MILWAUKEE—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 previous several days, 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 had addressed his party on the previous night.
In interviews with The Epoch Times, the convention workers, employees of nearby restaurants, and others who had experienced the Republican National Convention said Milwaukee’s guests were pleasant.
Andrew Rode, on the 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,“ he said. ”They were talking about the Milwaukee Brewers and the weather here, and, ‘Where’s the Fonzie statue?’”
A waitress at a nearby coffee shop said 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” that the establishment was experiencing.
“It was a pretty pleasant experience,” she said.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Trump
While accepting the GOP nomination at the convention, 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,” former President Trump 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 of 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 effect 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 convention, 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 convention 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.
Police Discount at Restaurant
The bar and grill Major Goolsby’s was still fenced in on the afternoon of July 19. A sign in 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 police officers—“half off [for] law enforcement if you’re in uniform”—quickly spread among the men and women working at 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,” Yuri Garrido of KleenTeem, a contractor involved in the RNC, said.
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 said she worries about the future of America for her daughter and son, both in high school. Her daughter aspires to be a cardiologist, and her son intends to join the U.S. Navy.
“How are we going to work together to make our nation better?” Ms. Garrido asked.
