Democratic leaders from around Michigan are converging on the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week to welcome Vice President Kamala Harris and officially nominate her as the party’s presidential candidate.
Meanwhile, Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump visited Howell, Mich. on Tuesday afternoon, Aug. 20, to give a speech on crime and safety, among other issues. Howell is notoriously known as one of the most racist towns in Michigan because of the town’s association with the Ku Klux Klan. In the 1970s, Grand Dragon Robert Miles had a Howell mailing address and held Klan meetings on a nearby farm.
In July, white supremacists and KKK members gathered in Howell during a Michigan visit by Trump. During that racist gathering in Howell, they chanted “Heil Hitler” and carried signs reading “White Lives Matter” during a march through downtown Howell. Another group of demonstrators shouted “We love Hitler, we love Trump” from a highway overpass just outside Howell.
The Harris campaign has criticized Trump for planning the event in Howell while failing to condemn what it called a “blatant display of racism and antisemitism in his name.”
Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy condemned the groups.
“Within the last month, there’s been a couple of folks that have come here to cause a little bit of a stir, spew some hate speech, white supremacy crap,” Murphy said. “Those folks are from out of town; those are not Livingston County people…I’m just asking us, Livingston County residents, to do what we do, and be respectful like we are. I would hope everybody would get that message, but there will be a couple of dirtbags that want to rile stuff up.”
Trump’s visit Tuesday afternoon at the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office contained a lot of fearmongering about crime, even detailing criminal activities across the country and around the world by immigrants, saying more crime would come as immigration continues to be an issue.
“Day one, we’ll deport all the illegals,” he said after bragging about how suburban women adore him for “blocking low-income high rises” in their neighborhoods that could be filled with “illegals and criminals.”
“She’s so pathetic and weak about the border. She’s the worst border czar in history,” Trump said of Vice President Harris. “She’s a Marxist, communist person and we’re not ready for a communist president,” he continued.
“They’re sending a massive number of criminals. …They’re bussing them in and bringing them in. I’m talking all over the world, because they’re sending their criminals to the United States of America and telling them never come back. We’re sending those people back. We’re going to have a reform Department of Justice and protect our police officers,” Trump said.
“We’re going to get the gangsters, criminals, and drug dealers, and we’re going to send them out of our country. They’re taking their criminals and bringing them to the United States. But our country is suffering, and they just got here over the last couple years thanks to our border czar.”
Trump specifically pointed out a drop in crime in Venezuela, saying the U.S. is taking their criminals and giving them “great lives” here.
Factcheck.org has debunked this false talking point from Trump saying: “Experts in and out of Venezuela told us there is no evidence to back up Trump’s claim. Reported crime is trending down in Venezuela — though not nearly as dramatically as Trump claims — but crime experts in the country say there are numerous reasons for that, and they have nothing to do with sending criminals to the U.S.”
Trump continued with his speech, saying that he abhors “wokeness” and urging others in attendance not to conform to being “woke,” a term often associated with a keen awareness of social, political, and economic injustices, among other things.
But Trump’s visit and speech in Howell pointed out a major ideology of Trump’s campaign: he is appealing to anyone who will vote for him and by any means necessary. He knows that his rally in July drew out white supremacists, KKK members, and racist people, all who support him under the idea of racism.
A Trump spokeswoman strongly denied a link between the campaign event Tuesday and the demonstrations, calling the accusation “absurd,” but it’s not a far reach to see the correlation between the hateful rallies and Trump’s very next campaign rally taking place in the same city – one with a storied reputation of hate and intolerance.
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