We met Cynthia Ginyard at the end of December 2019, in Texas, in her residential pavilion in Fort Bend. This African-American, local leader of the Democratic Party, had received us at her home when Michael Bloomberg was campaigning in the suburbs of Houston.
This Thursday, October 29, she is overwhelmed, and invites us all joyfully to one of the rare field events organized by the Democrats – for those who dare to go outside -: “There’s Joe Biden’s bus going at 3pm tomorrow at High Tower High School, come on. ” We arrive on the scene, after looking in vain for a restaurant in this immense district, made up of subdivisions with almost identical houses, where the car is king. We will take a look in the gymnasium of the school: the early voting operations take place there normally, calmly.
“Roll back the leftists”
Then, in the parking lot, we see a pick-up unloading, from which Moni Casarez comes out. This 46 year old Latino, MAGA cap (“Make America great again”, pro-Trump slogan) screwed on the head, earrings in the colors of the Republican Party, is all smiles: “There will be a surprise”, she explains to us. An accountant in an oil company, she says she moved to downtown Houston, “To push back the leftists”.
She goes to get her pistol, which she slips in her jeans – “I wear it all the time. The last time, I had my tires punctured because I had a Trump sign ”-, and chatting to defend, with her friends, the “Latino values” : “If you are a Christian, you cannot vote a Democrat. We cannot argue with the leftists. I hate being told I should be ashamed, as a Latino, to vote Trump. “
And then suddenly the “Surprise” arrives, the parade of about thirty pick-ups, honking their horns, loudspeakers, bearing Republican flags. At the end of the convoy, two military vehicles. It is believed to be the police. No, these are two devices used by Doug Gaither, 59, a shock Republican with a pistol in his belt, who came with his sign to defend oil exploitation: “Oil Lives Matter”, says the slogan, hijacking from Black Lives Matter (“black lives matter”). This small business boss is asked if he’s not bullying Democrats: ” Why ? I didn’t run over anybody ”, he replies.
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