I’ve
just returned to the New York metropolitan area after
working as a Democratic Party campaigner in rural
Michigan for the two months leading up to the Nov. 8
election. This is an account of the deep anger,
ignorance, and racism I encountered in the American
heartland.
Based in New York City, I am a Haitian-American
organizer for the northeastern United States with the
American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The union
released me to work with the American Federation of
Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
of Michigan from September to Nov. 9, 2016 as a part of
the AFL-CIO’s Working America Coalition, which sought to
encourage voters to vote for Democratic Party
candidates.
My job was to target specific groups of voters
among Democrats, Republicans, and independents and then
reach them via phone banks, mailings, and door-to-door
canvassing.
Using software that tracked the voting habits and
histories of AFL-CIO union members and the general
public, we identified voters whom we might encourage to
vote for Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton
as well as candidates for nine seats in the Michigan
House of Representatives.
Republican Presidential nominee Donald J. Trump
had attacked minorities, immigrants, Muslims, and the
disabled. He called climate change a Chinese “hoax” and
said that women who had abortions should be punished. We
believed these reactionary positions would give us
ammunition to defeat Trump, as well as to push the
AFL-CIO’s agenda for more jobs, rebuilding
infrastructure, and making government more accountable
and transparent.
I was stationed in Battle Creek in southwestern
Michigan, where I worked with the Central Labor Councils
(CLC) to encourage voters to vote for our Democratic
candidate, Jim Haadsma for the Michigan House of
Representatives and Hillary Clinton for President. I
primarily worked in Calhoun and Muskegon counties in
western Michigan.
My first day on the job in September was
productive. I was excited by the materials that had been
prepared for volunteers to make calls on behalf of their
union local. They made member-to-member calls to vote
for Haadsma and Hillary. We had a phone bank in Battle
Creek making 1,000 calls a day. Although 59 % of the
independents were not home, 22% of the numbers were
wrong or disconnected, 17% were still undecided, and
only 2% said they would vote Democrat all the way, I was
encouraged and impressed by the number of volunteers who
showed up and made calls for the two candidates. I
assumed that as the campaign progressed, I would get
more volunteers and union locals to support our work. I
had 124, 495 doors to knock on between the time I
arrived in Calhoun County and election day.
However, as I tried to recruit volunteers to
knock on swing voters’ doors, I received excuses: “I’m
too busy” or “I can’t because I’m working a third shift”
or “I have to take my kids to soccer practice,” etc.
Since I wasn’t getting volunteers, I reached out
to the CLC, asking them to help me recruit members from
their locals. Some said they would introduce the request
at membership meetings and then vote on it.
Others told me they could not because they needed
to focus on their union local races in the upcoming
months. Others didn’t even bother to return my calls and
emails.
My campaign office was right next to that of the
president of a Battle Creek local (BCTGM
3G), but he also couldn’t get his members to
commit to doing shifts for me. He made an excuse that
his members were too tired to volunteer for phone
banking and door knocking. The BCTGM
3G only had five men help me do a phone bank
shift for a night. I was pulling teeth to have
volunteers to commit to a shift. As a result, I found
myself doing three to four shifts a day, knocking on
130-150 doors in a rural part of Michigan, with which I
am not familiar.
Through door knocking alone, I met interesting
people who spoke highly of Haadsma. “He helped me get
disability benefits,” or “My wife was injured at her
job, and he was able to help my wife get worker’s
compensation,” or “My employer unlawfully fired me, and
he helped me get my job back with back pay,” or “He is a
nice man unlike his opponent, incumbent state
representative, Republican John Bizon.”
Another man said: “I will vote for him because I
don’t like how John Bizon keeps cutting social services
and trying to privatize everything in Michigan.”
Even though I had never met Haadsma, these
accounts motivated me to help him get elected. He ran on
a platform that working families struggle to make ends
meet, while Lansing politicians give tax breaks to big
corporations, thus Michigan’s economy is only working
for the wealthy and well-connected.
But as soon as I would mention Hillary, these
conversations would go sour. I found myself constantly
having to defend her positions on ObamaCare, her emails,
and Benghazi.
For example, I knocked on the door of a
69-year-old white man, informing him that Bizon had
voted against fixing Michigan’s crumbling bridges and
roads which would have created thousands of jobs.
Haadsma supports such infrastructure work. The man was
angered by the information and said he would not vote
for Bizon.
At the end of my conversation with him I asked,
“if the presidential election were to be held today,
would you vote for Hillary on top of the ticket?” He
started swearing and calling Hillary a “bitch,” saying
how much he despised her. I knocked on many dozens of
other doors asking the same question about Hillary at
the end of the conversation, and the swing voters would
always respond with disgust.
I went to the house of another voter, a
39-year-old union member and loyal Democrat. “Trump is a
scumbag, almost as bad as Hillary,” he told me. “But
I’ll vote for him because I worry about my kids’ future
and trillions of dollars in debt. If Trump continues to
make these gaffes, I may vote for Gary Johnson,” the
Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee.
In the small town of Albion, I met a salesman,
72, who called the U.S. system of government “broken”,
saying he believes the Justice Department and Obama’s
White House “control everything” and that Hillary
Clinton should be indicted for illegally taking money.
“I’d like to put them all in jail,” he said.
At another house, I spoke to a 64-year-old woman
who said she’d back Trump but didn’t know how she’d vote
down ballot, because she’s always been a Democrat. “It’s
a hard election,” she said.
Each evening, I reported in phone conferences
with AFL-CIO leaders what was happening as I canvassed,
things we had to be concerned about. I told them of
voters’ deep antipathy towards Hillary, although when
pressed, those same voters could not say exactly what
she had lied about. They simply repeated the opinions of
Fox News commentators. The AFL-CIO leaders advised me to
only talk about Haadsma because it was becoming clear
people in that area had made up their minds to vote for
Trump. Even the independents were close-minded and
didn’t want to hear any defense of Hillary and her
positions.
One day in Pennfield Township, I spoke to an
independent female voter. I had some talking points on
the differences between Trump and Clinton. The
middle-aged woman exploded, turning red as she vented
her anger towards the Obama administration and Hillary
Clinton. She said that the U.S. is running trillion
dollar deficits and that the Obama administration is
ruining our country. Each time I tried to correct and
challenge her, she cut me off. I tried to leave her to
go knock on another door, but she would not let me go,
continuing to express her anger and frustration. She
said she opposes gay marriage, gender neutral bathroom
polices, abortion, and the slow economic recovery.
Furthermore, she said America is changing too quickly,
and the Republican Party is moving too slowly to block
President Obama’s policies. I wanted to tell her that
she had gotten a lot of things wrong but could not get a
word in edgewise and ended up practically running away.
At another house in Calhoun County, a 74-year-old
man stopped the lawn mower he was riding to ask me why I
was knocking on his neighbor’s door. As I turned around
to speak to him, I saw an assault weapon on his waist. I
was taken aback, and he noticed my reaction. I tried to
smile and pretend that it was not shocking to see a man
mowing his lawn with an assault weapon. He told me his
age and that he was a Korean War veteran. He said he
carried the gun because about four miles away there had
been some robberies. Looking at his house, I didn’t
think there would be much to rob.
I spoke to a 31-year-old woman working at the
hotel where I stayed in Battle Creek, asking her
thoughts on the presidential election. She did not think
a woman should be running for the highest office of the
United States because “when women have their menstrual
cycle, they can become very emotional.” I did not point
out to her Hillary’s age and the unlikelihood she was
still menstruating.
She then expanded her hypothesis to conclude
that, as women,“we can’t govern because we are too
emotional.” Furthermore, as a gun owner and a single
mother raising two children, she needs her gun to
protect herself and her family and would not vote for
Hillary because she would take her gun away from her.
I knocked on the door of another couple.
Apparently, because I’m black, they were scared. I
smiled and tried to appear non-threatening. However, it
took them a few minutes to overcome their fear and
actually speak to me.
The first thing the man said was that he would
not vote for a Democrat because they would take away his
guns. I tried to explain to them that it was not true,
but they literally “stuck to their guns.”
Michigan is an open carry state, and many people
there believe that the Democrats aim to seize their
guns.
In Albion, I knocked on the door of a
self-employed electrical engineer. He seemed to be a
nice gentleman. He had been working on his car and cut
his index finger. He should have gone to the hospital to
get stitches, he said, but he had no health care
coverage. Therefore, he had simply taken some gauze and
taped two fingers together.
Although he had been able to get health coverage
under Obama’s Affordable Care Act, the premiums kept
increasing every year until he had to pay $3,300
annually, which he couldn’t afford. He went on to give
me a history of how Battle Creek’s economy was booming
in the 1960s. Many people flocked there from the
segregated south and other parts of the world, he said,
to work at manufacturing plants which made
Kellogg’s cereal, aircraft, auto parts for American-made
cars, wines, etc. He said those had been good paying
jobs which had allowed his parents to move up the
socio-economic ladder. As the sun began to set, I told
him that I had to go. He told me to be careful in this
county, especially in Battle Creek, because the people
can be very racist. He said that I seemed to be a nice
woman, and he did not want anything bad to happen to me
while knocking on doors.
Since I was not getting much cooperation from the
CLC in Calhoun County, my AFL-CIO coordinator decided to
move me to Muskegon County, thinking it was more diverse
with more union support. I stayed there until Nov. 9.
In Muskegon, the United Auto Workers union (UAW)
were more helpful. Every night, we organized phone banks
so that retirees could make phone calls. It was
productive, but responses were not encouraging. We knew
that many of the target groups were Trump supporters.
Some were afraid to let us know, but others were
brutally honest.
A middle-aged woman in front of a large home told
us she’s with “Trump all the way.”
“I just don’t put the signs out because I don’t
know how other people are voting,” she said.
I spoke to a 77-year-old grandfather and his
wife. They had 11 grandchildren. “We like Trump and fear
for the future of our grandchildren,” he said. “There
are too many Muslims in the government.” He worried
about the introduction of Sharia law.... in the U.S.!
They had planned a trip to Italy and Greece but canceled
it because of fears over ISIS.
It was clear that Trump’s fear-mongering had a
big effect on the psyches of many whites in rural
Michigan. Trump had whipped them up with overt racism,
bigotry, islamophobia, and xenophobia. We deployed many
canvassers to do walk shifts, but unfortunately they
couldn’t speak to independents voters because many
residents threatened to call the cops on them.
Sometimes, the cops would come. After hearing
complaints from the residents about black canvassers,
the cops would tell the canvassers to leave the
neighborhood or be arrested for trespassing, even though
they were not in gated private communities. Some
canvassers told me that residents would make false
complaints about them and sic dogs on them. In contrast,
many white canvassers were well received. Blacks told me
that for years there had been racial tensions in
Muskegon township. I believed them but didn’t understand
how bad it was until I went door knocking alone on Sun.,
Nov. 6, two days before the vote.
At that time, the polls showed Trump closing in
Michigan. Our strategy was to visit only registered
Democrats and get them out to the polls. That Sunday, I
started knocking on doors at noon after people were back
from church.
Unfortunately, many people were fed up with
canvassers. Planned Parenthood, Working Families in
Michigan, and other Democrat-affiliated groups had all
made passes and left literature. Also, Trump’s negative
TV ads pushed many Democrats to flip.
So when I began knocking on doors that day and
introducing myself, many would slam the door in my face
or be rude.
Around 4:30 p.m., I pulled in the driveway and
rang the bell of a 64-year-old white man. “Who the fuck
sent your ass here?” he asked. “This is a private road
and your ass don’t belong here. You better get your dark
ass off my property before I get your ass arrested.”
I was stunned and couldn’t believe this was
coming from a registered Democrat. I was alone and
didn’t want to argue with him in case he went to get his
gun. I immediately walked to my car and backed out of
his driveway. I called my zone leader and told him what
had just happened to me. We agreed it was best for me to
stop door knocking until I had a partner.
On the Monday before the election, Walter
Christophersen, a white International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers (IBEW) organizer from Muskegon, and I
went door knocking, mostly in trailer parks. Many
residents were not home. Those that were said they would
not vote for Hillary because she is a liar. Again, they
couldn’t pinpoint what exactly she had lied about.
Occasionally, a resident told us they would vote for
Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. Most of them said
they liked Trump’s tenacity to challenge the status quo
in Washington. They said they are tired of foreigners
coming to this country and taking their jobs. I couldn’t
convince these registered Democrats to vote for Hillary.
On election day, I began knocking on doors in a
trailer park. A middle-aged white man told me to stop
knocking on residents’ doors. I told him that I am
knocking on their doors to encourage them to vote. He
insisted that I stop. I ignored him and continued with
the door knocking . He
yelled from 50 yards away that he was calling the
cops on me. I told him: “Go ahead, make my day.” He
continued to yell, following me and my partner. Less
than five minutes later, an older white woman yelled:
“Get the fuck off my property,” over and over. My
partner swore at her. She made a gesture with her hand
and mouth to suggest my partner was gay. I sat in our
car’s passenger seat in disbelief.
As I turned around, I saw a police car coming
towards us. My partner said to check that my seatbelt
was on and that he would do the talking. A female
officer pulled alongside us and said to leave the area
because a neighbor was complaining that we were
soliciting. We explained to the officers that we weren’t
soliciting. She told us to leave or she’d arrest us. She
also suggested that we check with the local county
clerk’s office whether or not we could knock on the
doors of registered Democrats in the trailer park. She
asked my partner for his name, age, address, and phone
number. The older woman who had yelled at us earlier
followed us until we exited the trailer park, calling us
all kinds of names.
We drove to the clerk’s office, about one mile
away. A receptionist there told us that she was not sure
about the ordinance in Muskegon but would check with the
clerk. She took our information and said she would call
us.
We went to
the CIO hall in Muskegon and told our Zone coordinator
what had happened. He then contacted the AFL-CIO
headquarters in Lansing. An AFL-CIO representative
contacted the municipal building and complained about
the cop who had told us to leave. Five minutes after the
call, we were back knocking on doors in another trailer
park.
We went to the doors of registered Democrats and
asked them if they had already voted or planned to. Some
said they had already voted but wouldn’t tell us for
whom.
I asked on older woman in her 50s if she had
voted. “It’s none of your damn business who I voted
for,” she shot back.
I brushed off the remark and moved on to the next
trailer home. A woman across from trailer where I was
knocking told me: “Stop fucking knocking on his door. He
is sleeping and get the fuck out of here.”
The anger from these working-class white folks
was intimidating. Some of the residents were afraid to
be seen speaking to us. They constantly looked over
their shoulder to see if any of their neighbors were
watching.
There clearly was a lot
of voter intimidation going on in the trailer parks,
with exceptional hostility aimed at me, a black woman,
or towards anybody identified as a representative of
“Working Families in Michigan” or the Democrats. These
people were angry with the Democratic Party but often
couldn’t articulate the reasons for their anger.
Reflecting on my experiences in Michigan, I
clearly see that Trump riled up disenfranchised people,
but offered no real solution. The manufacturing jobs he
promised on the campaign trail are not coming back to
the U.S.. Many of these people lost their jobs due to
the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) two decades ago. A generation of families would
have to be retrained. Higher U.S. wages augur that
manufacturers will not to move factories, at least not
many, back to Michigan. Even if they did, automation
would mean far fewer unskilled jobs.
The poverty in western Michigan was grim. Many
people had no teeth. Some were clearly drunks or heroin
addicts. Some of the houses I visited were in a scary
state of disrepair, even looked abandoned, or were
without indoor plumbing. Although I’m from Haiti, I’ve
never seen homes in the U.S. like those I saw in rural
Michigan. Some of the towns in Calhoun County appeared
to be set in another country or century.
The people were terribly poor and despairing.
They blame the Democrats, and Washington generally, for
their misery.
This explains why, after my two months in
Michigan, less than 5% of the people I spoke to
face-to-face said they would vote for Democratic
candidate Jim Haadsma and only about 1% said they would
vote for Hillary Clinton.
Democratic Party leaders sabotaged the electoral
bid of Bernie Sanders and embraced the neo-liberal
policies which the Clintons personify. That is why
Democrats were trounced in the Nov. 8 election
nationwide, although we must remember that Hillary
Clinton won the U.S. popular vote by over one million
votes, thereby denying her opponent any kind of mandate.
Furthermore, thousands of minority voters were purged
from voter rolls in key swing states.
Donald Trump is a dangerous demagogue who has sold the
American people yet another scam, just like Trump
University. Working-class Democratic voters,
particularly those represented by unions, had better
wrest leadership of the Democratic Party from the
neo-liberal operatives who now control it, or envisage
third party alternatives. Either way, I fully expect
that Michigan’s poor and working people who voted for
Trump will be betrayed by him. This means that we now
have a golden opportunity to organize for a truly
progressive alternative, like that proposed by Sanders,
in the near future.
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