This black vote that is sliding towards Trump

(Milwaukee) On the evening of November 5, if Joe Biden loses the presidency, we will have to look at what happened on the streets of Bronzeville, the black neighborhood of Milwaukee.

What’s happening is that the Democrats are losing ground before our eyes.

“I always thought I was a Democrat until I realized how condescending white Democratic politicians were about wanting to help Black and brown people,” Orlando Owens tells me.

Mr. Owens, a 52-year-old African-American, is chairman of the local Republican committee. He has long preached in the political wilderness here, in Milwaukee’s black neighborhood called Bronzeville, like Chicago and elsewhere because of the color of its residents.

“It’s very Democratic, and because I’m a Republican, I’ve been called a sellout, a traitor, an Uncle Tom [le personnage noir du roman voulant à tout prix plaire aux Blancs]. »

But things are starting to move seriously here, as in many black communities.

When I stopped by on Tuesday, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott had just left the small office. Orlando Owens was heading to his real job, delivering auto parts.

“My parents were divorced, and I lived in poverty, like many people here. My mother worked at a fast-food counter. We lived on food stamps and moved around a lot. But even though they are socially progressive, black Americans are also morally conservative, and my religious values ​​fit better with Republicans.”

He doesn’t claim Milwaukee will vote for Donald Trump. Biden got 318,000 votes in the city in 2020, compared to just 134,000 for Trump. And Bronzeville was the most Democratic district.

Biden won this small state of 5.9 million people by a mere 20,000 votes. Wisconsin’s 10 seats in the Electoral College may seem like a pittance out of a total of 538. But with everything coming down to a handful of states, they could make or break the presidency.

At Crown Hardware and Plumbing, Charles Leggett IV, 52, is being shown how to replace a window screen.

“I voted for Trump and I’m going to vote for him again. Democrats saying you can’t have an AR-15, what’s that? It reminds me of Jim Crow laws [lois racistes du Sud]. »

His neighbor, who came for tips, is a convinced democrat. “Look how it happens, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, there is no equality and they want to pay less taxes.”

The problem for those who don’t like Trump is that Biden seems completely obsolete to them.

Jes Anderson, a 19-year-old nursing student, is going to vote for the first time. But for whom, she doesn’t know.

“Look, the guy is falling apart right before our eyes,” says Lenward Hicks, a 72-year-old Democrat who is a bit of a downer. To cheer himself up, he comes to sit in the African clothing store run by his Ukrainian girlfriend. He can admire the sunny fabrics, but mostly his Ukrainian girlfriend.

“Trump sells tax cuts, but behind the window, he’s just for the rich and doesn’t care about the poor and the middle class,” Rose Smith, who runs her son’s home care business, told me. She’s watching these shifts in opinion around her.

Michael Clay, a former Marine who is a middle school maintenance worker, has always voted Democrat. But not this time. “Trump is a little weird, but did you see the debate? Biden, he’s not capable anymore. The worst part isn’t that. It’s the lies the Democrats tell us afterwards, that everything is normal. It’s over for me, Biden. And I don’t like the state of the economy.” […] Billions are being sent to Israel and Ukraine while the world is hungry here.”

Hubert Bowie, 42, also voted for Biden in 2020. It will be Trump in November.

“Life is hard, man, it’s hard for everyone, even if you went to school, with the debts, and you can’t find anything in your field. It takes a president who is strict, but who loves us, like my mother and my grandmother raised me, you see? I was born here, but my mother, she decided to send me to a high school far from here, there were 50 of us black out of 300. It was harder, but it was for my own good. She can be proud. You don’t get ahead in life if you’re always pitied. Trump, he says a lot of things I don’t like, but you don’t become a billionaire by being complacent, right?

“I voted for Biden in 2020, but he can’t even finish his sentences anymore, how do you want to vote for him?” Michelle Jones, 26, told me.

I’m glossing over all the many people who told me they simply didn’t vote and didn’t really give a damn.

There is nothing scientific about a day’s walk in July.

But black voters abandoning Biden for Trump, or abandoning Biden altogether, are not just a false rumor. They may be a minority, but they do exist.

And lately, the man in the White House has offered nothing very encouraging or convincing to potential Democratic voters, in Bronzeville or across the country.