In the room where (nothing much) happens

Dispatches the edge of the Republican National Convention, Day One

In the lobby of the Milwaukee Hyatt Regency, nobody reacted to the news that JD Vance had been chosen as Trump’s Vice Presidential candidate. The Starbucks baristas kept filling orders, the packed house of assembled journalists kept aimlessly looking at their phones, the law enforcement officers in flak jackets held tight to their comically large guns, and the VIP-badged Florida politicos carried on gossiping about other Florida politicos. Even the guy walking around aimlessly in the full Uncle Sam costume, clearly fishing for compliments, kept on, well, doing that.

To be fair, “the moment JD Vance was announced as Trump’s Vice Presidential pick” doesn’t really qualify as a “you’ll never forget where you were when you heard…” news event. And, who knows, maybe that news was already a foregone conclusion for all the well-sourced insiders around me. But still, the ennui was notable, less as a commentary on J.D. Vance than on how the rest of us were choosing to spend our time.

I’m a Milwaukeean. I’m not from here originally, but I’ve lived here the majority of my adult life. There’s a reason why I chose to wear a Gruber Law Offices shirt for today’s festivities, the one with the basketball in the hoop. Real ones get it. What I’m saying is that I know what our downtown normally feels like. Not Midtown Manhattan bustling, mind you, but pleasantly alive, filled with people going to and from work, busses humming about, and happy hour revelers sharing rounds on sidewalk patios. You know, normal downtown stuff.

I don’t know if you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to have your city’s downtown taken over by a major political convention, particularly when just a few days previously the Presidential candidate being feted responded to an assassination attempt by raising his fist and yelling “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Pretty damn weird. That’s the answer. It feels pretty damn weird.

Right now, downtown Milwaukee exists in an uneasy liminal state between climax and anti-climax. I am currently surrounded by tens of thousands of people from every corner of the globe, and yet the streets are all eerily empty. There are barricades everywhere. There are so many men with guns. Every twenty minutes or so, another squadron of bike cops cruises down an otherwise deserted street. Every forty minutes or so, they’re joined by a decidedly less intimidating squadron of cops piled together in golf carts, clown car style. There is always at least one helicopter in the air, often more. Apparently one of them is “monitoring for radiation” but we are told that there’s no reason to be alarmed.

What is happening in downtown Milwaukee? Absolutely everything and absolutely nothing, all at the same time.Over the course of the day, I’ve shared power outlets with journalists from France, Denmark and Germany. I’ve talked to a Black Florida delegate in a cowboy hat and a pie plate sized belt buckle who loves my Montana hometown (“I keep telling all my friends with relationship troubles that they should just go to Missoula— after a few days, you’ll fall back in love,” he assured me, to which I responded, “that’ll be news to all my friends back in Missoula in bad relationships.”). I’ve marched in a protest that felt identical to the hundreds of other protests I’ve attended over the years, save for the hulking phalanx of photographers desperate for the chance to document something notable on an otherwise anticlimactic day. I’ve given a “what’s up” nod to a man dressed like Jesus holding a large sign proclaiming GOD WILL DESTROY THE U.S.A. It is not clear what his or God’s feelings are about Republican nominee, but I chose to stay on his good side.

Speaking of God, earlier today some very friendly gentleman offered me the opportunity to take a free “are you going to heaven?” quiz. Across the street, a man named Gonzo offered me something called a pizza cone from a flag be-decked Airstream trailer (that one, sadly, was not free). A few minutes later, a guy from rural Georgia tried to sell me a bootleg MAGA bumper sticker. We talked for a while. This is a new enterprise for him, but he’s convinced he’ll make it big, even if he’s just got a stack of stickers and the more established guys have full street-front stores with t-shirts and hats and all the bells and whistles. Pleasant interactions, all of them, much better than the time I was yelled at by a man who is either a cop or a soldier because I walked out of a door marked “EXIT HERE.” What is happening in downtown Milwaukee? Again, it’s not clear, but if you want to spend your money, save your soul or find yourself on the wrong side of the thin blue line, there are no shortage of opportunities.

The fact that there is so much spectacle and yet nothing of impact is happening here is likely good news for my fellow Milwaukeeans, most of whom are eager to escape the week without calamity or embarrassment. As for whether “a Republican convention full of nonsense but devoid of any newsworthy developments” is good or bad for the future of America’s ever-fragile democracy, that remains to be seen. I’m not naive enough to believe that “quiet streets” equals “benevolent backrooms.” For obvious reasons, I was not admitted to the “Policy Festival” hosted by the Heritage Foundation but rest assured, that gang is here in full force.

You don’t need me to issue foreboding warnings from the streets, though. There’s already plenty of that going around. In the past couple weeks— what with Biden’s debate non-performance and the assassination attempt on Trump— the predominant emotion I’ve heard, particularly on the left, is resigned nihilism. “That’s the ballgame.” “Trump’s gonna win in a landslide.” “If you don’t like it, move to Canada,” etc., etc., etc. If you can’t tell the future, the smart money’s always on pessimism, I suppose.

I don’t know if I’m optimistic or pessimistic right now. What I do know is that there is something striking about the surreal non-reality of life in the temporary red hot center of American politics. We have all gathered in downtown Milwaukee— the journalists and the ambitious politicos and the cops and the protestors and the street corner preachers— because we just assume this is where we’re supposed to be. If we’re honest, very few of us— from across the ideological divide— actually know beyond the shadow of the doubt how to tilt the country in our desired direction. In absence of that knowing, we do the next best thing. We congregate in the places that we are told matter every four years, even if nothing of consequence happens when we get there.

That sounds like the kind of distanced observation that would lead me deeper into despair and cynicism. If I wanted, I suppose, I could wrap this essay up with some cool, grizzled Hunter Thompson flourish or a throwback Guy Debord quote. Did you hear the news? “Everything that was once directly lived has become mere spectacle.” Makes you think, man.

But I’m actually feeling less discouraged than I was when I started the day.

You see, after spending my Monday on the edge of the “hard security perimeter,” surrounded by so much sound and fury but so little actual human emotion, I got to bike home, past the barricades, back to the not at all surreal neighborhood where I actually live. I said hey to the guys hanging out at the liquor store a couple corners down from me, folks whose names I should know but don’t. I fixed dinner while listening to my kids’ report from day camp at our Quaker Meetinghouse. They reminded me that I said I’d bring snacks on Friday. I read some mail from our local food pantry and remembered that I was overdue for a volunteer shift. The problem has never been a shortage of useful things to do.

Every step away from the barricades of downtown, I was reminded that all of us— myself and the cops and the politicos and the Jesus guy with his scary sign— are connected, whether we pretend to be or not, to real places full of real people. We all have neighbors who are sick and neighbors who are hungry and neighbors who are worried that their kids aren’t safe or loved at school. We have neighbors who fear deportation and neighbors who can’t afford to fill their gas tanks, neighbors whose bodies are under attack and neighbors who are scared as hell to come out to their loved ones. And while I can’t predict the results in November, nor what those results will mean for our shared precarity, I do have a clear choice of whether I spend my time building and weaving networks of care and support, both before and after Election Day.

Of course I knew all that before I came downtown today. But the helpful thing about sitting in a hotel lobby as supposedly eventful political news flashes on the screen and none of the political creatures around you react in any way whatsover, is that it instantly clarifies what does or doesn’t matter. Elections have consequences, for sure, but so too does every other choice ahead of us.

I personally believe that voting is one imperfect means of showing care for one another, but I’m so grateful that it’s not the only one we’ve got. There is so much to be done, always. And that’s overwhelming, but it’s also incredible.. If you want to keep your neighbors safe. If you want to make our country more loving and less fearful. if there is anybody in your life for whom the state of the world fills you with angst, you don’t have to wait.

End notes:

• If you’ve been here for a while, you remember that this is not the first time that the GOP’s arrival in my town inspired me to spend a day in the Hyatt Regency lobby. This, I suppose, is a thing I do. And I’ll be back at it tomorrow, and probably the next day as well. Will I write more pieces? If there’s something to write. If not, I’ll catch up on other work.

• But yes, because I am hanging out downtown all week, an invitation. If you’re a White Pages reader and you’re in town for the convention, toss me a message and come say hey. I’ll be in one of three different places, one of which you already know about, clearly underdressed for the occasion.

• Speaking of building community in the shadow of a big dumb mean spectacle, shout out to all the community volunteers at the Great Milwaukee Block Party. Lovely stuff.

• If you would like your local perspective on the RNC to have a little more actual journalistic oomph to it (rather than my all vibes approach), I highly recommend reading

  Dan Shafer
  ’s newsletter, The Recombobulation Area.

• Want to read a book that talks about the dangers of living a life devoted to dumb political one-upmanship and how building and caring for community is so much better? I wrote that book! think you’ll like it! And unlike certain other people who write election year books about White America’s political and socioeconomic divides, I’m not a techno-fascist grifter who will eventually become a U.S. Senator/Vice Presidential candidate. And that’s a promise!

• Song of the week! This came on shuffle during one of those moments when I got tired of eavesdropping on lobby conversations. It’s on the nose, but that doesn’t make it a bad song. Let’s do this. “Stakes is High” by De La Soul.