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Posted via | July 21, 2024
Downtown Milwaukee turned red the week of July 15 as thousands of Republican National Convention delegates and other party stalwarts poured into Wisconsin’s largest Democratic stronghold to officially endorse convicted felon Donald Trump as the presidential candidate in this pivotal state.
Outside the security zone where the conference was held, citizens grumbled, ignored or shrugged off the occasion that served to galvanize the Republican Party and give Trump a boost.
Milwaukee’s Democratic mayor, Cavalier Johnson, wasted no time in calling the conference a success, though he will now do so after Trump’s defeat in November.
“We have demonstrated our city’s ability to host a major event,” said Mayor Johnson. “It’s for the tens of thousands of visitors and it’s for the long haul of our hospitality industry here in Milwaukee. “
But it will take months to assess the economic impact on Milwaukee and court cases have piled up, adding blocked streets and storefronts, disappointing restaurant reservations and the use of out-of-town police officers to police the city.
Residents also probably wouldn’t soon learn that Trump described Milwaukee as “horrible” during a closed-door caucus with congressional Republicans last month, though his defenders later warned that he was referring to crime or election concerns.
“I think there are a lot of other people who are very disappointed by the terrible stigma that Trump has attached to the city,” said Jill McCurdy, a retired Democrat, as she walked through Red Arrow Park, where many other people had demonstrated. a few days before. ” Certainly, the other people who live here, especially those who are helpful and who have lived here all our lives, don’t see it that way. »
McCurdy, 68, hopes Republicans leave with a positive view of the lakeside city, about an hour’s drive north of Chicago, where Democrats will hold their conference in August.
But after talking to friends who own a restaurant and were “pretty disappointed” with the convention, she said she wasn’t convinced the city would gain much from hosting the big Republican event.
Jay Nelson was outside at the convenience store he manages in downtown Milwaukee when one of his regular customers stopped by on her daily walk around the neighborhood.
“I told other people to come and buy at least one bottle of wine,” he said, extending his arms. “I hope this helps. “
As he hugged her, Nelson said they needed everything they could get.
The store he has run for almost a decade, Downtown Market
For small businesses like Downtown Market, the RNC failed to win a decisive victory, hampering sales despite earlier promises that it would provide an economic boost.
“I need you to take all your money to Milwaukee, spend it that week and drop it off in Milwaukee,” Mayor Johnson said two years ago at the RNC summer meeting where he announced the city would host the GOP national convention.
But Samir Saddique, owner of Downtown Market and nearby Liquor Avenue, said the conference didn’t add “much of anything. ” Traffic and sales plummeted shortly after the fence was put up in front of the stores. On July 18, the last day of the RNC, the liquor store had made only 10% of its previous sales, he said.
“We are entrenched from the world,” Saddique said.
Across the Milwaukee River, which marked the eastern boundary of the NCR safe zone, there was only one seat occupied at the bar at Elwood’s Liquor.
“We promised everyone that I would bring a lot of cash to the businesses,” said bar manager Sam Chung, 30. “That’s how it wiped out a lot of people’s businesses outside the perimeter. “
Even its most stalwart consumers didn’t abandon RNC week, Chung said.
“They don’t even need to come here because it’s clearly a crisis to get here,” he said, adding that he believes “a lot of this is because a lot of our regular customers are Democrats.
Adam Buker, a 21-year-old barista who jogs at a coffee shop near one of the convention’s exits, who guides attendees down an open street, said that while the RNC was in town, he played music through queer artists as if it were his own. . demonstration. Even so, the door of the Canary Coffee Bar continued to open.
“It depends 100 percent on our location,” Buker said July 18 while preparing ground coffee for a picado, with a Frank Ocean song playing in the background.
Although it was the secure outdoor area, the cafe’s glassed-in front seats and butter-yellow sidewalk seats were not obstructed by the fence like Saddique’s retail liquor stores and convenience stores were. RNC participants also did not have to cross the river to get to the cafe, unlike the one in Elwood.
Democrats want to do well in Milwaukee to counter Republican forces in more rural parts of Wisconsin. Trump narrowly won the state in 2016 before losing it four years later to President Joe Biden, by about 21,000 votes.
Wisconsin is one of the few truly swing states that can pass either way in this election and will determine who wins the White House. Four of Wisconsin’s last six presidential elections have yielded less than one percentage point.
As Tyler Schmitt, 28, and his spouse Ken Ragan, 24, lay in tall grass on July 17 in a park west of the conference venue, they pondered the pros and cons of the conference in Milwaukee.
Ragan said she could do without the traffic headaches. But Schmitt, an urban farmer, said he sees positives.
“From a small business perspective, it brings power to tourism and the press,” he said. “It’s pretty downtown and I think downtown is appropriate. “
But the downtown location has put law enforcement, plus visiting officials from around the country, on the streets of Milwaukee. On July 16, police officers in Columbus, Ohio, shot and killed Samuel Sharpe, a man who lived in a homeless encampment about 1. 6 miles from the conference venue.
Sharpe had a knife in his hand and walked toward another man, ignoring police commands before shooting him, the government said. The shooting is still under investigation.
Sharpe’s sister, Angelique Sharpe, attributed his death to the presence of officers.
“I would rather the Milwaukee Police Department, who knows other people on that network, (than) other people who have no connection to their network and don’t care about our extended circle of family members there,” he said.
At a rally following her brother’s death, Angelique Sharpe said her brother suffered from sclerosis and was acting in self-defense against someone who had threatened him in recent days.
City activists also questioned whether the conference had downplayed the most pressing systemic issues in Milwaukee.
Hours before Trump ascended to the conference level on the evening of July 18 to deliver his speech to delegates, dozens of protesters held a rally a block from the conference to draw attention to the deaths of Sharpe and another man. black, D’Vontaye. Mitchell, who died in recent months after being cornered by security guards at a nearby hotel.
“They come here and make money in our city. But when we get hurt and we love them, they’re there,” said Karl Harris, Mitchell’s cousin.
Staff of MI, with Corey Williams, Rio Yamat and Patrick Orsagos
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