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    Will the Republican convention be good for Milwaukee businesses?

    For Ricky Ramirez, posting “stupid shit” on the Facebook page of his bar, the Mothership, is one way he draws in customers to taste the clever cocktails he crafts in Milwaukee’s trendy Bay View neighborhood.Yet a March post that Ramirez wrote in his typically profanity-laced, punctuation-free style declaring that the bar would close over the period of the Republican national convention, which begins in Wisconsin’s most populous city next week, brought him the sort of attention he never wanted.“Sup idiots we haven’t lost a lot of followers in a while so here we go … as everything gets amplified with like the RNC shitshow coming to town lmao I would like to formally state that we’re shutting bar down during the week of because fuck that noise,” Ramirez wrote.“I’m not trying to get involved with or actively take money or rent the space out to that tomfoolery.”The announcement of the temporary closure, which Ramirez wrote out of dissatisfaction with what both political parties have to offer ahead of the November election, attracted hundreds of likes and comments, and was written up by several major media outlets. But not long after, angry emails and messages began arriving, as well as outright threats, one of which was mailed from Florida, and which Ramirez said the police are investigating.“There’s a lot of things that happen that I don’t agree with and I don’t ever want to like, you know, ruin someone’s life over it,” Ramirez said in an interview. “But people are really into this.”Ramirez’s experience is the exception in a city where many businesses were hoping for a surge in bookings and reservations connected to the four-day convention, during which the GOP is expected to formally nominate Donald Trump as their presidential candidate.Yet he is not alone in finding the RNC to be a confounding experience, even before its Monday opening. While many restaurants, bars and venues have indeed seen a flood of business connected to the convention, others have seen a mere trickle, or nothing at all.“The whole big promise of what the RNC said it was going to be is not shaking out to be that way,” said Adam Siegel, the James Beard award-winning chef-owner of Lupi & Iris, a Mediterranean restaurant in downtown Milwaukee.He had expected that one of the many organizations or businesses that sets up shop on the sidelines of the convention would book out his whole restaurant, which lies outside the convention’s security perimeter, and is regarded as one of Milwaukee’s finest eateries.Instead, his only firm booking so far is a small dinner in one of his private rooms, and though he has received more inquiries lately, Siegel has put up signs reminding customers that they will remain accessible during the convention, in hopes of maintaining steady business.Victor Matheson, an economics professor at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, who has studied the impact of political conventions on cities and their businesses, said conventions, with their crowds, security and road detours, can undercut other industries.Bookings at Broadway theaters were down 20% compared with a typical summer week when Republicans held their convention in New York City in 2004, his research found. And unlike an event that brings similar demands on a city’s downtown, such as a city hosting the Super Bowl, political conventions don’t do much for civic pride, at least not in the current era of hyper-partisanship.“These conventions are disruptive without any kind of glow associated with them,” Matheson said.Milwaukee was initially supposed to host the Democratic national convention in 2020 until the party dramatically downsized that event and held much of it virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Now it will play host to Trump’s coronation, while the Democrats are expected to renominate Joe Biden later on in August, in Chicago.“If you go back to when the DNC was going to be here in 2020, I mean, we saw inquiries, bookings, conversations about catering, stuff like that,” said Dan Jacobs, co-owner of American-Chinese restaurant DanDan. “This definitely doesn’t have the same feel whatsoever.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe tourism bureau, Visit Milwaukee, estimates that 50,000 people will come to town for the convention, 16,000 hotel room nights will be booked and the total economic impact could rise to $200m. Venues as large as the American Family Field, where the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team plays, have reportedly been booked for parties connected to the convention.The RNC could also give heightened prominence to GOP candidates in a swing state that is crucial to Trump’s hopes of retaking the White House, and where the party hopes to oust the Democratic senator Tammy Baldwin, who is up for re-election in November.“It is a state that’s certainly in play politically. So if that drives people to come here to see our city, I just hope that the entire city views this as an opportunity to show off Milwaukee and Wisconsin in the best light possible,” said Paul Bartolotta, the chef and owner of the Bartolotta Restaurants, who said he had been “exceedingly pleased” with bookings for everything from buffet lunches to hors d’oeuvres receptions at his restaurants and catering venues.“It’s an incredibly charged political environment, and you just need to let that noise go away and focus on taking care of your employees and making sure that we’re taking care of our guests.”Gary Witt, president and CEO of the Pabst Theater Group, is bracing for a week in which he expects to lose about $100,000 since five of his six venues have no bookings connected to the convention, and many touring acts are avoiding the city. He wonders if things might have been different had Trump not staged a controversial takeover of the Republican National Committee earlier this year, or if the GOP had nominated a different candidate who would have attracted more donor support for the convention.“Once the candidate was announced, there were tremendous changes that were placed that impacted the RNC by the candidate, and that created a lot more confusion and disorganization within the RNC, and probably added to the delays of getting anything done,” Witt said.The former president did not help matters by reportedly calling Milwaukee a “horrible city” in a closed-door meeting with Republicans in Washington DC, though he tried to control the damage by declaring “I love Milwaukee” days later during a rally in nearby Racine. The predominantly Democratic city’s leaders are nonetheless rolling out the welcome mat, knowing that the convention could be a boon to its economy.“I welcome those types of comments from a guy who has extremely bad taste,” Milwaukee’s Democratic county executive, David Crowley, said in an interview on the sidelines of an event hosted by the Biden-Harris campaign in Milwaukee, two weeks before the convention was to start.“Our expectation is we’re going to have thousands of people descending on Milwaukee county, and it is our job to make sure that they have the greatest party that they have,” he said.“Even though I don’t agree with any of their policies or their nominee, for us, it’s about how do we make sure that we can showcase our community, so in the future, we can bring more conventions and conferences to Milwaukee.” More

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    Republicans to descend on Milwaukee – where they’ve been trying to dilute Black voting power

    Shortly after the 2022 midterm elections, Robert Spindell sent out an email to his fellow Republicans explaining why he was pleased with the results even though Tony Evers, a Democrat, had just won a second term.Spindell, one of three Republicans on the body that oversees elections in Wisconsin, said “we can be especially proud of the City of Milwaukee (80.2% Dem vote) casting 37,000 less votes than cast in the 2018 election with the major reduction happening in the overwhelming Black and Hispanic areas.”The comment sparked outrage and calls for Spindell to resign. Spindell, who also served as a fake elector in 2020, has refused, saying, “The last thing I want to do is suppress votes.”While it was astonishing to see a top Republican official boasting of lower voter turnout with such bluntness, it wasn’t surprising to anyone to see Republicans celebrating fewer votes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s most populous city.Nearly 223,000 Black people live in Milwaukee – roughly 60% of Wisconsin’s entire Black population. That means that Black voters in the city can have an outsize effect on election outcomes in the state – they have long been a bastion of Democratic votes and are crucial for any Democrat who wants to win the state (More than one out of every 10 votes Joe Biden received in Wisconsin in 2020 came from the city of Milwaukee). Activists have long understood attacks on the city to be code for attacks on Black voters.Now Republicans are set to descend on the city they have long attacked to formally nominate Donald Trump to a second term at the Republican national convention in July.“They’re not coming here because they love the city of Milwaukee at all,” said Angela Lang, the executive director of Black Leaders Organizing Communities, a non-profit in the city. The decision to hold the GOP convention in Milwaukee, a city Lang said Republicans often “say racist dog whistles about” was a “slap in the face”.Republicans have not shied away from using coded language to attack the city. In 2013, as Republicans debated a measure to curtail early voting, state senator Scott Fitzgerald said “the question of where this is coming from and why are we doing this and why are we trying to disenfranchise people, I mean, I say it’s because the people I represent in the 13th district continue to ask me, ‘What is going on in Milwaukee?’”Donald Trump, for his part, has directly insulted Milwaukee, reportedly telling fellow Republicans in June it was a “horrible city”.Both Democrats and Republicans have touted the economic benefits the event will bring to the city. And Reince Priebus, the former RNC chair who led the effort to bring the convention to Milwaukee, said having the event in the city would bring around $200m in economic benefits and would focus Republican attention on Wisconsin, a critical battleground state. The convention, Priebus said in 2023, “can turn a purple state where only 20,000 people will decide who those electoral votes will go to”.“They have no shame,” said Greg Lewis, a minister in Milwaukee who leads the Souls to the Polls, a non-profit that works to educate churchgoers and get them to vote. Historically, the program has been remarkably successful in mobilizing Black voters.“Even though they have totally tried to abolish folks in our community from expressing themselves with their vote, they still want you to support a system or an organization or a party that is totally against them expressing their power,” Lewis said.In 2018, Robin Vos, the Republican who serves as the powerful speaker of the Wisconsin assembly, said his party would have done better in statewide elections “if you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula”.Republicans have also used their impenetrable, gerrymandered majorities in the state legislature to attack Milwaukee and its Black residents, including passing a sweeping voter ID measure and moving to limit early voting in the city. Non-white voters are more than four times more likely to lack a current ID than their white counterparts. One study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison found that voter ID in Wisconsin discouraged up to 23,000 people in Milwaukee and Dane counties from voting in the 2016 election.In 2016, US district judge James Peterson struck down a Republican-enacted law trying to limit the amount of early voting in the state. He noted that the practice was especially popular among Latino and Black voters. Milwaukee at the time allowed for more early voting than other places in the state.“The legislature’s ultimate objective was political: Republicans sought to maintain control of the state government. But the methods that the legislature chose to achieve that result involved suppressing the votes of Milwaukee’s residents, who are disproportionately African American and Latino,” he wrote. An appeals court has since overturned Peterson’s ruling.Turnout in the city in 2016 dropped by 41,000 votes compared with 2012, nearly double Donald Trump’s margin of victory in the state. When Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin in 2016, turnout in Black wards in the city was around 58%, according to a Journal Sentinel analysis. In 2020, it fell to 51%. Black turnout has lagged after white turnout in the city in the last presidential and gubernatorial elections, according to data analyzed by John Johnson, a researcher at Marquette University.“They’re going to places with large concentrations of Black people – that is the most hope we have at building Black political power in the state,” Lang said, referring to Republican efforts to restrict voting rights.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn 2020, Donald Trump and his campaign waged an aggressive, ultimately unsuccessful, legal effort to get votes in Milwaukee and Madison thrown out as part of his effort to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in Wisconsin. He did not request a recount in any other county in the state.LaTonya Johnson, a Democrat who represents Milwaukee in the state senate, said it was no secret why Republicans were targeting the city. She said she had pleaded with her colleagues in the legislature to support legislation to curb gun violence in the city but had been rebuffed.“Republicans always make it seem like the bulk of – if they feel that there’s fraud – in the system that is coming from the city of Milwaukee, right? And the question is why? Because Milwaukee is majority minority,” she said in an interview.For the last few months, Lewis and Souls to the Polls have been calling for the executive director of the Wisconsin Republican party, Andrew Iverson, to resign. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published text messages earlier this year that showed Iverson trying to sabotage Souls to the Polls operations on election day in 2020. The text messages showed Iverson, then the head of Trump victory, a joint effort of the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, asking a Trump campaign staffer if he could get Trump supporters to use Souls to the Polls on election day.“I’m excited about this. Wreak havoc,” he said in one text message published by the Journal Sentinel. Iverson, who did not respond to an interview request, has denied wrongdoing, saying he was joking. Another Republican staffer told the Journal Sentinel that he took the messages to overwhelm Souls to the Polls.Beyond voting, Republicans have also attacked Milwaukee in other ways. As the city faced serious fiscal issues last year, lawmakers approved a measure allowing Milwaukee officials to raise taxes, but also imposed new restrictions on the city.The bill contained provisions that gave the city less control over the city’s fire and police commission and said it could not spend revenue on diversity initiatives, and limited how much could be spent on non-profits and the arts. The city was also blocked from using state funding on a local streetcar project.Lang said she and her staff planned to leave the city during the convention, but would have some virtual programming. “I have serious safety concerns,” she said.Attendees of the convention will be allowed to carry guns within the “soft” security perimeter around the Fiserv forum, the arena where the convention will be held, but not within a tighter “hard” security perimeter closer to the arena. The city could not ban the carrying of firearms because of a state law that prohibits localities from restricting them.“The same type of people who write manifestos, and shoot up grocery stores with people that look like me, they find home in the Republican party, and now we’re rolling out the red carpet to them in a predominantly Black and brown city that is largely Democratic, and I think that is a recipe for disaster,” Lang said.Still, Lang said she planned to use the convention as an opportunity to educate voters about the meaning of their vote.“If people are like, ‘I don’t really believe in politics or it’s so dysfunctional, I have no faith in it right now,’ well, there’s one party in particular that is happy when you don’t vote,” she said. More

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    The winners and losers of the first GOP debate – podcast

    Republican presidential candidates took to the stage this week to try to convince voters they should be the one to take on Joe Biden in 2024. There was one notable exception – but Donald Trump was still inescapable for his opponents.
    Joan E Greve speaks to the former GOP communications director Tara Setmayer about everyone’s performance on the night, and whether these debates even matter when the missing frontrunner is so far ahead in the polls

    How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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    Republicans feud over Trump, abortion and climate in first 2024 primary debate

    Republican presidential candidates clashed over Donald Trump’s legal woes during the first primary debate of the 2024 campaign season, underscoring the former president’s absence from the event and casting a spotlight on his potential vulnerabilities in a general election rematch against Joe Biden.Nearly an hour into the debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Fox News hosts Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier asked the eight candidates on the stage whether they would still support Trump as the Republican presidential nominee if he were convicted of the charges he faces. Six candidates – North Carolina’s Governor Doug Burgum, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, the former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, the former vice-president Mike Pence, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina’s Senator Tim Scott – indicated they would still support Trump. Only two candidates – the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson – said they would not.Christie, a vocal critic of Trump, called on the fellow debate participants to “stop normalizing this conduct”.“Whether or not you believe that the criminal charges are right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the office of the president of the United States,” Christie said. When his criticism was met with some boos from the debate crowd, Christie added: “Booing is allowed, but it doesn’t change the truth.”Ramaswamy jumped on Christie’s comments, echoing Trump’s complaints about the alleged politicization of federal law enforcement. “We have to end the weaponization of justice in this country,” Ramaswamy said.The debate came one day before Trump was expected to surrender to authorities in Fulton county, Georgia, where he has been charged on 13 felony counts related to his efforts to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory in the state. The former president faces 91 total felony counts across four criminal cases.But a CBS News/YouGov survey compiled last week found that Trump now holds his largest polling lead to date, as he won the support of 62% of likely Republican primary voters. The survey showed Trump beating his next closest competitor, DeSantis, by 46 points, with every other candidate mired in the single digits.Rather than attending the debate, Trump chose to sit down for an interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, which was available on X, formerly known as Twitter, minutes before the debate began. Trump cited his standing in the polls to justify skipping the debate, mocking his opponents’ struggles to gain momentum in the race.“You see the polls that have come out, and I’m leading by 50 and 60 points and some of them are at one and zero and two. And I’m saying, do I sit there for an hour or two hours or whatever it’s going to be and get harassed by people who shouldn’t even be running for president?” Trump told Carlson. “I just felt it would be more appropriate not to do the debate.”Although Trump’s absence and his criminal charges shaped much of the debate, the candidates also sparred over key policy issues like abortion and climate change. Discussing federal abortion policy in the wake of the reversal of Roe v Wade, Pence praised a 15-week abortion ban as “an idea whose time has come” and DeSantis expressed pride over signing Florida’s six-week abortion ban into law.But Haley was more hesitant to embrace a potential federal ban, a proposal that is widely unpopular with the American people. Describing herself as “unapologetically pro-life”, Haley argued a federal ban would not pass Congress and called on Democrats and Republicans to “find consensus” on abortion access.Discussing the climate crisis, Ramaswamy drew some boos from the debate crowd when he denied the unequivocal truth of human-made climate change. “The climate change agenda is a hoax,” Ramaswamy said.Christie retorted: “I’ve had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT.”It was one of several insults directed at Ramaswamy, who has climbed into a distant third place in national polls. Mocking Ramaswamy’s inexperience, Pence said: “Now is not the time for on-the-job training. We don’t need to bring in a rookie.”Several other presidential candidates – including the rightwing commentator Larry Elder, the former Texas congressman Will Hurd and the mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez – failed to meet the Republican National Committee’s qualifications for the debate, leaving them out of the event and further diminishing their primary prospects. Hurd elected to live-tweet his reactions to the debate, and he criticized his opponents who said they would still support Trump in the event of a conviction.“Anyone who raises their hand in support of Donald Trump as our party’s nominee even if convicted in a court of law is unfit to serve as president,” Hurd said.But Trump’s criminal charges appear to have only fortified his position as the frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary. According to the CBS poll, 73% of Trump’s voters say they back the former president partly to “show support for his legal troubles”.With such stalwart support for Trump among the Republican base, it remains unclear how any of the participants in the Monday debate could capture the nomination. The electoral threat of nominating a twice-impeached former president, who now faces nearly 100 criminal charges, did not escape the attention of at least one debate participant.“We have to face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America,” Haley said. “We can’t win a general election that way.”The Guardian’s David Smith contributed reporting from Milwaukee More

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    ‘Tired of trickle-down economics’: Biden calls for expansion of unions in Labor Day speech

    ‘Tired of trickle-down economics’: Biden calls for expansion of unions in Labor Day speechPresident again pledges to be ‘most pro-union president’ in history during speech in Milwaukee Joe Biden used a Labor Day speech in the battleground state of Wisconsin to endorse the expansion of unions, reiterating his election promises to be the “most pro-union president” in American history.The US president argued in Milwaukee that a skilled, unionised workforce would help the US regain its place as a world leader in infrastructure and manufacturing.Drawing on Franklin D Roosevelt’s explicit support for unions during the New Deal, Biden said: “I am encouraging unions … we need key worker protections to build an economy from the bottom up and middle out. I am sick and tired of trickle-down economics.”Biden’s comments come amid a major resurgence for the labor movement in the US, with more support for unions than at any time in the past 60 years, especially as low-paid workers across a range of industries try unionising.Biden warns US democracy imperiled by Trump and Maga extremistsRead moreEarlier on Monday, Biden came out in support of a proposed law in California, the Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Choice Act – currently on Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk – that would make it easier for farmhands to organise.“The least we owe them is an easier path to make a free and fair choice to organize a union,” Biden said.The Labor Day holiday in an election year typically marks the start of the final sprint before the November vote. With so much at stake in this year’s midterm elections, Biden and Republican leaders are revving up the rhetoric.There is also fevered speculation about whether Donald Trump will announce, before the election, a fresh run for the Republican nomination to recapture the White House in 2024, while he is embroiled in a host of criminal and civil investigations, from New York to Georgia.In Wisconsin, Biden again attempted to distinguish between the type of mainstream Republicans whom he has previously worked with and the “extreme right, Maga Republicans, Trumpies”, he said, who “pose a threat to democracy and economic security, and embrace political violence”.His use of the word “Trumpies” lit up social media. Biden in office has largely avoided referring to his predecessor by name in public or taking direct aim at his loyalist voter base.But last month he referred to the phenomenon of extremist Republicans hewing unshakably to Trump’s “Make America great again” nationalist agenda amid encouragement of “political violence” as “semi-fascism”, then last week said the US was in a battle for the soul of the nation.Biden refers to MAGA republicans as “The Trumpies” pic.twitter.com/I49hQZRzIe— Acyn (@Acyn) September 5, 2022
    On Monday he said: “You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-democracy,” referring to defenders of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by extremist Trump supporters hoping to overturn Biden’s victory. Biden continued on the campaign trail from Milwaukee to Pittsburgh for his third visit to Pennsylvania in a week – underscoring the importance of the swing state, which the president, a Pennsylvania native, won back for the Democrats in 2020. Trump, who won Pennsylvania in 2016, rallied there on Saturday.After months of dire polling, the signs are more positive for Biden and the Democrats after a spate of legislative and policy wins, including getting a historic bill to tackle the climate crisis and healthcare costs over the line.Could unexpected Democratic gains foil a midterm Republican victory?Read moreThe US supreme court’s decision in June to overturn the right to abortion also seems to be galvanising the Democrat base, independent and swing voters, especially women, which could hurt Republicans at the polls.In Wisconsin, Biden listed some of his administration’s key victories for workers and ordinary Americans through last year’s American Rescue Act (Arpa) and most recently the Inflation Reduction act (IRA) – without any Republican support.TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsWisconsinMilwaukeeUS unionsDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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    Biden tackles white supremacy in town hall: Politics Weekly Extra

    As Joe Biden visited Milwaukee, Wisconsin this week, our guest presenter Kenya Evelyn spoke to the state representative David Bowen about the administration’s early obligations to the Black voters who swung the election in the Democrats’ favour, racial equity in pandemic and vaccine plans, and how the president should combat white supremacy

    How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

    Joe Biden took the stage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this week for his first town hall since entering the White House. For some, it was a necessary first step toward combatting racial inequities in the economy and healthcare made worse by the coronavirus. People in the audience asked the president how he was going to make sure everyone got a vaccine, and how he planned to combat white supremacy in the country. Watching intently was David Bowen, a state lawmaker and one of the young progressive Democrats leading the party forward. He told Kenya about his thoughts on the new Biden administration. Send us your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More

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    'Don't take Black voters for granted': Milwaukee leaders and activists warn Democrats

    Black voting power

    Milwaukee

    The pandemic forced the Democratic convention to go virtual, but some feel the party abandons the Black communities that get them elected

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    12:46

    Black voting power: the fight for change in Milwaukee, one of America’s most segregated cities

    As protesters outside Wauwatosa’s city hall shouted “wake up, wake up”, to energize the crowd, activist Charley Frazier remarked how just miles away, the Democratic national convention (DNC) had kicked off on what was The People’s Revolution’s 81st night of demonstrations. The coalition of organizers are made up of young activists challenging the current political system and trying to force systemic change.
    “This is the Milwaukee they don’t want you to see,” she said. “[It’s] very segregated. You’re not even welcome out [in the suburbs], and when you do travel out there, you’re targeted.”
    More than 50,000 visitors were expected to descend on Brew City – as the largest city in Wisconsin is known – for its convention, but when the pandemic forced Democrats to go virtual, the fallout hit like a shockwave for a host city already reeling from the brunt of Wisconsin’s coronavirus outbreak and the recession that followed.
    An anticipated $200m economic boom instead spiraled into a substantial loss. The pivot also proved to be the final straw for many of the city’s African American residents. The coronavirus shutdown worsened national crises that disproportionately devastated Black Americans across the country, exacerbating racial inequalities in Milwaukee.
    “There’s this old saying from the Black community that ‘when America catches a cold, the Black community catches pneumonia,’” said Reggie Jackson, a columnist with the Milwaukee Independent, and historian with the National Black Holocaust Museum located in the city. More

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    Black voting power: the fight for change in Milwaukee, one of America’s most segregated cities

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    12:46

    Guardian US reporter Kenya Evelyn travels home to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, one of the most segregated cities in the country to find out what Joe Biden and the Democratic party can do to truly earn the votes of Black Americans.  
    Democrats dealt Milwaukee another economic blow by moving their national convention online, crushing Black residents already feeling the brunt of a national crisis. They’re fed up, calling out racial inequality and a party some say ignores their issues until it’s time to vote. From generations of moderate elders leaving their legacy, to their young, progressive peers taking to the streets, Black Milwaukeeans are using the power of their voices and votes to demand change

    Topics

    US elections 2020

    Black voting power

    Wisconsin

    Milwaukee

    Joe Biden

    Democrats More