The former president used his first rally in the city of brotherly love to tie violent crime with illegal immigration, despite the evidence against this.
Crooked Joe or Sleepy Joe? Donald Trump wanted to know which nickname his supporters prefer. “That’s the first time Sleepy Joe has ever beaten Crooked Joe!” he said with surprise, after asking the crowd to make noise for each contender.
That, however, is not the branding exercise the former US president cares about most right now. On Saturday night he wanted his followers to go home with three words: Biden. Migrant. Crime.
A month after his audacious campaign stop in the Bronx, New York, Trump held his first ever campaign rally in Philadelphia, the birthplace of American democracy and another Democratic stronghold where Joe Biden won 81.4% of the vote in 2020.
He had come with a sledgehammer message: Biden’s open borders have allowed thousands of illegal immigrants to pour into America, leading to a surge of violent crime in its major cities, hurting Black and Hispanic populations the most. And in the grand tradition of “law and order” Republicans, only Trump could fix it.
“Few communities have suffered more under the Biden regime than Philadelphia,” he told thousands of supporters, many wearing “Make America great again” caps, at the event in a sports arena. “Under Crooked Joe, the City of Brotherly Love is being ravaged by bloodshed and crime.”
The rally was staged at Temple University, in a historically Black area. Trump won just 5% of the vote in precincts within a half-mile radius of Temple’s main campus in the last election, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper.
But encouraged by opinion polls, his campaign has made wooing Black and Hispanic voters, who make up more than half of Philadelphia’s population, a priority this cycle. Even small gains could make all the difference in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
Several African American supporters were positioned behind Trump’s lectern in the Liacouras Center, against the backdrop of a gigantic Stars and Stripes. Attendees brandished signs with Trump’s police mugshot and the words “Never surrender”. An electronic sign flashed optimistically: “Philadelphia is Trump country.”
