The first day of the Republican National Convention began at Fiserv Forum, home to the city’s professional basketball team, in the aftermath of Saturday’s mass shooting at the former president’s rally in Pennsylvania. The rally was filled with defiant energy as delegates prepared to formally nominate Trump and welcome his newly chosen running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio.
Outside the venue, about 3,000 people, including representatives of more than 100 activist groups, gathered in a park near the arena for a long-planned protest against the Republican Party’s stance. In its platform, the coalition said it opposed the GOP’s “racist and reactionary policies,” which organizers say threaten the rights of women, the LGBTQ community and immigrants.
The twin events — the convention and the protests — were an early test of how Americans would react to the first assassination attempt on a president or candidate in more than four decades, one of the darkest and most divisive periods in recent history. Early indications were that little seemed to have changed on either side.
For Trump supporters, the shooting has only strengthened their resolve, becoming the latest and biggest grievance galvanizing a campaign focused on retaliation.
Anti-Trump protesters, meanwhile, faced the more delicate task of condemning what they saw as an existential threat to democracy while also condemning the violence that endangered his life — and there was little room for nuance in the language of their protest.
Organizers were careful to condemn political violence of any kind, but otherwise there was little change in rhetoric.
“Defeating Republican policies is a matter of life and death for working people and oppressed people.” of “We are not a democracy,” the Freedom Road socialist organization told a crowd of protesters preparing to march to the convention site.
Few speakers mentioned Saturday’s shooting, and rally coordinators said it hadn’t affected their plans. They said it was more important than ever to oppose Republican policies as vocally as possible.
“If we can’t do it now, are we going to do it when it’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ time?” protester Jackie Sparks, 69, said, referring to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel set in a totalitarian society. “I don’t want that to happen.”
Sparks, who drove from Chicago to attend the protest, said both the left and the right have contributed to a corrupt political discourse, but one side bears more responsibility.
“Both sides have made divisive rhetoric, but the most violent rhetoric has come from Trump’s side,” she said.
Kristin Newman Ortiz, president of Voces de la Frontera, Wisconsin’s largest immigrant rights group, said the country’s most vulnerable residents are still dealing with the dangerous fallout from Trump’s first term in office.
“There is no denying that Trump’s rhetoric, policies and actions have contributed to a climate of increased white supremacist violence and hate crimes, particularly against people of color,” she said.
“I think Republicans are experts in political violence,” Omar Flores, co-chair of the Coalition to March on the Republican National Convention, said in response to a question about the shootings.
The protests came from across the US, from Seattle and Los Angeles to Detroit and Washington, and across the ideological spectrum, from hardline Democrats to far-left critics of the establishment. Many said they were making the trip because the November election has never been more important.
“My message to the American people is please stop being complacent,” said Nadine Saylor of Waldorf, Md. “I just want people to get involved.”
Saylor, a US citizen of Trinidadian origin, was wearing a shirt that read “Stop Project 2025,” referring to conservative strategies to re-elect President Trump.
Nearby, Jim Schwartzberg, holding a tie-dyed sign explicitly denouncing Republicans, said he had traveled to Milwaukee from northern Wisconsin and was dismayed by the number of protesters.
“Obviously the other side is more interested,” he said, “and that’s the magic of Trump: He gets people out there who have never gotten off the couch.”
Other protesters echoed long-standing fears among Democrats that everything that has happened in this fractious presidential race has only strengthened Trump’s chances of reelection.
Lanai Blanford, who served in the Army for 20 years and was wearing a “Veterans Against Trump” tank top, said she worried the shooting would embolden Trump supporters and make them see him as a “hero and a martyr”.
At the same time, she said the attack was “horrible and deplorable.”
“We don’t do that in America,” she said. “We vote people out, we don’t shoot them.”
As demonstrators made their way through downtown Milwaukee, they were met by a small number of counter-demonstrators, mostly anti-abortion activists, holding signs comparing abortion procedures to domestic violence and murder.
At one point, a small number of counterprotesters shouted into megaphones that the protesters were going to hell.
“A bullet may be fired with your name on it today,” yelled the man leading the call. “You may not be as lucky as Trump and be able to dodge the bullet. It’s time to make peace with God!”
Another held a sign that read: “Homosexuality is a sin.”
As the march ended, one protester shouted, “It’s fun, come try it!”
Still, organizers were largely successful in putting on the “family-friendly” protest they promised. There was some harsh language between groups, but no clashes. Volunteer security guards helped separate participants as needed, and police presence was minimal, except for a few officers wearing light blue vests identifying them as members of Columbus’ Neighborhood Policing Team. Several more smaller rallies are planned for the rest of the week.
Demonstration coordinators promised even more turnout next month when Democrats hold their nominating convention in Chicago and the protests will focus on Israel’s war in Gaza.
Participants from both the left and right said they were not afraid to take part in the rally on Monday, even after the assassination attempt plunged the country into a new state of unrest.
“No matter where Trump is, this is the safest place in America right now,” said Dan Gilles, a Chicago graduate student who was among the counter-protesters wearing a “Make America Straight Again” hat.
But even as the status quo and toxic political dialogue seemed doomed, there were some in the crowd who sought harmony, including Joshua Hanson, 52, of Asheville, North Carolina.
Hanson, the government employee, bore a striking resemblance to Jeff Bridges’ character in “The Big Lebowski,” and was seen wandering the protest area wearing a shirt featuring the film’s slacker, go-with-the-flow type of protagonist.
Driving across the country on his way back from a Grateful Dead concert in Las Vegas, Hanson stopped in Milwaukee to preach the gospel of unity.
“We need healing as a nation. We are so divided,” he said. “We’re all lost. We’re all hurting. … We just need to come together and see what we can agree on.”
America will comply, he seemed to say.
Tebeau reported from Los Angeles.
