Democratic stronghold, world city seen as a refuge for minorities, New York woke up stunned on Wednesday to the announcement of Donald Trump’s victory. But some relish his return to power, synonymous for them with the fight against crime and illegal immigration.
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Ready to rush into a Brooklyn subway station at sunrise, Freddy Lane asks if he can say profanities. Because “it fucking sucks,” says this 29-year-old computer programmer.
“It’s really unfortunate how bad things are. Over the last two or three years there has been a lot of apathy and hatred in the world and on the Internet in particular. In my opinion, this will only make things worse,” predicted this African-American, colorful hat on his head and cigarette in hand, in the Bed-Stuy district, setting for the famous Spike Lee film “Do the Right thing”.
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“My daily life is not going to change that much”, but “I am worried”. “I feel like people who weren’t openly expressing their feelings about minorities and marginalized people are going to feel justified in taking action in some way, because the person who is responsible for “It’s all a bit like them,” he fears.
Unsurprisingly, the majority of New York voters chose Kamala Harris, and Alex Dumont, 41, hoped “she could win.” But this mother now expects Donald Trump to govern with all the powers, and that “he feels unstoppable. It’s fucking terrifying,” she adds.
“Fear”
New Yorkers are used to saying all the bad things they think about someone who, paradoxically, is a child of the city.
Born in the Queens district, Donald Trump made his fortune by taking over his father Fred Trump’s real estate business, with skyscrapers built sometimes thanks to big tax advantages from the city.
In the famous green lung of Manhattan, in Central Park – where Donald Trump readily boasts of having renovated a moribund ice rink – a retiree, Valerie Cihylik, rails against this billionaire who “is only interested in his financial well-being , and who will take advantage of us. “And that’s what’s scary, because we don’t know who he’s going to sell us to,” she adds.
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New York is a unique cultural mosaic of more than 8.5 million residents, where nearly 40% of the population was born abroad, in more than 150 different countries.
So, the election of the tribune with increasingly violent rhetoric towards migrants, accused of “poisoning the blood” of the country and whom he promises to expel massively, particularly frightens Erin Kathleen, a professor of 29-year-old university student who only wants to give his two first names.
“A lot of people are going to be scared,” she adds as she leaves a cafe at the foot of the Manhattan skyscrapers, her “I voted” sticker still visible on her jacket.
But for Nathalie Feldgun, a lawyer who crossed paths with Central Park, it was on the contrary time to bring Donald Trump back to the White House. “The country no longer has borders. It’s no longer a country,” said this voter, who lives in a “90% Democratic neighborhood,” but whose “all (the) friends voted for Trump.” The discourse on uncontrolled immigration at the border with Mexico particularly resonated in New York, which has urgently welcomed more than 200,000 migrants since spring 2022.
On his way to work at a construction site, Rich Gala, 60, said he “voted for the one who puts America and Americans before anyone else.”
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For another New Yorker on his way to work, Steve, 58, a Trump presidency will bring back “normalcy” if the media lets him do his job.
“People are fed up with criminals who are not worried and streets which are not safe,” he adds, in Manhattan, near the court where Donald Trump was sentenced in the spring in a case of hidden payments to a star of porn movies.
