Philadelphia It is the poorest large city in the United States, with a rate that exceeds 20%. It is also the largest city in the main state that could define the election of the November 5, Pennsylvania, with its precious 19 electors in the Electoral College, the most among the seven swing states or swing states. The ticket to the White House is largely at stake here.
It is easy to observe it when following the itineraries of Kamala Harris and donald trumpwho focus many of their rallies throughout the state of almost 13 million people. It is also easy to see the situation of poverty of Philadelphia upon entering the neighborhood of Kensignton, chronically becoming a trend on social networks due to the fentanyl crisis, with images of hundreds of people consumed by that drug along an avenue over which a subway line passes.
“Before this down below was like a mall, like Everyone came down here to shop, now you can’t do that, almost all the stores are closed, they sell drugs in front of everyone, the children, no one cares. It’s been like this for years now, I don’t know like five years, and every year it gets worse,” he says. Maria Santiagodaughter of Puerto Ricans born in Philadelphia, like many in this neighborhood.
María works in a pizzeria that is still open to people who wander around, others who try to stand with their bodies bent over, all with damaged skin, eyes and gaze, in the middle of dirty sidewalks. He says that sometimes he has to put them out of business because they fall exhausted inside: “Many are white, majoritybut at the same time it is a mixture,” he says about those who “come here and get stuck” with a drug that devastates a city that was one of the main cities in the United States, when the country was just a part of what It’s now.
“I’m going to vote donald trumpI think it’s better. Everyone says they don’t like him because they say he’s racist, but the truth is, he says what it is, people sometimes don’t like the truth. The people I know vote for Trump, except for those who work here who are migrants and vote for Kamala, they say they are not going to vote for Trump because the people are going to rule. like to the countries where they come from,” says María Santiago. Law and order where there is none: “This city changed a lot, like “The police don’t do anything, they see someone putting something in their arm and they don’t do anything.”
deindustrialization
Kensington Years ago it was a manufacturing area of Philadelphia, an industrial city of a great industrial state. But most of the factories closed, they were moved to other parts of the country or outside the United States, such as Asia, and with deindustrialization, decayed neighborhoods were left, with houses attached to each other that follow one another for dozens of blocks, and a network of problems that have their most critical expression in the fentanyl crisis, a drug that paralyzes people in a stopped economy.
“I’ve been here all my life, the city is worse, it’s gotten bad. I’m not with one or the other, I don’t like either of the two candidates at all, Trump seems very arrogant to me and Kamala seems very false, and that’s what I’m in,” he says Jacquiewho set up a stand selling products on the corner of his house in the area of North Philadelphiato supplement her income as a nurse.
“The truth is that in this period I am not going to vote for anyone, no matter who it is and that it goes well for us. Last time I voted for Biden, It was believed that he would do more, now with Trump and Kamala I think it is a circus. I haven’t followed politics for a while now, I’m still doing my thing,” he says. Johnher husband, who continues the conversation. He nods in the answer, he will not vote either.
North Philadelphia has a Latino part, especially Puerto Rican, as seen in flags alternating with those of the United States and reggaeton on cars, and another African American part, a change that is noticeable in the faces crossing a few blocks. The images of a city falling apart are also repeated in those streets, where a portion of those close to the city are concentrated. 40% of the city’s population.
“I vote for the lady, I don’t like Donald Trump, he’s crazy, all those things he did in the White House, he did too many bad things, it’s racist“He doesn’t like migrants, he wants all the people from Mexico to leave, he doesn’t like anyone from other cultures other than the American one, he’s crazy,” he says. Brendaan African American. “He’s racist,” he repeats, and says that he voted for him the first time in 2016: “I gave him a chance, not now,” he says.
Brendy is in front of an immense abandoned building converted into a graffitied shell, with one of the graffiti that says “scars“, or scars in English. In Philadelphia, Trump’s slogan – or empty signifier – seems to be right, Make America Great Again, although not in this part: America was never great for African Americans, as the sociology study already showed The Philadelphia Blacks from the end of the 19th century.
Returning to the glorious past invoked by Trump is for sectors above all whitefrom the middle classes, well-paid workers, who lived better before neoliberalism that dismantled Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.
The Democratic stronghold in the battleground state
“The city has been governed by Democrats for decades, it is one of the main strongholds for them. When you talk about Pennsylvania as important swing state For the presidential elections, the most important votes for the Democrats come from Philadelphia because there is the largest number of voters,” he explains. Anlin Wangwho works for the NGO Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance, who supports Harris.
Wang works with the organization by touring the city house to house campaigning for the Democratic candidate: “When we ask people what their main concerns are, the top two most of the time are rising cost of livingand second the hostility against immigrantsespecially against those who come from the southern border, the way in which it is usually formulated is: I am concerned that there are too many immigrants in the United States“he explains.
“I see frustration in some cases with both candidates and people do not want to vote, but there is also an enthusiasm to go vote, Trump has a loyal social base, others are excited to vote for the first black president and the second black president, others believe that “Your vote is important in this election to save democracy.”
While Wang says “it’s pretty certain” that Harris will win in Philadelphia, the situation looks close in a state that has rural areas and smaller cities also hit by the pandemic. deindustrialization.
One of them is for example Bethlehemwhich had a large steel factory now converted into a casino, a metaphor for the change from productive to financial capitalism that left millions unemployed in Pennsylvania and the different states of the so-called Rust Belt o Rust Belt.
It is here then, in this city of large impoverished areas and other prosperous middle class areas such as the Italian neighborhood, where you can play the game. victory of the democratic candidate. The average of polls indicates for now a technical tie with less than one point of difference in a state where a crisis could occur, given that Trump is already agitating a fraud ghost: “Pennsylvania is cheating on a large scale, at levels never seen before,” he said in this final stretch of a race that will be played vote by vote, state by state.
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