Billboards are popping up all along the highway as we approach Milwaukee. One features a man’s face: his name is Lars, “a former Trump voter,” still “conservative,” but who says he won’t vote for him this time, the poster details.
Further on, motorists are reminded of the cancellation in June 2022 of Roe v. Wade by the US Supreme Court, a ruling that had protected American women’s right to abortion since 1973, specifying that it was “courtesy of the extremists of MAGA”, Make America Great Again, Donald Trump’s movement. Another billboard shows the Republican Party logo upside down with a simple statement: “Your candidate is a convicted felon”. And yet another invites passersby to “remember” January 6, the day of the insurrection against the Capitol in 2021, when voting next November.
The Wisconsin metropolis, a key state taken back by Joe Biden in 2020 after being won by Donald Trump in 2016, is hosting the Republican National Convention this week. But its residents, mostly Democrats, have decided to welcome this grand mass in glory of the populist in their own way: by protesting.
“It’s outrageous to have Donald Trump in town this week,” says Sue Terry, a retiree we met this week in a city park. “It feels like we’re living in an environment under siege. It doesn’t really fit in with the spirit of the place. Imagine all the children we could have educated and even fed with the colossal sums of money that were just spent on this rally,” says the woman who lived in Montreal in the 1970s and 1980s.
In the former American industrial stronghold, significant security measures have been put in place around the Republican convention, confined to a perimeter of the city center and heavily protected by law enforcement and the secret service. A framework that has been tightened since the attempted assassination of former President Trump in Pennsylvania last Saturday.
Protests
But that doesn’t stop protesters from gathering in the suburbs to express their anger at seeing a city that chose Joe Biden with 69% in the last presidential election roll out the red carpet for its opponent, who only won 29% of the vote here.
“All of this guy’s policies worry me,” said Ellie Jayce, a 20-something from Milwaukee who came to denounce Donald Trump and his entourage, holding a placard at a checkpoint for vehicles entering the event site. “People are upset that this convention is here, and I hope they remember that in November by voting against him in large numbers and not being silent about the high stakes of this election.”
Across the street, Nadine Seiler, an African-American rights activist, unfurls a banner denouncing pro-Trump conservatives’ attacks on women’s abortion rights. “We now have a martyr behind us,” she says, pointing in the direction of the Fiserv Forum, hidden behind tall metal gates. “His political agenda is to make sure people can carry guns all the time. And he’s surprised that he’s been the victim. His agenda is part of the problem.”
The choice of Milwaukee as the venue for Donald Trump’s party convention was far from obvious, with the thousands of attendees at the ultraconservative political gathering landing in hostile territory. But with four months to go before the vote, the Republican Party is seeking to assert its presence in a state with a changing political mood — and one that could become the keystone of Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Tourism
“For the city, it’s a purely economic decision because of the money that participants inject into local businesses,” Mordecai Lee, a local politics expert at the University of Wisconsin, said in an interview. “Milwaukee also wants to strengthen its economic vitality in the lodging and hospitality sector, and it figures that the publicity generated by the Republican convention will help it develop an image of an attractive and interesting city.”
In the crowded hotels, but also in the more bohemian setting of the Water Street Public Market in the heart of the old city, the impact of the Republicans who have come from all over the United States is easily perceptible. They are easily recognized by their rather conservative style of dress for some — or, for others, by the piles of cards allowing them to enter the ultra-secure perimeter of the convention hanging around their necks.
“We’re not here to create drama, but to have a good time and do everything we can to ensure the re-election of Donald Trump,” summed up Leecha, a Republican from Missouri who was encountered this week not far from the Milwaukee River canal that runs through the city.
Ironically, while holding a convention can historically allow the Democratic Party to win a key state by slightly increasing the vote in its favor, the same is not true for the Republican Party, summarizes political scientist Philip Rocco, professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee. “In divided environments like Wisconsin, Republicans are less successful in turning a presence into a gain on Election Day, because they always face the same obstacle: that of minimizing the negative impact of their convention. And it is not clear that they have succeeded in doing so here.”
“I’m terrified of this event and what it represents,” said Democrat Adele Kaferly, sitting in the shade of a tree under which she had decided to picnic with friends. “We’ve already had four years of Donald Trump. We don’t want more.”
And she adds: “I’m afraid I’m going to have to live in an autocracy. Republican voters don’t seem to appreciate the process that’s going on behind this candidacy. If he’s reelected, it’s going to be a nightmare. And a nightmare caused by what? Apathy, ignorance and absurdity.”
This report was financed with the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund-
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