How bad could it get? America’s ugly election

Charlemagne

The contradiction at the heart of the European Commission

---

The Economist

September 5th 2020

29

1

I

n the most

genteel suburbs around Mil-

waukee, in southern Wisconsin, the

quaintness can be overpowering. Enor-

mous baskets of flowers hang from

Victorian-style street lamps along the

main street of Cedarburg, a riverside town

in Ozaukee County. Tourists, caught in a

summer downpour, may choose to take

their shelter with a chocolatier, a cake-

maker, two wineries or a French bakery.

Cedarburg is also an avowedly conser-

vative place. In the previous presidential

election, the county preferred Donald

Trump by a margin of 19 percentage points.

Although a poster for Black Lives Matter

adorns the front door of one shop—a pur-

veyor of colourful socks—a worker whis-

pers that it has provoked several com-

plaints. One customer called to say he

would never return because of it. Another

declared it offensive (even here, cancel cul-

ture reigns). Locals exist in a “Cedarbubble”

says a young barista nearby. The city’s pop-

ulation was 94% white at the last census.

The barista says many folk avoid visiting

Milwaukee, the large and much less white

metropolis just 30 minutes away, fearful of

its reputation for crime.

Ozaukee and the other similarly popu-

lous, wealthy and twee counties west of

Milwaukee are usually comfortable terrain

for Republicans. High turnout and high

margins typically counterbalance Demo-

cratic voters in the cities. But the suburbs

now look rocky for Mr Trump’s re-election

chances, which, just as last time, may re-

quire knife-edge victories in the Midwest.

He has consistently trailed Joe Biden, his

Democratic opponent, by five percentage

points in Wisconsin since May, notes

Charles Franklin, who runs polling at Mar-

quette University Law School. 

The president’s re-election campaign

has noticed and alighted on a new strategy

to court the suburbs again. The campaign

has clothed itself in the Nixonian garb of

“law and order”, alleging that the protests

against racism in American cities, which

have recently become violent again, are but

a preview of “Joe Biden’s America”. For evi-

dence he pointed to nearby Kenosha where

looting, arson and two murders have fol-

lowed the shooting by police of Jacob Blake,

an unarmed black man. A man who may

well have been a supporter of Mr Trump, in

turn, was also shot dead in Portland, Ore-

gon, at the weekend. 

The coded, racialised appeal is not diffi-

cult to decipher. To make it even clearer, Mr

Trump has also taken to arguing that

Democrats plan to “destroy our suburbs” by

building public housing and inviting

crime—an effort he for some reason insists

will be spearheaded by Cory Booker, a black

senator from New Jersey. On September 1st

Mr Trump visited Kenosha, praising the

police and arguing that Democratic mayors

and governors across the country are soft

on looters. He compared the upheaval 

Swing states