TheEconomistSeptember 5th 2020 211I
n the mostgenteel suburbs around Mil-
waukee, in southern Wisconsin, the
quaintness can be overpowering. Enor-
mous baskets of flowers hang from
Victorian-style street lamps along the
main street of Cedarburg, a riverside town
in Ozaukee County. Tourists, caught in a
summer downpour, may choose to take
their shelter with a chocolatier, a cake-
maker, two wineries or a French bakery.
Cedarburg is also an avowedly conser-
vative place. In the previous presidential
election, the county preferred Donald
Trump by a margin of 19 percentage points.
Although a poster for Black Lives Matter
adorns the front door of one shop—a pur-
veyor of colourful socks—a worker whis-
pers that it has provoked several com-
plaints. One customer called to say he
would never return because of it. Another
declared it offensive (even here, cancel cul-
ture reigns). Locals exist in a “Cedarbubble”
says a young barista nearby. The city’s pop-ulation was 94% white at the last census.
The barista says many folk avoid visiting
Milwaukee, the large and much less white
metropolis just 30 minutes away, fearful of
its reputation for crime.
Ozaukee and the other similarly popu-
lous, wealthy and twee counties west of
Milwaukee are usually comfortable terrain
for Republicans. High turnout and high
margins typically counterbalance Demo-
cratic voters in the cities. But the suburbs
now look rocky for Mr Trump’s re-election
chances, which, just as last time, may re-quire knife-edge victories in the Midwest.
He has consistently trailed Joe Biden, his
Democratic opponent, by five percentage
points in Wisconsin since May, notes
Charles Franklin, who runs polling at Mar-
quette University Law School.
The president’s re-election campaign
has noticed and alighted on a new strategy
to court the suburbs again. The campaign
has clothed itself in the Nixonian garb of
“law and order”, alleging that the protests
against racism in American cities, which
have recently become violent again, are but
a preview of “Joe Biden’s America”. For evi-
dence he pointed to nearby Kenosha where
looting, arson and two murders have fol-
lowed the shooting by police of Jacob Blake,
an unarmed black man. A man who may
well have been a supporter of Mr Trump, in
turn, was also shot dead in Portland, Ore-
gon, at the weekend.
The coded, racialised appeal is not diffi-
cult to decipher. To make it even clearer, Mr
Trump has also taken to arguing that
Democrats plan to “destroy our suburbs” by
building public housing and inviting
crime—an effort he for some reason insists
will be spearheaded by Cory Booker, a black
senator from New Jersey. On September 1st
Mr Trump visited Kenosha, praising the
police and arguing that Democratic mayors
and governors across the country are soft
on looters. He compared the upheavalSwing statesThe suburban strategy
CEDARBURG, WISCONSIN, AND WASHINGTON, DC
Donald Trump tries out law-and-order talk on suburban votersUnited States
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