Long was speaking in the back office of Taste of Britain, another British shop that has been a fixture in Norcross, a suburb of Atlanta, for three-and-a-half decades. The store has an enormous range of British food products, including niche items like Smith’s Scampi Fries crisps, Soreen malt loaf, Bird’s custard powder and a full menu of Scottish pies.
Roxanna Aguilar, who has run the store for 12 years, was born in south London and grew up in Colchester, Essex. She has watched fellow Brits who move to Georgia slowly become more polarized — just like their American neighbors — the longer they spend in the U.S. Many now watch Fox News or other hardline conservative media, she said, and rail vocally against the more left-wing bias of other broadcasters.
“In Britain, your political view is very personal. It’s not here,” Aguilar said in her Union Jack-themed office, where the rug, tissue box and baroque armchair are all splashed with the British flag. “But I think the English people that live over here have gotten used to that.”
Certainly, the British-American voters POLITICO spoke to were open and generous in sharing their views — even the more controversial ones.
One woman — who asked not to be named — repeated false claims that the 2020 election had been rigged against Trump, and accused the Inland Revenue Service, the CIA and other government institutions of colluding against him. The same person said of Harris: “If I see that laugh one more time, and that nodding head, I’ll put a baseball bat through the TV.”
Rare species
Not all British-born voters in the U.S. reject the Democrat candidate, of course. In fact, numerous people said Trump-voting Brits are few and far between.
