When we arrived at the Carpenters Union Training House, we thought we had the wrong destination: some seventy supporters of Donald Trump, red caps “Make America Great Again”, chanted slogans favorable to the outgoing president. In reality, these activists had decided to form a “welcoming committee” for Democratic candidate Joe Biden, who was meeting in the suburbs of Duluth, Minnesota mining port on the shores of Lake Superior and hometown of Bob Dylan. A meeting on the sly, this Friday, September 18, like all the events organized by Joe Biden. His agenda is announced the day before, the approximate location less than two hours before the event, to prevent any crowds. The Republicans, connected on social networks, came back, delighted with their coup, while the Democratic activists looked a little lonely, also kept in the dark of the location of the demonstration and outnumbered by their opponents.
The activists were especially excluded from the demonstration which took place behind closed doors, 100 meters from them, with the two state senators, Democrats Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar, a few handpicked media journalists, the ” pool ”. The contrast was stark with the meeting the day before in mid-Wisconsin, where some 1,500 activists had waited for hours outside an airport hangar to watch a superstar Donald Trump get off his presidential plane and give them some for their wait with a interminable speech.
“We are a little disappointed not to be admitted to re-enter, it is a closed event”, laments Democrat Lynn Welshinger, a 72-year-old retired hairdresser. But in this small assembly, where everyone wears the mask, unlike the Republicans across the street, we are understanding. “It’s the law: gatherings are not allowed. It’s smart, unlike Donald Trump who endangered people with his rally in Oklahoma ”, said Patricia McNulty, 66.
Inside, Joe Biden is campaigning without an audience, but in front of a well-framed camera, with machine tools in front of him, in a Democratic state that nearly fell for Donald Trump in 2016. A constructed speech, which contrasted with Trump’s rambling and overly long style. Increases in tone, to mark authority, repetitions for pedagogy. The virtual Democratic convention had staged Joe Biden, the sympathetic man tested by life (his first wife and his daughter died in a car accident, his son died of cancer). This Friday, it’s Joe Biden, the son of a modest family, born in industrious Pennsylvania.
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