Twenty miles and twenty hours are nothing. But in the middle of this past week, on the outskirts of Atlanta, they are a world. That is the distance in space and time that separates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on Wednesday night and Thursday night. The candidates for the presidency of the United States organize almost a face to face in the suburbs of the largest city in Georgia, a decisive state where part of their chances of capturing the keys to the White House are at stake. The collision of their campaigns in a territory so close the contrast stands out. There are two rallies, two candidates. And two Americas. So close and so far. Trump acts first, in a sports hall in Duluth, northwest of Atlanta, with capacity for 13,000 spectators. It comes with a tailwind, pushed by the polls and the Republican mobilization. Two days earlier, the ‘Atlanta Journal-Constitution’, the state’s main newspaper, published a survey in which it gave him a four-point advantage over Harris (47%-43%), something above the margin of error. And early voting data, both in person and by mail, show that Republican voters have indeed gone to the polls early and en masse. They did not do so in 2020, when Trump condemned early voting as a form of fraud. It no longer does so. Related News Standard campaign newspaper If you need a newspaper to tell you what to vote for Javier Ansorena and David Alandete There are two weeks left until the elections in the United States and Republicans and Democrats are redoubling their efforts to mobilize the electorate The crowds snake their way through a endless queue and exudes optimism. Some have been stationed here since five in the morning. They don’t want to miss the leader. Many, thousands, will be left out. “Trump has made progress in demographic groups where we Republicans previously had a disadvantage,” says David Currie, who demonstrates with a cap with the slogan ‘Trump 2020’ that he is not new to the cause. The line to enter his rally is a representation of this. Nothing to do with rural white America or industrial decline, nothing to do with the caricature of the ‘redneck’ (poor white) of the ‘rust belt’ in the north, nor with the ‘hillbillies’ (townies) of the ‘rust belt’. the Bible’ in the south. Here, in the row full of red caps with the letters MAGA (‘Make America Great Again’, the great motto of ‘Trumpism’), appears a suburban and diverse America. Gwinnett County, where Duluth is located, is the most racially diverse in Georgia and the fifth most racially diverse in the country. The wait is a small Tower of Babel where, in addition to English, you can hear Spanish, Tagalog, Chinese, and Russian. “Kamala represents open borders, high prices, problems,” says Vasili Buta, with a strong Slavic accent. “Trump defends our independence and our freedom, there is a feeling of urgency to return him to the White House,” Dee Torres says in Spanish. «With him we lived well. Without worries, he got along well with enemies, there were no wars. And look at us now,” adds Ron Chack, of Vietnamese origin, with his first-time English. Trump supporters say they defend animal rights after his hoax about immigrants eating pets JAVIER ANSORENA The lines are also phenomenal at Harris’ rally in Clarkston, another Atlanta suburb. The metal detectors are a bottleneck that allows the thousands of people who come to support the Democratic candidate to pass one by one. According to the Harris campaign, 23,000 people will fill the stands and the playing field of a local high school football field. Here the black minority is the majority. It is Harris’ electoral muscle in Georgia. Atlanta is the great city of the black middle class and needs to mobilize it en masse. “I have young sons and a granddaughter,” says Elise Alexander, sitting among the crowd on granite bleachers. “I’m here for your future.” Daniel Wright adds: “Trump represents hate and division, we have come too far in this country to let that happen.” Kamala’s rally is more festive in its preludes. A DJ encourages people to dance. There are songs for each electorate: a lot of ‘hip hop’ for African-Americans, one by Bob Marley for Caribbean people, ‘Danza Kuduro’ for Hispanics, ‘Sweet Caroline’ for white ladies, of which there are also many. In Trump’s, there is less party and more energy. In the previous speeches, there are eruptions of shouts with ‘USA’ or with ‘Fight, fight, fight!’ (“Fight, fight, fight!”) that Trump said after his assassination attempt in Pennsylvania in mid-July, turned into a war cry. Stars abound at Harris’ rally. “We’re not going back!” proclaims actor Samuel L. Jackson. Then Spike Lee makes people laugh when he says he calls Trump “Agent Orange.” Bruce Springsteen comes out with a guitar and a harmonica and sings that ‘I believe in the promised land’ thing. A woman, somewhat younger than the ‘Boss’, sheds tears. “Are you a bigger fan of Bruce or Kamala?” Just respond: “this is nothing, you’ll see when Obama comes out.” Because yes, Barack Obama is here too. He is the big star of the night and does his usual sharp, funny, preachy act against Trump. Former President Obama is the star of the Kamala Harris rally JAVIER ANSORENATrump doesn’t need stars around him because he is the star. Yes, he invites people like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard to the stage. But the shine is yours alone. With Kamala, perhaps those in attendance will feel hope. With Trump, it’s idolatry. At the Democrat’s rally, many people are in civilian clothes, not wearing anything that associates them with the candidate. In Trump’s, his face, his name, his MAGA slogan is everywhere. A rally by the New York billionaire is like a small Woodstock of politics. At the entrance, there is a Persian market with dozens of stalls where street vendors try to win customers with ingenious models. Among them, a t-shirt that disrupts some well-known children’s verses: ‘Roses are red, Kamala is not black, Joe has dementia and Hunter is crazy.’ “It has sold like hotcakes,” says the young man who sells them. There are also others with allusions to Trump’s divine destiny (“God had another plan,” says one about the assassination attempt) or vulgar ones: “Say no to the hoe ‘ (‘Say no to the bitch’), in reference to Kamala. People stand in line for hours in the sun here out of devotion to Trump. But also out of devotion to his pocket. Two passions that, for many, go together. “It’s the economy, stupid,” says Rick Marlette, who does not intend to insult, but to recall the hackneyed political adage of Jimmy Carville, Bill Clinton’s strategist in 1992. He says he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and for Joe Biden in 2020. But, after years of skyrocketing prices, it no longer matters: “The economy affects everyone.” He is wearing a cowboy hat with the name of the Republican candidate. When Ron Chack, that Vietnamese ‘Trumpist’, is asked what matters to him in the election, he only says one thing: “Inflation.” Trump, a spectacle At Kamala’s rally, they also talk about the economy. Of creating opportunities for the middle class, of fiscal policies “that do not benefit only those at the top and large companies,” says Kenneth Woghien. But there is an antipodean vision about what is at stake in the election. “Trump took away a lot of our rights,” says Jessie Javore, her eyes moist. She talks about the elimination of federal protections on access to abortion – determined by the Supreme Court with a conservative majority after Trump’s nomination of three judges -, one of Kamala’s great electoral assets. Others repeat the “fascist” label against Trump, which has gained weight in the final stretch of the campaign, as a way of expressing the threat that Trump poses to US democracy. Springsteen, before Kamala speaks, says that the former president seeks to be an “American tyrant.” Already on the podium, Harris begins his usual speech. Anyone who has been to a couple of his rallies can anticipate and repeat the phrases. The message may be important, but it tastes canned. And it unleashes applause and ovations, but not passion. Twenty miles and twenty hours away, Trump’s is another world. It lasts an hour and a half. He gets lost in dialectical meanderings, he finds himself in personal attacks against his rival. He tells anecdotes, imitates Emmanuel Macron, theatrically recreates conversations in the White House. People burst out laughing. It’s a political stand-up, it’s comedy and a rally at the same time. They are two rallies and two very different visions of America. They are only equal in two things: everyone who attends has a vote to try to impose theirs. And they all encounter a phenomenal traffic jam to get home, between the highways that spread out on the outskirts of Atlanta.
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