Residents and volunteers were urging a lowering of tensions Sunday in Milwaukee as Republicans descend on the city for their national convention just a day after Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally.
The lakeside municipality in battleground Wisconsin finds itself in the eye of a political and security maelstrom following the spasm of violence that has shaken the 2024 campaign and prompted questions about the country’s political polarization.
Police were enforcing a buffer zone in the fenced-off blocks around Fiserv Forum, the sports arena where some 2,400 Republican delegates from around the country will gather, beginning Monday, to formalize Trump as the party’s nominee for the third time since 2016.
And President Joe Biden, Trump’s election rival, said Sunday that following the shooting he has directed the Secret Service, the agency which protects US leaders, to “review all security measures… for the Republican National Convention.”
Several residents told AFP Sunday that they or their neighbors were nervous and on heightened alert, and were calling for an easing of the political pressure cooker.
“Tensions are high on both sides, and I think we’ve got to tone down the rhetoric,” said 60-year-old Trump supporter Martin Kutzler, who was walking in downtown Milwaukee wearing a T-shirt that depicts Trump as 1970s movie character The Godfather.
“Calling any American officeholder Hitler just throws gasoline on the rhetoric, and calling a current president Sleepy and Crooked is not advisable either,” said Kutzler, who works for Amazon.
He was referring to some of the ugly comparisons and nicknames that have been thrown around to describe Trump and Biden — at times by the candidates themselves.
Resident Becca, 25, was walking her dog with her mother along the Milwaukee River when she paused to ruminate over the “kind of crazy” preparations for the convention — and the passions that are driving US voters.
“It is scary that people are this heated about an election,” Becca, who declined to give her last name, told AFP, recalling the trauma from Saturday in Pennsylvania.
“And with everything going on, like we’re a little nervous.” she added. “I hope that they don’t take it and escalate it in certain ways.”
Lynn Quirk, who owns multiple college housing units in town, stood somberly watching the proceedings at a security checkpoint outside the convention arena.
“Everybody I talk to is just really super shocked,” the 60-year-old Milwaukee native said. “It’s a crazy time.”
“Talking with my neighbors yesterday, people are nervous,” she added. “Some people were going to come down here and look around. Now everybody’s like, ‘Yeah, no I don’t need to come.'”
– ‘More vigilant’ –
High metal fencing rings the perimeter area and police vessels patrol the river. An employee of a downtown food establishment conceded that merchants have been meeting and coordinating with the Secret Service.
Security forces are believed to number in the thousands, including hundreds of police from states as far as California.
“Obviously, we’re going to be more vigilant — not that we weren’t going to be vigilant before. But with yesterday’s events, the security is going to be heightened obviously,” said Captain Anthony Scott, one of 63 Indiana State Police officers joining the sprawling operation.
But for some, like convention volunteer and self-described “huge Republican” Becky Hawkins, who grew up in Milwaukee, the crisis of the past 24 hours has bolstered their resolve.
“I feel pretty safe being here,” said Hawkins, wearing a Milwaukee Brewers baseball shirt.
As for the shooting? “I’m not shocked, I’m just sad,” she said. But “it makes me want to be here even more.”
