A divided Jacksonville greets Bill Clinton

Former President Bill Clinton stopped in Jacksonville Friday as part of a bus tour through the northern part of Florida on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

It was a tale of two narratives. The fans — and the haters — both were “ready for Hillary.”

The scene was set outside before and after the rally, with protesters of the left and the right making their grievances known.

From the left, a protester representing the local Kemetic Empire group, with a placard saying “genocide in the Congo in the name of Bill Clinton.”

From the right, a ripoff of the Shepard Fairey picture of Barack Obama with “Hope” underneath it; however, the Clinton variant had the word “rape” under it.

As well, people in passing cars yelled old reliables: “Hillary for Prison” and “Lock her up.”

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Once inside the space — a conference room in Jacksonville’s main public library that held around 350 people, though the air conditioning wasn’t quite ready for that capacity — the introductory speakers hewed to positive themes.

Neil Henrichsen, chair of the Duval County Democratic Party, spoke of a spike in Democratic registration; now, Henrichsen says, there are 240,000 registered Democrats in Duval County.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz pledged to “make sure we put Duval in the win column.”

Against a GOP in “absolute civil war,” which “couldn’t organize its way out of a paper bag,” DWS exuded confidence, and got off the best line of the event when referring to Donald Trump calling Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman.

“I came of age in the ’80s,” the congresswoman said, “and in the words of Janet Jackson, ‘it’s Hillary, Madame President, if you’re nasty.'”

DWS noted that vote-by-mail performance is up compared to 2012; Democrats are only down 1.5 points, compared to five points in 2012.

State Rep. Mia Jones exhorted the crowd.

“The battleground is the state of Florida, and Duval County will make the difference,” Jones said, urging people to take friends with them to early vote.

And Sen. Bill Nelson, emphasizing his local ties (he got married in Jacksonville), predicted “Hillary will win Florida by at least five points,” but he thinks the margin will be even “higher.”

Nelson spoke of Clinton having a “downdraft on the rest of the ticket,” specifically referencing Patrick Murphy as someone who could be helped by the positive trend in “this whole I-10 corridor … the most important part of the state for turning out.”

However, Nelson noted a change in the country this century.

“I’ve never seen us as split as we are today in this country,” Florida’s senior senator said.

Back in 2000, Republicans and Democrats could work together, Nelson added, “when it was time to do the deal.”

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The stage was set for Bill Clinton, with good vibes in the air.

Then, soon after he talked about the “truly historic triumph” that was imminent, something happened in the crowd.

In the back, by the media risers, a younger white man turned around, opened an over-shirt to expose a message: “Bill Clinton is a rapist.”

He was hustled out of the tightly packed conference room, but not before yelling that phrase a couple of times.

Soon after, someone on the other side of the room yelled the same phrase, but with less elan.

At that point, Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office members entered the crowd.

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The situation calmed down, and Bill Clinton — who has been called everything one could call a politician — was unruffled.

He proceeded through a workmanlike stump speech, entirely unexceptional and lacking local detail beyond the requisite name-checks of local dignitaries in the crowd.

Clinton spoke of the need to “live together and work together across the lines that divide us,” noting that one can “build all the walls you want, it can’t keep social media out.”

Clinton spoke of Islamic extremism, though not by name, noting the mass murderers in San Bernardino were “converted over social media” and that in Orlando, Omar Mateen didn’t even have “contact” with external jihadists, but was “sort of turned on by it.”

Clinton, realizing he may have been too colloquial, qualified his statement by saying that he’s “not trying to be flippant.”

“We can rise together again,” Clinton said later. “Like in the ’90s, except better.”

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Whether that’s the vision that prevails in the American electorate, where swing voters seem to frame this election as a choice between status quo competence and neo-Bircher lunacy, is a matter for pollsters to discern.

The crowd inside, except for the enumerated exceptions that slipped through what was called “airport-style security” by event organizers, seemed to subscribe to the “stronger together” mantra.

On the outside, however, it was a different matter, reflecting historical divisions in Jacksonville, which is the kind of city where elections citywide often come down to narrow margins of victory.

For the converted, it doesn’t matter if the claims made against the Clintons are true or false.

For those more agnostic to the charms of the once and future First Family, it matters very much.

That’s true in Jacksonville.

And as Jacksonville goes, so does much of the country, which suggests that after the election, the divisions won’t instantly heal.