Tens of thousands of Donald Trump supporters are in Milwaukee on Monday for the Republican Party convention, a historic high-tension event, shaken by the attempted assassination of the former president.
• Read also: ‘I should be dead,’ Trump says after assassination attempt
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Already arrived in the former industrial town overlooking Lake Michigan, the 78-year-old former businessman will most likely be greeted with renewed fervor by these activists, who nearly lost their hero on Saturday.
Thousands of police officers are deployed on the streets. “If they’re not anxious, then neither am I,” Tim Hawkins, 57, from Washington state in the far west of the country, told AFP.
The venue chosen for the convention is a huge, very modern sports complex, whose walls are covered with large photographs glorifying the 45th President of the United States, who also wants to be the 47th.
Getty Images via AFP
“I should be dead”
But the image that everyone has in mind, and which has gone around the world, is that of a Donald Trump with a bloody ear, his fist raised, hastily evacuated Saturday by his bodyguards from a campaign meeting in Pennsylvania.
“I shouldn’t be here, I should be dead,” the former president said in an interview aboard his plane to Milwaukee on Sunday with New York Post.
AFP
It was a “very surreal experience,” he observed of the assassination attempt, wearing a white bandage over his right ear, according to the newspaper.
The attack shocked an increasingly polarized American society, angering the most radical Trump activists, who openly accuse Democrats of responsibility.
The mystery running mate
The first highlight of the Republican convention in Milwaukee will likely come Monday, with the expected announcement of Donald Trump’s choice to be his next vice president, if he wins the election on November 5.
Three names keep coming up.
That of best-selling author turned congressman JD Vance; North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum; and influential Latino Florida Senator Marco Rubio.
Marco Rubio
AFP
Unless Donald Trump, fond of political twists, announces a completely unexpected profile.
The billionaire’s running mate will deliver a speech Wednesday night in the convention’s red-carpeted main hall.
The major themes of the convention will be purchasing power, immigration, crime and the security guaranteed by a strong America.
AFP
His motto: “Make America great again,” a slogan that is a nod to that of Donald Trump in 2016.
But the high point of this institutional and festive event will come on Thursday, when Donald Trump will be designated the official Republican candidate for the election.
His coronation is no longer in doubt, formalized during a spectacular evening, punctuated by the release of 100,000 red, white and blue balloons.
The septuagenarian Republican keeps his schedule extremely discreet, for security reasons.
A “folded” match
With more than 50,000 participants, the event already promised to be an ultra-secure event.
Entire areas of the city center are fenced off by large metal fences and patrolled by agents of the Secret Service, the elite police force that has come under heavy criticism for failing to adequately protect Donald Trump during his outdoor rally on Saturday.
AFP
But the convention’s dense schedule remains. “Apart from increased security outside the perimeter, there will not be a single change to the schedule,” David Bossie, a close associate of Donald Trump who co-chairs the convention, told AFP.
“This is a four-night prime-time television production that we are extremely proud of, and that we are not going to change because of a tragic event,” he added.
Shaking up his schedule, President Joe Biden worked to ease tensions during this weekend that will mark the country.
“There is no place for this kind of violence in America,” the 81-year-old Democrat declared, before calling on the nation to “unite.”
The attack on Donald Trump could benefit him electorally.
They note in contrast how Joe Biden is currently weakened by questions about his mental acuity, with elected officials from his own party calling on him to step down.
For Martin Kutlzer, a Milwaukee resident and Republican sympathizer, there is no doubt: the race for the White House is “over.”
“Donald Trump will win, because we always tend to rally around those who have been affected,” the sixty-year-old proudly proclaims to AFP.