker room banter, this is 11 years ago might play okay with me if you know for the last year and a half that he's been on the campaign trail he looked like a changed person you know? And nothing inappropriate had come out of his mouth and he could really look back and say I was a different person back then but today I'm—you know I feel the weight of public service and concern for my country and I'm a different man. It would be believable. But he was saying things like this on the debate stage in the Republican primary debates just six months ago and now he—you know suddenly wants us to believe he's a different person. I just don't buy it. And I think that he's completely lowered the bar for political debate and discourse in the United States. It's had low points before but I mean he's really dumped it into the gutter and kind of made it mainstream and okay to just bash your rivals when you don't have anything substantive to say against them.

PC: Given what you've just said, I think a lot of people find it a little bit hard to understand how you're still undecided this point in this particular election, given that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump seemed to just be so, so very different in so, so many ways.

CORY CROWLEY: Well, I think it's two things. One, being a Republican I disagree with the Hillary Clinton philosophically, so you know on many things, on lots of issues like taxation, like foreign policy. I disagree with where she'll take the country. But yet I disagree with Donald Trump on character and experience so much that that also makes it difficult. And unfortunately we don't really have a viable third party options in the United States this year. I had originally you know looked at Gary Johnson and thought as—if nothing else—as a protest vote against the two major party candidates, I would vote for him. But he's turned out in recent interviews to just be an absolute failure. So really, all your options are bad. There's a young guy named Evan McMullin who's a Conservative running as kind of a third party conservative but unfortunately he didn't make it on the ballot in my home state so he's not an option. We can write people in so that's also an option for me that I might consider at the end. But the problem I have is if Iowa, which is a swing state, goes down to the wire and the polls are you know 50-50, very close on Election Day, then I feel like I kind of have a responsibility to choose between one of the two major party candidates because Iowa is going to be one of the deciding states.

PC: Cory, what's a guy to do? It's October 10th. You gotta go vote November 8^th, you say you're going to do this. So if your mind isn’t made up now, I mean what are you looking for? What criteria are you going to use to make your final decision?

CORY CROWLEY: Well, I think if in the next 30 days and in the third presidential debate, if Hillary continues on the track that she's on and again if Iowa is very close and I feel like I have to make a decision between the two, then I'd like to be in a place where I feel comfortable voting for her. At least I think that she has the best interests of the country at heart even if I disagree with her philosophically. And I think that Republicans will still control the House and Senate so they'll bring balance to her policies I disagree with. And so I guess I'm just going to wait and watch and see if as a Republican I can bring myself to feel comfortable enough to vote for her for the good of the country.

PC: Well, we will wait and watch with you. Thank you, Cory.

CORY CROWLEY: Yeah, I'm glad to be with you.

PC: Bye-bye.

CORY CROWLEY: Bye-bye.

PC: Cory Crowley is an undecided voter and political consultant. He was in Alexandria, Virginia. Well, to discuss how Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump fared last night, who won, who lost in the standout moments of the debate, I'm joined now by two partisan players. Kelly Grace Gibson is a Democratic strategist and a partner at Hamburger Gibson Creative. It's a political communications firm. We've reached her in Washington, DC. And Chris Robling is Republican strategist and is principal at Clearspan Strategic, which is a public relations and communications firm. He's in Chicago. Hi to you both.

KELLY GRACE GIBSON: Hello.

CHRIS ROBLING: Good morning. Happy Thanksgiving.

PC: Thank you. Thank you. Chris Robling, let me begin with you. You just heard Cory Crowley talk about he's still undecided but he thought Hillary fared better last night. Do you think Donald Trump changed any minds last night?

CHRIS ROBLING: Oh yeah. I think Donald Trump changed the minds of probably a lot of people in the Republican Party who thought that the campaign was going to implode on national television. I think that he did a much better job than he did in the first debate. And I think that he scored a lot of points against Hillary. I think he's got Hillary to admit that she's going to totally politicize the Supreme Court. She's got a litmus test on a whole range of issues. I think that the Trump campaign somehow and I mean who expected this? Twenty-four hours ago, I thought it was going to go down the drain in St. Louis as well. But I think that he did a masterful job of transitioning from his apology for these idiotic and hateful remarks to issues and differences and the hypocrisy you know in so many ways.

PC: Was he good last night or was it just that the bar for him to jump over was so low given what happened over the weekend, that he just surpassed that?

CHRIS ROBLING: He’ll never, ever, ever be acceptable to the elites whether they're in Toronto or Chicago or in New York or LA or Washington. But he is connecting with people down here in a way that many other candidates just seem incapable of doing. So yeah, there are parts of his presentation that folks have done that Cory or Kelly Grace or me might scratch our heads and say huh what? But in fact, I think he's representing a level of frustration in the American electorate that has got anywhere between two thirds and three quarters of the people responding on any given day to say the country is seriously on the wrong track. So somehow he's representing that. And the fact he doesn't meet up with our expectations doesn't mean a whit to the folks out in Iowa or North Carolina or Nevada, New Mexico, wherever it is.

PC: Okay. Kelly Grace Gibson, let me bring you in. What about Hillary Clinton? Was her performance last night—do you think it was good enough to sway those all-important undecided voters at this point?

KELLY GRACE GIBSON: I don't think last night did much to sway undecided voters actually. I think that Donald Trump came in with a job at hand which was to try to divert attention to his comments made in that disgusting fashion towards women, which he did. He tried to throw this odd sort of obstacle with Bill Clinton's past in a way—which I don't think worked—but I do think that every time it was brought up, he did a good job of pivoting and turning it towards Hillary's more sort of prevalent weaknesses which is you know I'm sure what his coaches told him to do and it worked to a certain extent. Now I don't believe he either apologized or explained in a good fashion the comments made 11 years ago.

PC: I just want to interrupt because for people who didn't watch the debate last night, I just want to play some of that tape so they can get a sense of what was said. So let's take a listen to that.

SOUNDCLIP

ANDERSON COOPER: Are you saying that what you said on that bus 11 years ago, that you did not actually kiss women without consent or grope women without concern?

DONALD TRUMP: I have great respect for women. Nobody has more respect for women than I do.

ANDERSON COOPER: So for the record, you're saying you never did that.

DONALD TRUMP: I said things that frankly—you hear these things I said. And I was embarrassed by it but I have tremendous respect for women.

ANDERSON COOPER: Have you ever done those things?

DONALD TRUMP: And women have respect for me and I will tell you no, I have not.

PC: So Kelly, you thought you know he addressed it but did you hear what you needed to out of there? I guess the question.

KELLY GRACE GIBSON: No. I mean Donald Trump, over the course of his lifetime apparently but also over the course of that campaign, has continued to expand this sort of bad discourse about women in our country and it's a disrespectful discourse. He has made many comments about the way women look, about their worth and their value in our society. I mean whether or not he actually did the things he said, the idea that that a man who wants to lead this country can say it's just locker room talk when talking about sexually assaulting a woman is not acceptable. And there's no way to answer it and what he did was divert.

PC: Well, Chris Robling said you know Trump did well last night. In fact I think Chris, you're saying that Trump won last night. Is that true?

CHRIS ROBLING: Well, I've always been—I've always said that people both sides can win in a debate if they achieved the objective that they need for their campaign and I think that Hillary did not hurt herself but Trump certainly helped himself. So I don't know how you get to who won. There's a CNN poll that says Hillary won by like 55 per cent to 40 per cent or something. So I don't know who won but Trump turned in the performance he needed.

PC: And Kelly what about you? Did someone win last night?

KELLY GRACE GIBSON: I mostly agree with that. You know I think that Trump, I think he had a low bar and I think he met it. I think he did much better in this debate than the previous. I thought this debate was not pleasant to watch for the first half. I was waiting for substance. I wanted us to get to the things that matter to voters. And we did. But it was nasty and that's disappointing for American voters. So I think it was a bit of a wash.

PC: Okay. Well, Hillary Clinton has made the point repeatedly that Donald Trump doesn't have the temperament to be president and that he would be a dangerous man in control of the US military. She said things like that again last night. So Chris, what did Donald Trump do last night to put those fears to rest?

CHRIS ROBLING: Well, I think there are two answers or two levels to the response to that question. The first is notwithstanding the fact that he disagreed with his own vice-presidential running mate on the question of Syria and what the United States should be prepared to do in Syria. I think that he was demonstrating a fluency with his interpretation and the facts on the ground in Syria. And he was referring, I think, effectively to other questions of international politics. So I think that he was showing voters that you know he knows what he’s talking about. People might agree or they might disagree but he knows what he's talking about. Now, the second level is this. Folks sort of interpolate character or readiness for the commander-in-chief role as part of the overall view of an individual and whether or not they're presidential, whatever that means. And I think last night, he was extraordinarily oriented towards policy, certainly compared to the first debate where he was going off in strange directions. So I think in general he looked more presidential last night, he sounded more presidential and when he got to the international issues, he knew what he was talking about. And Hillary looked like she had backed some incorrect policies. I’m putting that politely there.

PC: Okay. For me last night watching this debate, there are a couple of moments where I was struck, not by sort of the tone of it but what was said. And I want to play one of those clips. So at one point, Donald Trump threatened that he would try to put Hillary Clinton in jail if he's elected. So let's have a listen to that.

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: I think the one that you should really be apologizing for and the thing that you should be apologizing for are the 33,000 e-mails that you deleted and that you acid-washed. And then the two boxes of e-mails and other things last week that were taken from an office and are now missing. And I'll tell you what. I didn't think I'd say this but I'm going to say it and I hate to say it: but if I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception. There has never been anything like it.

PC: Alright, I want to get both of your reactions to that. Kelly, let me begin with you. What was your reaction to seeing one candidate effectively threatened to imprison the other should he be elected?

KELLY GRACE GIBSON: Well, depressingly I was not terribly surprised that he brought it up. He's brought it up any chance he can and part of the fitness to be president is that the man is incapable of restraint. Our country has spent tens of million dollars investigating the e-mail scandal and she's come out saying that with the result of being that it was a bad decision but not an illegal one. And so I understand why he uses it because it polls well and it's a hit and it makes her seem untrustworthy and that's a campaign play. But threatening jail time for an event that has been deemed you know to be cleared in the eyes of the law seems like a waste of time and just shows his inability to move past things, to show restraint and to get to the things that matter most to American voters.

PC: Chris Robling, what did you make of that moment?

CHRIS ROBLING: The iceberg that is melting underneath Hillary on this thing due to the heat of the campaign is the fact that the FBI rank-and-file are going more and more public to say this was not an investigation, this was a whitewash, okay? And in addition to that, Hillary from the start of her sort of appearance on the national scene, whether it was Travelgate or her cattle futures where she invested $1000 and she came away with more than $100,000 without knowing anything about cattle futures, you know down through the ages she has benefited from what is quite apparently a double standard. And people are angry about it. And that gets into the whole hypocrisy that was revealed in these WikiLeaks e-mails about I'm going to have one public position, one private position. I think there are a lot of people out there who have very serious reservations.

PC: But the question is I mean Donald Trump on the stage threatened to put Hillary Clinton in jail if he's elected. I wonder what you think of that part of this.

CHRIS ROBLING: I think she's got to be held to account at some point. And part of doing that is politically, we hold her to account in a campaign. You still don't have reporters ever asking her tough questions about anything because the reporters here in the United States are overwhelmingly Liberal and they basically can't stand Trump and many of them don't like Hillary but they'd rather have her policies. So you know there's political accountability in the vigorous debate of a campaign and then finally the vote. And then you know there should be legal accountability if she's over the line and many people here have gone to prison for a tenth of what she has done. And so I have my own background with classified material. A long time ago I worked for the CIA and let me tell you—what she did, if it was done by a $40,000 a year you know mid-level staffer, that person would be facing hard time.

PC: Okay.

CHRIS ROBLING: So nobody understands why there are two levels of justice: one for the regular person and another for Bill and Hillary Clinton.

PC: Alright. I got about a minute and a half left and I want to get both of you to answer this question. Kelly, what does Hillary Clinton need to do in the next 20 some odd days to win the election come November 8^th?

KELLY GRACE GIBSON: She needs to stay the course. I think she needs to continue to talk on the issues that matter most to voters, women and children's issues. I think she needs to be on her toes and ready to react to undoubtedly a large body of gaffes that Donald Trump still has in the future. You know he's been in the public eye for a very, very long time incapable of restraint as I said before. So I think this most recent release of the sexual assault tapes won't be the last thing. So I think she needs to be disciplined and stay the course and continue to talk to the voters that matter most.

PC: And Chris Robling, what does Donald Trump need to do the next—just short of a month to win the election?

CHRIS ROBLING: He has to hope, hope and hope some more that none of these compromising tapes that all of us hear about—with respect to the TV show he was on, The Apprentice—get out. I mean if he has compromising tapes on The Apprentice, then it's really going to be over. And Kelly Grace's point about his behaviour is going to be proven beyond doubt to the American public. And then separately from that, he's got to stick with the issues. He's got to hold Hillary to account for these discrepancies between what she says and what she does or what she says months ago or years ago and what she says now.

PC: Okay. We'll leave it there. Thank you both for talking with us today.

KELLY GRACE GIBSON: Thanks very much. Bye-bye. Of course. Bye-bye.

CHRIS ROBLING: Thank you.

PC: Kelly Grace Gibson is a Democratic strategist in Washington, DC today and Chris Robling is Republican strategist and principal at Clearspan Strategic, which is a PR firm and communications firm. He was in Chicago. Okay, the news is next and then I'll be speaking with a former Canadian Army vet who went to Iraq to fight against ISIS. That conversation is coming up. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay. You're listening to The Current.

Canadian Army vet on fighting ISIS in Iraq

Guests: Dillon Hillier

PC: Hi, I’m Piya Chattopadhyay and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

PC: Still to come, the path of this US election campaign has been a long and crooked road. Anna Maria Tremonti traveled through Virginia to take the pulse of the nation. That story is up in a half hour from now. But first, the story of a Canadian Army veteran who fought ISIS on the frontlines.

SOUNDCLIP

Take this. Wrap it around your head. Go. Again. Again.

[Yelling in alternate language]

You’re going to be alright. Tell him he’s going to be alright.

PC: That's the voice of Dillon Hillier, a Canadian Army veteran. Dillon served with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in Afghanistan. But he didn't record that scene during his time with the Canadian Forces. That was from a video recorded in late 2014, a year after his final tour in Afghanistan. Hillier was in northern Iraq where he traveled to serve as a volunteer soldier so he could fight ISIS alongside Kurdish forces. Dillon has written a book about the experiences. It's called One Soldier and Dillon Hillier joins us now in our Toronto studio. Hello.

DILLON HILLIER: Hey. Thanks for having me on.

PC: Welcome back home. I know you've been home for a while but it must be nice to be back here.

DILLON HILLIER: It is. Absolutely.

PC: I want to talk about that tape we just heard. You recorded that scene in the Iraqi village of Tal Alwad. Is that how we say it? Yeah? Tel al-Ward?

DILLON HILLIER: Yep.

PC: Okay. In Iraq. And there's this Kurdish fighter named Brothahan. He had just been shot by ISIS militants.

DILLON HILLIER: That's correct.

PC: What happened?

DILLON HILLIER: So we were called in to retake the village and hill overlooking Tal Alwad. What had happened was there was an ISIS offensive against the town and the village that overlooked it which pushed the Peshmergas off and back across the canal. The next day they rallied up a unit of about 250 troops to go and retake the hill. It was some pretty intense combat. We made a bridgehead, rushed through the town, started attacking the hill. ISIS had a DShK which is a Russian-made .50 calibr on top. They were sweeping the open ground with machine gunfire and it was not a pretty sight.

PC: When you say we, who are you talking about?

DILLON HILLIER: So there was a combination of Kurdish and Turkmen forces: PKK, Peshmerga and militias.

PC: And you.

DILLON HILLIER: And me.

PC: So let's go back, Dillon. You were a Canadian soldier. You served in the military. You go to Afghanistan. 2013 you do the last tour with our military in its official mission in Afghanistan. And you come back home and you go—you see ISIS getting a foothold and spreading its wings across the Middle East. And what are you thinking, Dillon? You’re like what, I just want to get up and go fight these guys?

DILLON HILLIER: No. I mean it was a pretty long process. So I left the military, the Canadian military in March 2014. I started working in the Alberta oil patch. And that summer, you know I was watching on CNN this band of thugs storm out of Syria into Iraq, killing, raping, beheading people, enslaving Yazidi women, boiling people in pots of acid. I mean just atrocious things that we all saw on the news. And so I started to get the idea of you know maybe my skills that I learned in the Canadian military would be an asset to the Kurds. And then there was also the fact that there was Canadian citizens over there fighting for ISIS. And the trigger was when like Nathan Cirillo got shot on Parliament Hill and Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent got run over in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. That really struck home to me and I kind of started thinking that you know this is something that I actually am going to do and I felt like with my medical training that I would be able to—medical and combat training—that I would be able to provide some assistance. And I believe I did. I mean we just heard the clip of Brothahan getting shot in the face. I'm not going to sit here and say that I saved his life but there's a chance that I helped increase his odds of living.

PC: So there you are in Canada before you head over there and you're like yep, I need to go. I want to go. I feel compelled to go. How do you go? I mean how do you even—who do you hook up with? How do you do this thing?

DILLON HILLIER: So I went on the Internet and started researching other people that had gone to Syria. I knew that I didn't want to be a part of the YPG in Syria.

PC: What’s a YPG?

DILLON HILLIER: So they’re the Kurdish militia that are fighting ISIS in Syria.

PC: Okay.

DILLON HILLIER: I wanted to go with the Peshmerga who are the legitimate army of the Kurdistan regional government. I felt that they would provide a little bit more legitimacy to my actions and I ended up getting in touch with the lieutenant and—

PC: Via Facebook essentially is how this rolls out.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah. Yeah. So I made my preparations, bought my tickets, sold my car, all my belongings and bought some military gear and headed over.

PC: Weren’t you scared? You didn't really know who you were going to go meet there and if these guys were legit.

DILLON HILLIER: It was terrifying. It didn't really strike me until I was about to board the plane in Qatar to do the last leg of the journey. That's when I really started to get worried. Lieutenant Ali, he called me or sent me a text message in when I was in Qatar saying I have to go to Jalawla which is a town near Baghdad to do some fighting. My friend is going to pick you up at the airport and already I'm like red flag. But I didn't want to go home. I figured I'd take my chances. And you know I landed in Suli. I had a little bit of grief going through customs with all my military gear.

PC: Suli’s Sulaymaniyah in Iraq.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah. And I saw some Peshmergas there and I waved them over. They talked to the customs and away I went. And once I got onto the base in Suli, that's when I could breathe a sigh of relief. I rolled out of the airport and I still didn't know if these guys were, you know how hard would it be to get a uniform. Probably not that difficult. So as soon as I was on that base and not in the desert surrounded by bearded Jihadis, I was…

PC: You were there.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah.

PC: So what are you thinking? What are your first impressions of the Peshmerga? You know people we've seen on TV and things like that and as you say, you feel somewhat drawn to fight alongside them. What do you make of them?

DILLON HILLIER: So I was blown away when I went onto the sprawling base. The first people I met were electrical mechanical engineers. So what we call EMEs in the Canadian military. And they had clerks and rank structure. Most of the people I met off the bat were officers. They have the same support trade, the same rank structure essentially as we do in the Canadian military. Armoured vehicles, mechanics, you name it. They're not a third world militia. I was actually very impressed with the Peshmerga.

PC: And you're up in northern Iraq, a place you'd never been. What are your impressions of the place?

DILLON HILLIER: It was beautiful. It’s absolutely beautiful. Sulaymaniyah is surrounded by beautiful mountains. It's a little bit arid, but I mean Saddam I heard burnt down all the trees years ago. But the forests were re-growing. And yeah. It was stunning.

PC: So you get there, you volunteer, I'm going to go fight with the Peshmerga. But you initially fight with the Kurdish guerrilla militia, the PKK—which I think is familiar to Canadians—or Kurdistan Workers’ Party. So why does that happen?

DILLON HILLIER: I was sitting on the base in Suli for a couple of days, maybe five days. Nothing was really happening. I was getting kind of anxious. Why am I here? I was getting tons of praise from the soldiers on that base but I hadn't done anything. So I decided to get in contact with the PKK who I knew were fighting ISIS. And so that happened. Lieutenant Ali drove me up to Kirkuk. I got in touch with the unit, ended up on a base with them and it ended up not being the greatest decision. They were hardcore communists. They did some things that a professional military would not do.

PC: Like?

DILLON HILLIER: Well, they shot a guy that they believed was a suicide bomber but had that been the Canadian military, I would have taken much different actions.

PC: They basically executed him.

DILLON HILLIER: Well, I wouldn't call it execute. But they—the man was walking out of his house towards the patrol and there was yelling. I couldn't exactly see what was going on. I thought we were taking a prisoner. And the man was walking out from his front door. There was a PKK with a gun aimed at him, yelling at him. I believe the man was Arabic. The PKK speak Kurti—language barrier—and they shot him, whereas in the Canadian military I probably would have shot at the ground first, then if he kept on coming then maybe in the leg. And if he was still was coming, then killed him. But it just illustrates the low level of training that they have, these communist guerrillas, and they were not a pleasant group to be with and I'm really glad that I didn't have to spend much time with them. And I got out of there as quick as I could.

PC: Here’s the thing that I kind of got hung up on with the book. You knew going into—the PKK is considered a terrorist organization in Canada. It's on the same level that we consider—the same government list as ISIS and yet, don't you say to yourself I think I’ll fight with these guys?

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah. I mean it was a judgment call. And although they're poorly trained and they made some mistakes, they are still way the lesser of two evil.

PC: Meaning the ISIS is the more evil.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah, absolutely. You know the PKK, they drive around Kurdistan and people come out of their houses waving the flag. So yeah. I mean I knew that the Kurdish people really liked these guys. The Peshmerga held them in super high regard. They just—poor training led to that man dying and that's something that still keeps me up at night.

PC: How’d they treat you?

DILLON HILLIER: They treated me as one of their own more so I would say than the Peshmerga. The Peshmerga, you know I didn't have to do sentry duty, guard duty, anything like that. When the PKK— when I got there, they wanted me to wear their clothes, they wanted to—and they begun trying to indoctrinate me. They asked me every day what do you think of Mao? What do you think of Stalin? What do you think of FARC? Che Guevara? Fidel Castro? And you know I was just like uhh… they’re pretty good guys…

PC: You’re a self-described libertarian.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah.

PC: And your dad is a Conservative politician, capital C Conservative politician in Ontario.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah. That's a big part of the reason why I left them. I did not like their politics.

PC: How long did you spend with them?

DILLON HILLIER: A week tops, I guess?

PC: What were they up to in the sense—when you were fighting along with the PKK, it's Broth-han-an. Ha-han. Is that how you say his name?

DILLON HILLIER: Brothahan.

PC: Brothahan. It's their fighter who's almost killed the guy you say I think I contributed to saving his life. What was the mission?

DILLON HILLIER: So that was the battle of Tal Alwad where we retook the hill from ISIS alongside—there was I think maybe, I can't recall exactly, I'd say 30 PKK. But the rest of the 250 group were pretty well Peshmerga.

PC: So they fight alongside each other.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah, absolutely. They have a common enemy.

PC: Were you worried though as a Canadian that I’m fighting with these folks, they’re on the government watch list. I could get into a lot of trouble if—

DILLON HILLIER: You know it didn't really cross my mind at the time. I just wanted to—I just wanted to help people. And I think I did. I think I did a good job of helping people, Brothahan, all the civilians that were allowed to then return to Tal Alwad which had fled after ISIS took the hill overlooking their village. You know all throughout my time there, that was the only really offensive action I was engaged in. I did a lot of defense. And you know I essentially participated in stopping ISIS attacks on villages, allowing those people to stay in their homes. So I feel good about what I did.

PC: I've got a chapter in your book. It's called the “greatest day of my life.”

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah.

PC: You killed two Jihadis in battle.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah. But that's absolutely not why that chapter is called that.

PC: Well, explain it to me. I'm not suggesting it is. I just wanted to set up what happened.

DILLON HILLIER: The chapter is called that because I saved or you know I've patched up a guy under fire and I felt really, really good about that. You know what? Putting down to enemy combatants in warfare is not something I explicitly set out to do. It's combat. I was in the infantry. I reacted exactly how the Canadian military trained me to react. And that's not what I focus on out of my time there. I focus on the good that I perceive I did.

PC: I want to pick up on something you just said, which is talking about you know sort of leaning on your training from the Canadian military. I'm just curious about how did your mission in Tal Alwad compare to your missions with the Canadian military in Afghanistan?

DILLON HILLIER: Oh, it was nowhere even close to the same. But you know in the Canadian military, we do a lot of individual soldier skills. So magazine reloading, using the ground to your advantage. Those are the things that really helped me stay alive my time over there. So I definitely would not—I would not recommend going over there without military experience although people have and come back and that's good but just—

PC: It helped.

DILLON HILLIER: I think it helped.

PC: I imagine that you lean on the guys that are in combat with you to you know talk the day over, decompress. You have a language barrier with a lot of your fellow fighters, but then there's this other Westerner, a guy named Ethan and I want you to tell me about him.

DILLON HILLIER: He was awesome. Absolutely awesome. I mean he showed up. We spent every waking moment together.

PC: Where is he from?

DILLON HILLIER: Texas. Funny story. So he shows up and he's wearing a Texas flag patch on his hat and every single Peshmerga points at it. Texas, George Bush. And they had no idea where I was from and I was wearing two Canadian flag patches. So I found that really hilarious. Yeah, we spent every waking moment together. He was a great soldier. What more can I say? I talk to him every day still.

PC: Even now.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah.

PC: Yeah.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah. And same with Lieutenant Ali. I talk to him regularly on Facebook. I talk to Lieutenant Dan regularly on Facebook. I love those guys. They were awesome.

PC: There’s something that you described as the gang of five.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah. People with no military training wearing skull masks, the guy—the one guy—he’s wearing white basketball shoes. They gave him a machine gun. And I said like do you know how to use that?

PC: These are foreigners.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah. They were Americans.

PC: Not soldiers, guys who just came and said I’m going to come fight ISIS.

[Crosstalk]

DILLON HILLIER: Just came and showed up. Yeah. And they were ridiculous. I mean like in the military, you have a certain professionalism which these guys completely lacked. They just had—they were clueless about what was going on and they were the type of kind of cowboy wannabe gunslingers. It was awful being around them and I had very little contact with them. And that was one of the reasons which led to our decision to leave, mine and Ethan's decision to leave.

PC: So let's talk about that because when you set out, I think you said in your book you kind of in your head were like I'm going to go for at least six months.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah.

PC: That’s sort of the idea.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah.

PC: By the way, I should just point out. You told your mom and dad at the last minute so you didn't want to worry them, right? You sent them an—

DILLON HILLIER: E-mail. Yeah. So I sent them an email five minutes before I boarded my plane in Calgary. And you know I got to London, turned my phone on and it was blowing up. And you know I feel really bad for what I put my parents through, especially my mom.

PC: But you did that because you didn't want them to talk you out of it. You knew it would be hard and all those things. I mean legitimate good motivations is why you did it.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah. But you know it weighed on me the whole time what I was putting them through, for sure.

PC: I imagine your parents are like most parents where they’re like probably can't stop my kid anyway.

DILLON HILLIER: Well, they tried.

PC: [laughs] Okay. So let's get back because—you know so you send the note, you think I’m going to go for like six months at least and then you come home a little early and I want to talk about that. You have a close call when you're fighting alongside Ethan.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah.

PC: So tell me more about that.

DILLON HILLIER: So there was always two kind of close calls. One, we were—me and Ethan were manning a sniper position and you know there was a couple of bullets that went in between us and we were 12 inches apart maybe. It was terrifying. Another time, I was kind of coming back from the bathroom to go to my bunker and maybe my head wasn't quite low enough behind the berm. And you know bullets whizzed in front of my face within inches. But that isn't why I came home. I came home. There's a man named Sheikh Jaafar. He's the head general of the Peshmerga I was under. He told us that we were not going to be in combat anymore. Me and Ethan were not going to be in combat anymore.

PC: Why?

DILLON HILLIER: I'm not exactly sure. I can only speculate. Whether it be the Canadian government putting pressure on them or the Kurdistan regional government putting pressure on them, I don't know.

PC: Because your story is now out there at this point once you are on the ground.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah. So I can't say for certain, but we would have been relegated to a close protection type role or a security role. And I wanted to be out there on the frontline making a small difference, not sitting on a base driving around with a general.

PC: That's not what you went over there to do.

DILLON HILLIER: Exactly.

PC: So now you’ve been home. You came home in what, February of 2015. You saw a lot of things over there. Just wondering how are you doing?

DILLON HILLIER: Well, right now I'm terrific. I was pretty rough the first little bit after I got back, you know broke down in front of my parents. In the military and when I was over there, I had a purpose. I came home, I had no purpose. I had no mission. I felt very empty. I thought I was going back to the construction industry which I really didn't like. And so I broke down and you know cried in front of my parents. I got over it fairly quickly. I wouldn't say that I was suffering from post-traumatic stress or anything like that. But you know I hit the bottle for a couple of weeks and I think as most, where a lot of soldiers do when they get home from seeing experiences like that and then I carried on with life.

PC: We started our conversation talking about your motivations for going and they’re: saw ISIS, I didn’t like what I see and I was going to play a role in it. So you've done something that most Canadians have never done. What did you learn there about ISIS that I don't know?

DILLON HILLIER: What did I learn from them?

PC: What’d you learn about them?

DILLON HILLIER: I mean I guess I didn't learn anything really tangible except for—I just saw what they—you know I saw the villages that they had captured. I saw the—you know you couldn’t drive through Kirkuk or Erbil or Sulaymaniyah without seeing orphaned children, thousands of displaced people. So I guess I just saw firsthand what was actually going on. And that's what the book is. It's a three-month snapshot of the war there.

PC: What do you think our country—maybe the US—should do about ISIS?

DILLON HILLIER: I'm not a politician. I'm not a military strategist. I will say one thing. I was slightly upset when Canada pulled its fighter jets out. But you know what, I think we've more than made up through our commitment with JTF2 and CSOR. Absolutely. So I think we're doing a fine job. Maybe there's more that we could do but again, I'll leave that to the politicians.

PC: Are you thinking about going back?

DILLON HILLIER: Absolutely not.

PC: How come?

DILLON HILLIER: I just—I don't see a place for myself there and I want to continue on with my life here.

PC: What would you say to other vets who might be considering going?

DILLON HILLIER: Be careful and good luck, I suppose.

PC: I guess what I'm trying to get at is—and maybe this is a loaded question—but it was worth it for you to go, in your mind.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah, absolutely. I mean I don't know what else to say. I mean your experiences shape who you are. And I'm very happy with the person I am now, more so than—you know I've always been happy with who I am but you know with each experience, you develop and mature. And I think I'm a better person now. So to people considering going over, I mean just be careful with what group that you get involved with and be safe, be alert.

PC: It's been good to talk to you. Thank you.

DILLON HILLIER: Yeah. Thank you very much.

PC: Dillon Hillier is a Canadian Army veteran who volunteered to fight against ISIS in Iraq. Dillon’s written about his experiences in his book that he co-wrote with his brother Russell Hillier. It's called One Soldier and it is available as of tomorrow. Dillon Hillier joined us here in our Toronto studio. So if you want to comment on anything you hear here on The Current whether it's that story or anything else, you can do so. Go to Twitter. @thecurrentCBC’s our handle. You can find me there as well. My handle is @piya. That is P-I-Y-A. If Facebook is your preferred method of communication, go there. Facebook.com/CBCthecurrent or there's always good old fashioned email. You can email us by going through our www.cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on contact us link once you get there. Lots of ways to get in touch, so do just that. Earlier we were talking about last night's presidential debate and how things may pan out in the next month as Americans get ready to vote for their next president. Well, coming up in our next half hour, we're heading to Virginia for a trip down the state's Crooked Road. Anna Maria Tremonti took a road trip across that state in search of American voters to take their pulse on the presidential election that's now just a month away. We'll hear from Anna Maria and a bunch of voters coming up. I’m Piya Chattopadhyay. You’re listening to The Current.

[Music: Sting]

ENCORE: 'Hillary man or Trump man?' Maybe neither: Virginians on U.S. election

PC: Hi. I’m Piya Chattopadhyay sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti this week and this is The Current. I have a minute to tell you about a story that is coming up tomorrow here on The Current, when we'll be diving into the deep world of tuna.

SOUNDCLIP

The animals that I was swimming with off of PEI, some of these animals are you know 800, 1000 pounds, 1200 pounds, you know five, 600 kilos perhaps. And they occupy this murky green water down there. You know when you're in that water at the very surface it's a very bright green. At least that was my experience. But just a few feet lower, it begins to get very dark. So trying to make pictures in there is really tricky and you don't see anything, you know? It's just sort of this dark gloom, dimly lit world. And then all of a sudden you see this behemoth, this Porsche, you know coming up from the bottom all sort of glowing in silver and flashing colours and then it just sort of comes up in front of you and you know that all the while you weren't seeing them but they were seeing you. That giant eye was keeping an eye on you and they’ll rocket up from the depths and then just turn on a dime all the time while flashing and never bump into you. You know they might rocket in at 40 miles an hour or who knows maybe even faster. And they're so aware. They're so adept at their movements you know, knowing exactly where I am, moving a fin, their tail. The little V-slot in their back for their dorsal fin, it sort of folds down like a fan, like geisha fan and then it comes up and they can turn on a dime. It’s just amazing to watch. I was so mesmerized. I was just so blown away. You know I've been chasing bluefin tuna for decades. I remember driving down in the 1980s to the North Carolina Outer Banks and searching for them off shore and then in the Mediterranean off of Spain and in various places around the world and never had an encounter like I did here in the Maritimes.

PC: That's Brian Skerry, a photographer whose work appears in National Geographic. And as you just heard, he has seen the majestic bluefin tuna up close. Scientists and conservationists sounded the alarm several years back over their dwindling numbers and the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada wants to see the fish listed as endangered. But East Coast fishermen say the stocks have not only rebounded but are plentiful. They say they have seen the bluefin tuna up close recently and the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans has chosen not to list the bluefin as endangered. Tomorrow, we're going to hear from all sides of the debate. That's on The Current.

[Music]

PC: I’m Piya Chattopadhyay and you are listening to The Current. Well, the US election is just a month away and over the past several months we've heard a lot about the campaign—perhaps too much—mostly from media pundits and partisan commentators. But amid the deafening, never-ending crossfire of Clinton versus Trump, sometimes the voices of the actual voters have been hard to hear, not the strategists or spin doctors but regular folk living far from the Washington Beltway. Earlier this year The Current set out to find these voices. And when we started this season of The Current, Anna Maria Tremonti had visited the United States. She hit the road in Virginia, traveling across the state to talk with voters. Anna Maria returned with a documentary. It originally aired last month and we're going to play it again for you now. This is called The Crooked Road.

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: Now we can focus on Hillary, that crook.

[Crowd cheering]

DONALD TRUMP: I can focus on Hillary. Crooked Hillary. We can focus on Hillary.

HILLARY CLINTON: A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.

[Many voices at once]

AMT: This has been one of those summers when I felt like a nosy neighbour listening to the ruckus on the other side of the wall. You know what I’m talking about. Donald. Hillary. The accusations. The allegations. And the coverage. The panels. The pundits. And you’re just left wondering, what are they thinking over there? This was a summer when I tried to find out, with a road trip.

[Sound: Car starting]

[Music: Bluegrass]

AMT: It didn't start out that way. I was really in Virginia in search of the best of bluegrass with plans to drive down a highway called the Crooked Road. It's part of the Blue Ridge Mountain area—the stretch of Virginia that meets up with North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia—the region they call Appa-lay-sha or Appa-la-chia if you're local.

[Sound: Feet clattering]

AMT: Which is how I ended up at the Floyd Country Store. That's right. The locals are dancing at the store. And that other noise? A whole bunch of them are wearing tap shoes. They’re flat dancing, clog dancing. They are literally a clatter of flying feet.

[Sound: Feet clattering]

AMT: This is not just any store. By day, they sell kitchen stuff and T-shirts. They sell lunch. Instruments, even.

SOUNDCLIP

We have a mountain dulcimer. This one’s handmade.

AMT: But every Friday night, they roll the shelves aside, the popcorn machine comes out and there's a jamboree.

[Sound: Fiddle playing]

AMT: It’s become such a thing that outside the store, there's more music. People of all ages playing in clusters. People of all ages just listening. So how could I resist?

AMT: [Interviewing] I'm with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and I'm doing a story on the Crooked Road, but I'm also not just curious about music, I'm curious about American politics.

JEREMY CUP: Oh. [chuckles]

AMT: So I want to ask if you’re a Hillary man or a Donald man.

JEREMY CUP: [Chuckles] I would say I’m a Trump guy.

AMT: That’s Jeremy Cup. He’s standing around with his kids, enjoying the music.

JEREMY CUP: I agree with every word this man has ever said. I just am afraid he’s a little hot-headed so who knows how that’ll work out when it comes time to— [chuckles]

AMT: You don't agree with the hot-headed stuff.

JEREMY CUP: Well, I do. I just think a man in that position needs to not get redneck about it. That’s for in the parking lot with your friends.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: What appeals to you most about him?

JEREMY CUP: He kind of appeals to what America was 20 years ago, you know? What I guess the working side of America, you know. The good old boys, not taking no crap and fixing things and there’s right and wrong and no grey area. And I like that. Too many feelings involved these days. [laughs]

AMT: What do you think of her?

JEREMY CUP: The woman’s the devil. [laughs] Yeah. Out and out. I mean she’s a thief, a murderer, a liar. And I can’t see how she’s even eligible to run for presidency at this point.

[Music: Bluegrass]

AMT: In front of the country store under a sign that says “Please Loiter,” I find Fred Craig and Florence Purdue.

FLORENCE PURDUE: Every Friday night.

FRED CRAIG: I’m here every once in a while, not every Friday night.

FLORENCE PURDUE: You’re here most of them.

FRED CRAIG: Most of the time.

AMT: I'm guessing they're in their eighties and they're guessing this is not a good election year.

FRED CRAIG: If I voted, it’d be for Hillary.

FLORENCE PURDUE: Yeah. If I voted, I’d vote for her too.

AMT: Now, you both said if, so…

FLORENCE PURDUE: I quit. I quit years ago.

FRED CRAIG: I’m not going to vote either.

FLORENCE PURDUE: It just got to the point I didn’t see anybody that was worth voting for.

AMT: Not a lot of love for the system around here. I keep asking.

GREG LOCKE: I’m a Bernie man.

AMT: That’s Greg Locke. He says he’s an Army vet and a retired sign painter. And as we talk, I hear something that will echo throughout this road trip. There's a real disconnect between regular people and the candidates.

GREG LOCKE: They're so far out of touch with reality that it's not even describable. They don't live like normal people. They don’t have worries like normal people. They just—they’re clueless. They hire people to tell them what people like us are like. [chuckles]

AMT: How about you? Are you a Donald man or a Hillary man?

DAVID MCCLELLEN: Uh, Donald. I think he's kind of a loose cannon but you know what, maybe the country needs that. Maybe it needs a shakeup. So we'll just have to see. But I think Hillary though is going to be the closest thing to putting us into a civil war as anything we've ever seen before.

AMT: Why is that? Do you think the country's that polarized?

DAVID MCCLELLEN: I think that what she's going to try and press and push is going to have a lot of people against each other. Gun control. That’s the big one I think she is really going to be taking a hit on.

AMT: Are you a gun owner?

DAVID MCCLELLEN: Sure. Everybody around here is.

AMT: Ahh, guns. Virginia is an open carry state. Though as we keep driving down the Crooked Road, it seems the only thing they're packing around here has strings.

[Sound: Fiddle playing “The Star-Spangled Banner”]

AMT: Next stop, Galax. Population: 7,000. A one-time manufacturing hub—furniture, textiles. Today, there's one furniture factory left. For the last 81 years, Galax has also hosted the Old Fiddler’s Convention, a magnet for lovers of old time music. There are tents and trailers and chairs out and lights up and beer in the coolers.

SOUNDCLIP

[Unintelligible] here with number 34.

AMT: But the fiddle and the banjo and the guitar competitions kind of seem like a sideshow. The real action happens as people scope out the camps, find a few people playing and join in.

JODY VISSAGE: We don't do any competitions. We just come for the jammin’ and the fellowship, to meet people and see old friends and pick.

AMT: And boy, can they pick.

JODY VISSAGE: I meet Jody Vissage because she's playing a mandolin with a cluster of people whose music I just can't get enough of. I just stand there listening.

[Music: Bluegrass]

[Sound: Crowd clapping and cheering]

AMT: When they finally take a break, we talk politics.

JODY VISSAGE: I'm not wild about either one, but choices be, I'm leaning a little more toward Trump.

AMT: And why is that?

JODY VISSAGE: They will—[laughs] make America great again. Well, I don't—I’ve just seen what the past eight years have been and I'm afraid that would just be kind of a repeat with Ms. Clinton.

AMT: And what do you like about Trump? Like what is it that you like about him the most?

JODY VISSAGE: I guess because he's got guts. [laughs] He seems to not be a typical run of the mill Washington politician. I just feel like it would—he would look out more for—I don’t know if you’d say—average people. Common people.

AMT: Danny Bowers is part of that same little group playing with Jody. He's not so sure.

DANNY BOWERS: I'll tell you what. In all reality, I'm going to hold my nose when I go into the ballot box. I’m afraid so. Can I come to Canada? [laughs]

AMT: You bring your banjo.

DANNY BOWERS: I bring my banjo, go to Canada, that’s it.

AMT: Virginia was a Republican stronghold but Obama changed that. Not so much in this corner of the state though. I find a lot of Trump people here. They aren't like those strident, insult-slinging pundits you see on US cable. But in this place where you can't even always get a phone signal, they seem isolated and alienated.

FRED BOBBIT: Well, I feel like Mr. Trump has—he's telling people what they need to hear and it’s scaring Washington to death.

AMT: Fred Bobbit is the governor of the Moose Lodge—proud sponsor of this fiddle fest.

FRED BOBBIT: After NAFTA, all of our textile work left. We have one furniture factory left, which we've had many. We have people here that are in dire needs of jobs, food, housing. We need to start taking care of our people.

AMT: Virginia's economy actually outperforms the nation as a whole. It's home to the largest naval base in the world, the headquarters of the CIA, the Pentagon and all the civil servants and lobbyists and spinoffs that spawns. But you can't always see that in this predominantly white region of Appalachia. To go wider, you need another road trip.

[Sound: Car starting]

[Music: Jazz]

AMT: Which brings me to Richmond with its own musical culture. All the jazz greats played here. They still swell with pride over Duke Ellington. It's also a state capital steeped in colonial and Confederate history. The city eventually saw the creation of major African-American businesses, seven insurance companies, several banks. But long before that, it was a big player in the big business of selling slaves. The land beyond this tunnel was once part of a cemetery for slaves and poor free blacks. The exact size… They're still grappling with that. Richmond has a boulevard devoted to monuments of Confederate generals on horses. They're still only getting around to marking the mass graves and lynching sites of slaves. You have to drive through a weedy parking lot to get to this one.

GARY FLOWERS: You're going to find in American history when there's a low point in economics, then the fear factor goes up and you get a reaction to people of colour. “Them.” So whites then say it's their fault. So a hundred years ago, it was our fault. Now through Trump, you’re seeing him say it's the Muslims’ fault, it's the Mexicans’ fault. And that comes out of an economic low point because those who are poor in Appalachia, who are supporting Trump, are doing so because they are angry.

AMT: Gary Flowers is the fourth generation of his African-American family to live in the historically black neighbourhood of Jackson Ward. But Gary too is disconnected from the politics of Washington.

GARY FLOWERS: I was a Democrat but I've since re-registered as an independent. I am not feeling good about the direction in which American politics is going.

VELMA JOHNSON: Macaroni and cheese in the sides and catfish and pork chops in our meat. And of course, our homemade cakes.

CUSTOMER: Right here on this plate, we have a one piece cat. The sides are the candied yam, green and cabbage. And a nice little hot corn muffin. Mamma’s specialty. [laughs]

AMT: No tour of Richmond is complete without a stop at Mamma J’s. They call it soul food or comfort food. There's catfish, cornbread and collard greens on the menu. Did I mention the cake?

VELMA JOHNSON: We don’t do politics in this restaurant.

AMT: Velma Johnson is Mamma J. She worked for years as a deputy sheriff. Now she gives ex-convicts a second chance in the kitchen. She's not wading into the politics though.

VELMA JOHNSON: Because if Donald Trump came in here, we would feed him and treat him with all the dignity and respect that we would do with Hillary Clinton.

AMT: Her customers are not so reticent. I get into it with two women sitting on a bench outside the restaurant. You’ve gotta love the South—there's always somebody sitting on a bench outside. Wanda Flemming-Robinson and Cheryl Simpson-Flemming are all for Hillary.

WANDA FLEMMING-ROBINSON: I just feel as though Hillary is the right one. I just can't stay behind Donald Trump with anything that he has on his platform because quite honestly, he has nothing on his platform.

CHERYL SIMPSON-FLEMMING: When you said take me back, take me back to what? Where I’m working for you and you give me minimum, less than minimum wage? Where I have to take care of your children and you give me nothing? Where I have to do such as—what are you carrying me back to? You’re going to make America great again? What are you talking about?

WANDA FLEMMING-ROBINSON: It’s already great.

CHERYL SIMPSON-FLEMMING: I don't have a problem with America and all the—you know, little minimum phase we’re going to have anyway. We’re gonna have problems but you’re not fixing them. You’re not going to be the one that fixes them.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: GPS giving directions, car indicator]

GPS: In 600 feet, make a U-turn. Make a U-turn.

AMT: Okay, so not even a GPS can save me on a secondary highway. I make a wrong turn and park at a pawn shop, where I meet a man who walks in with a tool box. Shawn Berry sees the mic and starts talking.

SHAWN BERRY: Donald. All the way.

AMT: Why?

SHAWN BERRY: We need new blood, someone who's got the gump to go out there and say hey, I don't care what you think of me. We’re going to rearrange the country.

AMT: What needs rearranging in your country?

SHAWN BERRY: Pretty much everything. All the way down to—like, I work 16 hours a day and I'm here at a pawn shop so I can get gas to go to work.

AMT: Just on the other side of the road, Obaid Abdi leaves the family electronic store. He's a Hillary man.

OBAID ABDI: ‘Cause a lot of policy that Trump has right now, it’s not—‘cause I’m actually a Muslim man right now and he discriminates. He kind of has all these information without any legal facts or proof and everything. He just talks whatever he wants do. The world will just come into—I mean the presidency thing is just coming to a joke now.

AMT: And around the corner at the Hidden Valley mobile home park, Stan Reynolds is flying a big American flag and getting pretty agitated about his choices.

STAN REYNOLDS: Donald’s gonna win. They’re both batshit crazy. I mean they really are. She's a pathological liar. So is he. I think we’re screwed no matter which way we go. I vote Republican ticket. I don’t even know what the hell he is. I know what she is. There's no winning this one. I mean they’re both batshit crazy. I mean look at them. I mean you can't honestly take a look at either one of these individuals and take them seriously. It's insanity. It’s Orwellian, it really is. I mean it’s like right out of 1984.

AMT: Well, okay then. Take the road further north and you glide closer to the sumptuous suburbs and exurbs that ring Washington, DC. The median income in Northern Virginia is double that of the South and you can see it in the manicured storefronts and in the housing developments where the homes just keep getting bigger. You can even feel it on the roads. The pavement is smoother up here. I'm back on the Crooked Road now though, in the southeast corner of the state where the stories of shaky economies and bad times and getting by are enshrined in the old time music that sprang from these Blue Ridge Mountains. The winding road leads me to Hiltons, Virginia at the foot of Clinch Mountain. Home of the Carter Family Fold. Ten dollars on a Saturday night. Dollar-fifty for cake.

SOUNDCLIP

Your attention please. Good evening and welcome to the Carter Family Fold.

AMT: And the granddaughter of AP and Sarah Carter, the grandniece of Maybelle Carter—the trio who first recorded the hillbilly music that morphed into Nashville—welcomes a packed house. Tonight, the Maclean family is in from Kentucky. There is the sound of more tap shoes. Octogenarians, who looked moments ago like they can barely walk, are tapping and hoofing all around that dance floor.

[Sound: Fiddle, crowd singing “Can the Circle Be Unbroken”]

AMT: By the end of the night, they've asked us all to join in the singing. And Washington and all its politics seems very far away.

[Crowd cheering]

BAND: We thank you all and good night.

[Music: Bluegrass]

PC: That’s The Crooked Road, a documentary produced by Anna Maria Tremonti, Pacinthe Mattar and Josh Bloch. Go to our website to see pictures from Anna Maria’s trip. That’s www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. And let us know what you’ve been thinking as you’ve been watching this US election campaign all leading up to the presidential election on November the eighth. You can send us an email by going to our website www.cbc.ca/thecurrent and clicking on the contact link. Alright, that is The Current for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for q. It’s headed your way. I’m going to leave you with one more song from Anna Maria’s trip along the Virginia’s Crooked Road. Today’s last word goes to Amethyst Phillips singing “Bury Me under the Weeping Willow Tree” at the Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Virginia. I’m Piya Chattopadhyay. We’ll see you again tomorrow but for now, thanks for lending us your ear here on The Current.

[Music: “Bury Me under the Weeping Willow Tree” by The Carter Family, sung by Amethyst Phillips]

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October 10, 2016 full episode transcript

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