Trump to campaign in Michigan town with historic links to white
extremism
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[August 20, 2024]
By Helen Coster, Nathan Layne
(Reuters) -Former President Donald Trump will visit a Michigan town on
Tuesday one month after white supremacists rallied there, sparking
renewed criticism from Democrats who accuse his campaign of stirring up
racial tensions for political gain.
Trump is scheduled to talk about "crime and safety" at the Livingston
County Sheriff's Office in Howell, a town of some 10,000 people
northwest of Detroit. A Trump campaign spokesperson rejected criticism
of the site of the event, promising Trump would speak against "hate of
any form."
The event is one of a number Trump is holding this week as Democrats
meet in Chicago to formally choose Vice President Kamala Harris as their
nominee in the Nov. 5 election.
But the event in Howell has attracted particular attention because of
the town's association with the Ku Klux Klan. The town has historical
links to the KKK: In the 1970s, Grand Dragon Robert Miles had a Howell
mailing address and held meetings on a nearby farm.
About a dozen white supremacists chanted "Heil Hitler" and carried signs
reading "White Lives Matter" during a march through downtown Howell last
month. According to local media, 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." In an interview with Reuters after
a rally in Pennsylvania on Monday, Trump did not directly respond to a
question about that criticism.
Trump has been widely criticized for racist remarks about Harris, who if
elected in November would be the first Black woman and South Asian
person to become president.
At a gathering of Black journalists last month he falsely suggested that
she recently "turned Black" to advance her political career. He often
insults Harris' intelligence, her heritage and her looks.
Last week, an official Trump campaign account on X posted two images
side-by-side, one showing a pristine small-town American front porch
with a flag and the other showing images of mostly Black migrants
crowding outside a New York City hotel. The caption on the post read:
"Import the third world. Become the third world.”
The Trump War Room post drew fire from the NAACP civil rights group as
racist, but Trump's aides stood by it. Trump has often suggested that
the United States is facing an "invasion" of migrants from the southern
border.
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Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald
Trump holds a campaign rally for the first time with his running
mate, Republican vice presidential nominee U.S. Senator J.D. Vance
(R-OH) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S. July 20, 2024. REUTERS/Tom
Brenner/File Photo
`WHY THERE, WHY NOW?`
Nicole Matthews Creech, executive director of the Livingston
Diversity Council, which was created in 1987 in response to KKK
activity in the community, said that residents who encountered last
month's rally ignored it or rebuked the demonstrators.
"They're not welcome here, and hate is not welcome here,” she told
Reuters.
Trump's visit to Howell one month after that rally should not be
viewed in a vacuum, said Nazita Lajevardi, an associate professor of
political science at Michigan State University.
"It begs the question: why there, why now?" Lajevardi said, noting
that Howell is not populous. "The timing is important, the symbolism
is important, and it can't just be seen in a vacuum."
Michael Murphy, the sheriff of Livingston County and a Trump
supporter, said in an interview he suspects the Trump campaign chose
Howell because criminal activity has remained flat in Livingston
County for about 15 years.
"It really gets me fired up when people try to turn anything in this
county into racist or hate because that’s not us," Murphy said. "We
can’t change the fact that at one time the grand dragon of the KKK
lived in our county and unfortunately that's history, but history is
just that - it's history."
The Trump campaign chose Howell because the event will get coverage
by media outlets in Detroit, located in the critical swing state of
Michigan, campaign officials said. It is also where Murphy, a
stalwart ally of Trump, is based and the event will showcase his
office's vehicles and equipment, they said.
Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt noted that Biden
visited Howell in 2021.
"Trump will travel to Howell to deliver a strong message on law and
order, making it clear that crime, violence, and hate of any form
will have zero place in our country when he is back in the White
House," Leavitt said.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne and Helen Coster, additional reporting by
David Shepherdson, editing by Ross Colvin and Deepa Babington)
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