Milwaukee’s Democrats conflicted over hosting Trump and Republican National Convention

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Milwaukee loves its Miller Beer, Brewers baseball and ” Bronze Fonz ” statue.

The deepest blue metropolis in swing state Wisconsin, Milwaukee additionally loves Democrats.

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So it may be arduous for some to swallow that Milwaukee is taking part in host to former President Donald Trump and the Republican Nationwide Conference this coming week whereas rival Chicago, the bigger metropolis simply 90 miles to the south, welcomes President Joe Biden and Democrats in August.

It didn’t assist clean issues over with cautious Democrats after Trump used the phrase “horrible” when speaking about Milwaukee only a month earlier than the conference that begins Monday.

Including to the angst, Milwaukee was alleged to host the Democratic Nationwide Conference in 2020, however it didn’t occur attributable to COVID. House owners of native eating places, bars and venues say the variety of reservations that have been promised in the course of the RNC aren’t materializing. And protesters complained town was making an attempt to maintain them too distant from the conference website to have an effect.

“I want I used to be out of city for it,” Jake Schneider, 29, mentioned as he handed by town’s statue of Fonzie, the character performed by Henry Winkler within the Nineteen Seventies sitcom “Comfortable Days” that was set in Milwaukee. “I’m not tremendous glad that it’s the Republican Occasion coming to city.”

Schneider, who lives in a condo downtown, mentioned Trump “sabotaged himself” together with his feedback about Milwaukee.

“I hope he’s confirmed fallacious and sees how great of a metropolis it’s,” Schneider mentioned.

Ryan Clancy, a self-described democratic socialist who’s a state consultant and serves on the Milwaukee County Board, places it extra bluntly: “It’s shameful that we rolled out the crimson carpet for the RNC.”

Nonetheless, Democratic and Republican conference boosters level to the potential financial boon and probability to indicate off Milwaukee and Wisconsin in the course of the conference that runs by Thursday.

“People are able to have the conference and have or not it’s profitable and elevate Milwaukee to the following stage,” mentioned Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, a Democrat. “Donald Trump, no matter the place it occurs, goes to be the Republican nominee. So it didn’t matter if it occurred in Milwaukee. It didn’t matter if it occurred in Mar-a-Lago.”

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Milwaukee has been within the nationwide highlight extra in recent times, following the Bucks successful the nationwide NBA championship in 2021 and the airing this spring of the most recent season of “High Chef,” a actuality TV present that was filmed within the metropolis and featured a Milwaukee chef who made the finals.

And as Trump’s “horrible” remark confirmed, Milwaukee has additionally lengthy been a goal for conservative Republicans who’ve pointed to its crime, low-ranking faculties and monetary struggles for instance of poor Democratic management.

“I hope this conference exhibits off all one of the best issues about Milwaukee,” mentioned Wisconsin Republican Occasion Chairman Brian Schimming. “However it’s a metropolis, like many different Democrat-run cities, that has terribly vital points.”

Democrats picked Milwaukee for the social gathering’s final conference, however the 2020 DNC turned a web based occasion due to the pandemic.

Town’s back-to-back choice by Democrats and Republicans speaks to the swing state’s significance.

Wisconsin is one among a handful of battleground states prone to decide this 12 months’s presidential race. It was one of many so-called “blue wall” states that Democrats as soon as relied on, however Trump narrowly received in 2016, paving the way in which for his shock victory. Biden flipped the state again in 2020, and each campaigns are focusing on it closely this 12 months.

However there’s nothing swing about Milwaukee. It voted 79 p.c for Biden in 2020. After his loss that 12 months, Trump fought unsuccessfully to disqualify hundreds of voters in Milwaukee, falsely portraying late-arriving returns pushed by heavy absentee turnout as fraud.

Republicans say staging the conference in Milwaukee will energize their base. Whereas town itself is Democratic, the outlying suburbs are a battleground inside a battleground state. As soon as deeply crimson, Democrats have made inroads since 2016 as suburban ladies, specifically, drift away from Trump and the conservative agenda.

Earlier than town was even chosen to host the conference, Clancy and different Democrats urged Milwaukee to drop out of the operating, as Nashville did after Democrats there objected to internet hosting Republicans.

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However by far the largest kerfuffle got here in June when Trump used the phrase “horrible” in speaking about Milwaukee throughout a closed-door assembly with Republicans in Congress. Whereas these in attendance disagreed over whether or not Trump was speaking about crime, election considerations or one thing else, and he later mentioned in a Wisconsin rally that he “beloved” Milwaukee, for some Democrats it solely reaffirmed earlier considerations about taking part in host to Republicans.

Mobcraft, a Milwaukee-based brewery, confirmed off town’s Midwestern humorousness and love of beer by releasing a “(not so) Horrible Metropolis IPA.”

Because the conference nears, some native enterprise homeowners are questioning estimates that the conference will usher in $200 million in income.

Solely one of many six venues run by the Pabst Theater Group in Milwaukee is booked for the week of the conference, mentioned Gary Witt, the group’s president and CEO. Witt mentioned he’ll lose greater than $100,000 by not having venues used, and he’s involved concerning the affect the conference could have on different Milwaukee companies.

“As soon as these individuals are all gone, we’re meaningless to them anyway,” Witt mentioned of conference attendees.

Demonstrators are attempting to unfold counterprogramming all through the week, however have argued they’re being stored too removed from the conference websites.

Omar Flores, chairman of the March on the RNC Coalition, mentioned he’s assured the protests will likely be peaceable and benefit from the nationwide platform they are going to have. He mentioned the coalition needed to battle to get a march route that will likely be in sight and sound of the conference, after Milwaukee’s Democratic leaders “utterly bought us out, utterly bought out town and refused to take heed to what any of the residents needed to say.”

Clancy, the Democratic state consultant, mentioned he hoped having the conference within the metropolis the place he was born and raised would encourage liberals.

“I hope that having a essential mass of individuals in our metropolis who hate us will likely be sufficient to mobilize people for the first in August and in November,” he mentioned.