Martin County, nestled in northeast North Carolina, had 24,500 residents in 2010. By 2020, that number had dropped to 22,000. Like much of rural America, its population is steadily declining.
Politically, it’s followed a familiar trajectory. President Barack Obama carried the county twice by 5 points. In 2016, President Donald Trump edged out Hillary Clinton, 49.2% to 48.8%. And by 2020, Trump’s margin grew to 52% to President Joe Biden’s 47%. Last year, he won it by 55% to Vice President Kamala Harris’ 45%.
Now the county faces a very different kind of loss: its only hospital shut down in August 2023 due to financial strain, making the nearest emergency room 22 miles away—a 30-minute drive that, for some, is fatal. It’s even farther for more advanced medical services.
There were plans to reopen the hospital, but then Trump’s proposed cuts to Medicaid—framed as a crackdown on “fraud and waste”—shattered that possibility.
According to The New York Times, the impacts are felt acutely by Martin County residents, more than a quarter of whom are older than 65. The nearest hospital is in Greenville 40 minutes away.
Verna Marie Perry, 66, a former worker in the county’s adult and aging services department, told the Times that she now fields calls from friends in medical crises.
“Neighbors have called me crying moments after someone close to them died while being transported to the nearest hospital,” she said.
It’s a tragic reality made worse by the fact that some residents still can’t—or won’t—see the connection between their vote and the disaster now unfolding.
Cathy Price, 72, a lifelong Williamston resident and former nurse at the shuttered Martin General, told the Times that while she still backs Trump’s efforts to trim Medicaid, “we’re in a life-and-death crisis. People’s lives are on the line because of the hospital not being here.”
There it is: She voted to hurt other people, not herself. And even now, she clings to the fantasy that all of that “fraud and waste” must be happening somewhere else.
But the harsh reality is that there’s nothing remotely efficient about a hospital serving just 22,000 people. Rural hospitals aren’t profitable. They can only exist because of subsidies from urban areas—in effect, from liberals.
And for years, that was the deal: Blue America paid the bills so red America could have hospitals, schools, broadband, and clean water. In return, rural voters have voted to burn the country down.
Okay, then.
I feel for the 45% of Martin County voters who backed Harris. They tried to do what was best for their country and their county. As for Price and her fellow Trump voters?