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Acrid Air and Dismay Linger in Firebombed G.O.P. Office in North Carolina Firebombing of G.O.P. Office Jolts Fragile Balance of a North Carolina Town
(about 11 hours later)
HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. — Evelyn Poole-Kober was stepping gingerly across the glass-covered floor of the Orange County Republican Party headquarters here Monday morning. She wore old scuffed sneakers to the office — her “worst shoes,” she said, because she knew what she would encounter. HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. — The firebomb hurled through the front window of the local Republican headquarters here was one of the uglier manifestations of a sour national mood.
The walls in the little strip-mall office were blackened by smoke, the air thick and acrid, the aftermath of a firebomb that had been thrown through the plate-glass window sometime Saturday night. Plastic yard signs for Donald J. Trump and Mike Pence and a number of lesser-known, down-ballot Republicans had melted together. (But not all, Ms. Poole-Kober thought — perhaps a few could still be useful.) It also seemed to shatter something sacred in this small North Carolina town, where residents, in the face of cultural change, have largely found an amicable balance between liberal and conservative, traditional and trendy, in the heart of a swing state that is one of the nation’s most politically and culturally divided.
A sofa was burned down to an ugly skeleton. A big banner with a photo of a fetus was ruined, but the sentiment could still be made out: “Vote like a life depends on it.” A bumper sticker on a table read “LOCK HER UP.” “It’s just reprehensible in so many different ways,” Tom Stevens, Hillsborough’s mayor of 11 years, said on Monday. It was an attack on freedom of expression, he said, and rattled Hillsborough’s sense of safety. But he added, “I don’t think it is representative of the majority of the people in this town, who have faith in our political discourse and our political process.”
Morning light shined in through the jagged hole that the authorities said the firebomb had made in the window. The Hillsborough police said they were investigating the attack along with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The hole truncated a message that had been emblazoned on the window: “FREEDOM SPEAKS HERE.” The attack, which occurred early Sunday and badly damaged the inside of the political office, remains under investigation by federal, state and local officials. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump swiftly issued denunciations. A group of Democrats created a GoFundMe page that had raised more than $13,000 by Monday evening for the Orange County Republican Party.
Now it said only “FREEDOM.” The authorities had not announced any arrests as of Monday afternoon.
A badly charred American flag had been dragged out and displayed by the front door. The sense that the attack did not reflect the spirit of Hillsborough was shared on Monday by liberals and conservatives, who said that this town of 6,000 people, about 40 miles northwest of Raleigh, had found a way to peacefully manage the cultural and political tension that had come to define it.
Ms. Poole-Kober, a retired federal government employee and vice chairwoman of the Orange County Republican Party, still seemed shocked. She was wondering who would have done this. Even in a season boiling over with vitriol — at least on the national level — this did not seem right. It is a tension between a working-class Southern conservative faction and a crowd of mostly left-leaning artists, authors, tech workers and foodies — a mix of people who have reimagined Hillsborough in the past 15 years or so, bringing art galleries, good restaurants and good coffee. Today, it is the kind of North Carolina hamlet where the butter beans come in a thoughtful $27 dish of tortelloni with kale butter and pecorino.
Whoever it was, she said, was “someone who’s evil.” She had heard someone on the news describe it as “vandalism.” And she was sure of one thing: That was the wrong word. In a nation where residents tend to self-segregate according to political belief, this is a place where Democrats and Republicans often live cheek by jowl, and more or less agree to disagree amid this year’s tight and agitated races for president, governor and Senate.
“In my heart, it’s an evil crime,” she said. “It’s no vandalism. Vandalism is if they would have come out and removed our signs. But to throw a firebomb through this building window is evil, and that’s in my heart. I think it was a political terrorism, I do.” The two factions in Hillsborough do not live in absolute harmony, however. Mayor Stevens said that someone burned rainbow flags, symbols of the gay pride movement, in April at a church outside town. In August 2015, protesters held a downtown rally opposing the Hillsborough Board of Commissioners’ decision to remove the words “Confederate Memorial” from the doorway of the Orange County Historical Museum.
Ms. Poole-Kober has lived in the area since the early 1980s, and she, like other Republicans here, is used to being in the minority in Orange County. Nearly half of the county’s approximately 116,000 voters are registered Democrats, and less than 15 percent of voters signed up as Republicans. A substantial number of voters — nearly 38 percent — are unaffiliated with a particular political party. But the idea that the two factions strive to live in peace can feel almost like a defining mythology of Hillsborough.
Daniel Ashley, the chairman of the local Republican Party, said party members encountered “little pockets of super-ugly” in the most liberal enclaves of the county, particularly the small town of Carrboro, next to Chapel Hill. Unpleasant things are almost always said there, Mr. Ashley said, when volunteers hand out fliers. “What might be called New South and Old South not only coexist, atypical in a region where rapid growth and the influx of outsiders have often fomented cultural clashes, but each appreciates the value the other brings to the table,” the local author Bob Burtman wrote in a 2010 anthology about the town.
But Ms. Poole-Kober said that for the most part, people got along, even in the season of Mr. Trump. She has Democrats in her garden club. The Republicans participate in Fourth of July parades around here, and are made to generally feel welcome. Evelyn Poole-Kober, the vice chairwoman of the Orange County Republican Party, who stepped carefully through the glass shards of the blackened office Monday morning, said she had witnessed the cultural change since moving to the area in the early 1980s. She said she was long used to living among Democrats and was friendly with many of them, including members of her garden club.
“Something like this is beyond the normal,” Mr. Ashley said. Orange County, with Hillsborough as its seat, includes nearly all of liberal Chapel Hill, home to the University of North Carolina. Nearly half of the county’s approximately 116,000 voters are registered Democrats, and fewer than 15 percent of voters signed up as Republicans. A substantial number of voters — nearly 38 percent — are unaffiliated.
Ms. Poole-Kober had just finished church services Sunday in Lincoln County, where she grew up on a dairy farm when Mr. Ashley called her in the early afternoon with the news. “It wasn’t like cold chills, but it was like something came over my whole body,” she said. Ms. Poole-Kober said she could not imagine that a local person was responsible for the attack, given the friendly tenor of the town.
She drove two hours straight to the scene in her church clothes, and when she got here, she cried. But she did not play down the seriousness.
By Monday morning, a GoFundMe page set up by Democrats to help the Orange County Republican headquarters had raised more than $13,000. “I’m a Democrat but I don’t believe in violence,” wrote a man who made a $25 donation. She said Mr. Stevens approached her on Sunday and said, “Oh, this is sad, Evelyn.”
At the shopping mall, Ms. Poole-Kober, Mr. Ashley and some volunteers had set up folding tables under the awning in front of the ruined building. They were back to work, ready to sign up volunteers and give out signs. Mr. Ashley had a phone up and running. TV cameras were everywhere. A Hillsborough Police car was stationed conspicuously out front. “I said, ‘No, it’s not sad — it’s evil,’” she recalled.
The graffiti that had read “Nazi Republicans leave town or else,” spray-painted on the side of the store nearby called Balloons Above Orange, had been painted over. Mr. Ashley had procured a modem from somewhere. Ms. Poole-Kober had brought her laptop in her white Chevrolet HHR, with its bumper sticker that sarcastically proclaimed, “DEPLORABLES Charter Member.” The Hillsborough police said someone had hurled “a bottle containing flammable material” through the front window of the headquarters. The authorities said they believed that the fire extinguished itself after burning furniture and causing “heavy smoke damage.”
Someone also spray-painted “Nazi Republicans leave town or else” and a swastika on a nearby building.
Federal, state and local officials are involved in the inquiry. The F.B.I. and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said agents were assisting the local authorities.
The Republican headquarters are in a section of town that is set apart from the city center and years ago had a Daniel Boone-themed roadside attraction. A Daniel Boone statue remains, as do a few log cabins and wagon wheels.
These days, Hillsborough’s cultural confluence is best evident amid the handsome, historic brick buildings of downtown. One short stretch of King Street includes Purple Crow Books, which shows off works by local authors like Lee Smith and Hal Crowther; a community FM radio station that plays, among other things, electronic and old-time string music; Carolina Game and Fish, a purveyor of shotguns, high-performance fishing reels and live bait; and Dual Supply Company, a family-run hardware store.
Inside the store, Frances O’Halloran, 55, a local herbalist, was buying a few items from Michael Woods, 56, whose father is the owner. “It just didn’t make sense to me,” said Ms. O’Halloran, who supports Mrs. Clinton.
“Here, I hear all sides of every issue, and yet everybody gets along,” said Mr. Woods, an independent who said he voted for individuals, not by party affiliation.
Dave Rutter, 68, a musician with an Americana group called the Pagan Hellcats, was outside Cup A Joe, King Street’s coffee shop, with members of his band. He wondered aloud whether Trump supporters had carried out the attack in an effort to earn sympathy for Republicans.
“This is weird,” he said. “We have no history of any kind of violence.”
At Carolina Game and Fish, such theories prompted a few snorts of incredulity.
“If it was a false flag thing, why would they do it in Orange County?” asked Michael Tulloch, 67, a retired drug abuse counselor who said he had been planning to vote for Mr. Trump until his recent handling of sexual assault allegations. “Most of the people in this area didn’t even know where the Republican headquarters was at,” Mr. Tulloch said.
On Monday afternoon, Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican locked in a tight race for re-election, visited the burned building. Hours before, volunteers and local party members had set up tables outside the building, signing up volunteers and giving away yard signs that had not been melted together.
Mr. McCrory expressed anger about “an assault on our democratic process.”
“The last thing we need is more types of violence and intimidation as it relates to the political process, not just in North Carolina but the United States of America,” Mr. McCrory said.
“Whatever the motive,” he said, “there is no excuse for it.”