When Donald Trump visited Detroit last week, he hurled one insult after another.
He compares the city, which is 77% black, to a developing country and stated that “the whole country will be like Detroit” if Vice President Kamala Harris wins.
If there was any doubt as to whether Trump thought this was good or bad, he quickly clarified it.
“You’re going to have a mess on your hands,” said the former president.
Trump's comments continued a long-standing and racially charged message in which he trashed major cities run by Democrats. This rhetoric was the basis of his unsuccessful re-election campaign in 2020, when he warned of the spread of crime and low-income housing in the suburbs, fearing that “white flight” had moved out of city centers decades earlier.
Along with Detroit, Trump attacked the most populous cities in three decisive states for winning the White House this year: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. he denounced Philadelphia as “ravaged by bloodshed and crime.” And he called Milwaukee “terrible.” Before traveling there for the Republican National Convention.
As in Detroit, non-white citizens represent the majority of the population in Philadelphia and Milwaukee. Harris will campaign in all three cities this week.
Trump's attacks risk offending undecided voters who also don't share his bleak outlook in their big cities. Black voters are rocking their campaign The margin of victory is expected to be a close election. But the attacks also speak to some of the prejudices and feelings that have fueled his base since his first campaign eight years ago.
“He didn’t say anything that the majority of Trump voters in Michigan don’t say or believe about Detroit,” said Dennis Lennox, a Republican strategist who works in the state. “Many residents from outside of Michigan probably haven’t been to Detroit in years. Therefore, their perception of the city is not necessarily reality. Detroit is without a doubt a different and better city than it was a decade ago.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, defended Detroit in a statement issued by her political action committee following Trump's visit. He emphasized that “Detroit is growing by the minute as people fall in love with this special place” and warned that “Detroitians won’t forget this in November.”
Others pointed out the flaws in Trump's rhetoric. Violent crime downward trend across the country, including City is something He often notices. Detroit had 252 murders last year — the lowest since 1966.
“Crime has decreased; Factories are opening,” said the governor of Minnesota. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president, said last week while campaigning in the Detroit suburb of Warren.
In a statement for this article, Trump campaign spokesman Brian Hughes said Trump is committed to “security and investment” in cities that have “seen their prosperity and security under attack” by Harris and other Democratic leaders. .
“Our cities have become sanctuaries for illegal immigrant criminals, and America’s hard-working men and women have been left behind in public services,” Hughes added. “Motions to defend the police have left people in these urban centers to their own devices. President Trump wants every neighborhood in every city to return to the greatness we once had.”
'Playing for the city'
Brad Todd, a Republican strategist who worked on the Michigan elections, said Trump is “playing to the city” where people “miss the days when the city of Detroit was big and think its problems are a failure of government.” ”.
Todd conducted focus groups in Macomb County – which included Detroit-area suburbs home to the famous “Reagan Democrats.” 1980s – “People spend an hour complaining about Detroit and then say they love it.”
Trump criticized the same dynamics in other cities.
“There are a lot of places like this,” Todd said. “It’s not everywhere, (but) there are a lot of cities that really miss the city’s best days.”
Andrew Hitt, former chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, said Trump's comments are unlikely to hurt him in swing states he won in 2016 but lost in 2020, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Conservative-leaning voters in rural parts of the state are averse to Milwaukee for a number of reasons, Hitt said, whether it's their perception of high crime or greater wealth flowing there or their lack of personal or cultural connection to the city outside. of sports.
“It’s not going to affect him in any way with rural voters,” Hitt said of Trump’s anti-Milwaukee comments. “But beyond that, I think it helps him with suburban voters.”
Cities in general have become a convenient foil for Trump, who has aimed his inflammatory rhetoric at other major cities, some of them in states likely to favor Harris. He compared Chicago — where he owns a hotel tower and where he will participate in an interview with Bloomberg News on Tuesday — to war-torn Afghanistan.
Other targets include New York, where he has lived for so long. He took up residence in Florida in 2019, and San Francisco, which as a political base for Harris and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has been a frequent Republican Party punching bag.
All three cities have majority white populations.
'How to live in hell'
Trump also has a history of black members of Congress insulting the cities they represent. In 2017, the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., was outraged by Trump's criticism. described his Atlanta district In 2019, the late Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Mo. Trump called his Baltimore district “Dangerous” and “Disgusting.”
“Look at Detroit. See what's happening in Oakland. Look at what's happening in Baltimore,” Trump said at a Fox News town hall in 2020. “And everybody gets upset when I say that. They say, 'Oh, is that a racist statement?' It's not racist. Honestly, black people come up to me and say, 'Thank you. Thank you, sir, for saying that. They want help.”
“These cities,” Trump added, “are living in hell.”
It's not just big cities that Trump likes to insult. In recent weeks, he has attacked Springfield, Ohio, and Aurora, Colorado, over their immigrant communities. Trump campaigned last week in Aurora — hardly the heart of a swing state — and argued that the city had been taken over by Venezuelan prison gangs. His demands, as in Springfield, have put him at odds with local officials, including Republican Mayor Mike Coffman.
A Republican close to Trump's campaign argued that his attacks on cities were not an insult but a promise to solve problems that most people who live in those areas recognize.
“It’s not like he’s going to Detroit and attacking the Detroit Pistons or the Red Wings or the Tigers,” said the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly in defense of the campaign. “When Trump says these kinds of things, it’s a reflection of what many people outside the media bubble who live in the state think of themselves.”
Victoria LaCivita, Trump's Michigan communications director, said in a statement that Trump “remembers when Detroit was praised for its success in producing gold as the gold standard and revolutionizing the automobile industry.” He cites Detroit's declining population and high homicide and poverty rates as proof that change is right.
“As President Trump emphasized in his speech, his policies will usher in a new era of economic success and stability for Detroit, helping the city reach its full potential,” he added.
Black voted
Michigan was the site of Trump's memorable 2016 plea for black voters to support his candidacy.
“What do you have to lose?” Trump cited poverty, high unemployment and “not good” schools. Dimondle saidA white village 90 miles from Detroit.
At the same event, Trump predicted he would win more than 95% of the black vote in his 2020 re-election campaign. Exit polls from 2016 showed him winning at just 12%.
Trump, however, said his standing among black voters has improved in his third presidential term, even though his policy proposals and his unfounded allegations and suspicions about voter fraud in large urban counties may alienate them.
For example, He tied Allocating federal funds to local police departments for rehabilitation Stop-and-frisk policyThis allows officers to randomly stop and search people for weapons. The strategy was criticized for targeting black men.
Trump and his allies have also raised unfounded fears of voter fraud in cities such as Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia. I promise to send over 100,000 lawyers and volunteers to monitor votes in swing states. His “horrible” comments about Milwaukee were more about “crime and voter fraud,” a campaign spokeswoman said at the time.
Meanwhile, a recent NBC News national poll Harris, the nation's first Black vice president, led Trump 84% to 11% among Black voters — the same lead President Joe Biden held four years ago.
But many Democrats worry that black voters, and black men in particular, will be more open to supporting Trump or less enthusiastic about voting than in the past.
“We have never seen the same kind of energy and participation in every corner of our neighborhoods and communities as we did when I was running,” said former President Barack Obama, the country's first black president. told volunteers before a rally last week, according to a pool report. “Now, I would also like to say that it seems more obvious with brothers.”
