Friendly faces noted amidst political divide as the city hosted the GOP convention.
MILWAUKEE, Wis.—The vast spaces of the Baird Center were emptying out. The delegates, vendors, reporters, and other attendees of the 2024 Republican National Convention had vanished. The spectacle, Republicans’ first since 2016, was over, the throng long gone.
On the afternoon of July 19, men and women who had worked intensely over the past several days, sometimes at time-and-half pay, were taking down the remaining media booths.
Down the street, a team disassembled the words “Trump 2024.” They’d been spelled out in three-dimensional letters in front of the Fiserv Forum, where the former president addressed his party the previous night.
In interviews with The Epoch Times, the convention workers, employees of nearby restaurants, and others who had experienced the RNC said the Cream City’s guests were pleasant.
Andrew Rode, venue events staff at the Baird Center, said people were “very friendly, very polite [and] cordial.”
“They didn’t want to talk politics with me. They were talking about the Milwaukee Brewers and the weather here, and, ‘Where’s the Fonzie statue?’”
The statue commemorating the character from the sitcom “Happy Days” was a few blocks away, along the Milwaukee River.
A waitress at a nearby coffee shop noted that she wasn’t personally aligned with the Republican Party—she lamented having to choose between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden and couldn’t see herself voting for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Yet, despite the gap with at least some of her customers, she described the people she served as “pretty nice and understanding about the volume we were having.”
“It was a pretty pleasant experience,” she added.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Trump
While accepting the GOP nomination at the RNC, former President Trump thanked “the extraordinary people of Milwaukee and the great state of Wisconsin.”
At a rally in nearby Racine on June 18, the former president rejected the idea that he had slammed the RNC’s host city.
“I love Milwaukee. I said, ‘You got to fix the crime. We all know that. You got to make sure the election’s honest,’” he said.
In addition to praising Wisconsin, former President Trump’s RNC speech hit on unity, as he called for Americans to unite across party lines. Yet, it had its share of more partisan rhetoric, much of it familiar to any frequent listener to his stump speeches.
Grayce McCormick, a marketer and registered Democrat who spends some of her time in Milwaukee, told The Epoch Times that despite the unifying message, mainly through former President Trump’s efforts in the first half of his speech, the overall impact on Milwaukee and Wisconsin is more complex.
“The event brought significant attention and economic activity to the area, which is a positive aspect and a testament to the potential of such political events,“ she said. ”However, the divisive political climate and varying viewpoints among attendees made it challenging to achieve true unity.”
Wisconsin GOP Chair Brian Schimming told The Epoch Times, “We’re excited here in Wisconsin.”
While some Wisconsin Republicans, including former House Speaker Paul Ryan, did not attend the Fiserv Forum, former RNC head Reince Priebus and former Gov. Tommy Thompson were present.
Mr. Schimming, who said he sat next to former Gov. Scott Walker, said Mr. Thompson’s choice to close out the RNC was unifying. He’s seen as a moderate capable of drawing in both Democrats and Republicans, as he did during gubernatorial elections during the 1990s.
“This is a really unified party right now,” the state party leader said.
Police Discount at Restaurant
The bar & grill Major Goolsby’s was still fenced in on the afternoon of July 19. A sign out front instructed customers to walk in through a hard-to-spot door in the fence.
Located diagonally across the street from the Baird Center, the restaurant is within the perimeter guarded by federal and local law enforcement from across the country.
Bartender Jason Metke told The Epoch Times that news of the establishment’s longstanding discount for cops—“half off [for] law enforcement if you’re in uniform”—quickly spread among the men and women protecting the event.
He said they were all “super nice.”
“Let’s just say we weren’t worried about getting robbed at that time,” he quipped.
“It was a smooth ride,” said Yuri Garrido of Kleen Teem, a contractor involved in the RNC.
Ms. Garrido, who was sitting at a table at Major Goolsby’s, had positive things to say about the people she interacted with at the convention.
She worries about the future of America for her daughter and son, both in high school. Her daughter aspires to be a cardiologist, while her son intends to join the U.S. Navy.
“How are we going to work together to make our nation better?” she asked.
