On Trump Presidency, One Independent Voter Wants To Wait And See

In the latest installment of WFDD's series “The Road Ahead,” we hear from a business owner in Winston-Salem, who doesn't put a lot of stock in the executive branch, and is watching these next few months closely.

Walk into the 6th Sense Health & Wellness Center in downtown Winston-Salem, and your heart rate slows. The mild, sweet smell of jasmine, soft sounds of wind chimes, and New Age music waft gently through the air.

The owner, Nike Roach, is a first-generation American citizen, the son of African and Caribbean immigrants. He grew up in an area with limited options for young people. He says you either graduated and went to college, joined the military, or wound up in jail. Roach chose the army. He was stationed in Europe, and later saw active duty in the Persian Gulf War.

“Being a combat vet, you kind of get a different perspective about democracy, and the price of having a republic,” he says. “And I think a lot of Americans don't see that, because they see what's on television. But they don't really see how the republic is sustained by what people do overseas.”

Roach served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, where he practiced emergency medicine and prevention. He also studied massage therapy, and when he returned to the states, he made it a fulltime career, opening his business in 1997.

He calls himself a “patriot at heart,” but he's skeptical of government, and its role in people's lives. He's a self-described Independent — he didn't vote for either of the major party candidates — but he says he's willing to give Donald Trump a chance, and he's optimistic about the next four years.

“As a business owner, I do believe that we Americans, and we in Winston-Salem, and Forsyth County, can solve a lot of our own problems, our own challenges, be they health care, or criminal justice, or we're talking about more people coming to town,” says Roach. “I think we can do that ourselves without having a larger and ever-growing government presence.”

Roach says there was much to admire in former president Obama; who he was as a man, and the ideas he brought to the table. But he's anxious to see how Donald Trump's background plays out as president.

“One of the very first times you actually have a business man in there — a true, live, ‘This is how I made my money was business,'" says Roach. “Not politics. Not the legal profession. [Someone] who had a successful track [record]... So, I'm optimistic from that standpoint.”  

Roach says he's less optimistic about some of Trump's cabinet picks, and what he perceives to be their lack of experience in some cases. Even there, however, he calls the intense fear he perceives to be building among those who oppose the new president overblown. After all, he says, historically there have been plenty of highly qualified cabinet picks who turned out to be terrible in their new roles.  

But he adds the president does set the tone for the country, and that's one aspect of the new administration that Roach will be keeping a very close eye on during its first 100 days.

“I have three boys, and they are in the statistic of who's going to go to prison,” he says. “That's what keeps me up at night. [I'm] saying, this is the foundation of this country, that everybody who has a desire and the means to be able to go down the path that they want to go to — not being impeded by some yahoo who believes that they are a second-class citizen because of where their ancestry comes from.”

Through it all, Roach remains hopeful that the tone set by the new administration will lead to more active community engagement on the part of people who live here.

“I'm willing in the first 100 days to give each person an opportunity to make good on what they promised,” he says. “And then, after that, we'll say ‘Hmm…this may not have been the best choice.'”

Roach says that regardless of Trump's first term, one good thing is that Americans have choices. He says after four years, depending on the outcome, we can choose to either vote the president back in, or tell him, ‘Thank you very much for your time. Go back into the private sector.'”