Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are the two traditional strongholds of the Democrats in the swing state of Pennsylvania. But on the final weekend before the 2024 U.S. presidential election, groups of vocal Republican campaigners spread throughout downtown Philadelphia and engaged in sometimes caustic discussions.

“I thought he was going to beat me up,” Ben says. He wore a bright red jacket and held a huge blue hand with the index finger pointing upwards. He stood next to 15th Street, a major thoroughfare in Philadelphia that runs in front of the famous City Hall.

A driver drove near him and made an obscene gesture, he says. But in the end he just sped away in his pickup truck and nothing happened.

Ben is approached by an older man. “Finally someone normal here,” he says.

“This city is full of liberals.”

What follows is a discussion about Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney

“Harris is a drunk,” says the older of the two men. “She is cooperating with the traitor Liz Cheney.

Claims

“She’s a warmonger,” he adds. “Look at all the wars your father got us into. Iraq, Afghanistan. The list is endless.”

Cheney, who worked with George W. Bush between 2001 and 2009, belonged to the same Republican Party as Donald Trump.

Half a dozen people have gathered on the other side of the town hall. “Have you noticed that the Republicans are the only ones who carry the American flag?” one of them frowns.

“Democrats just have the rainbow flag.”

Their leader, a Chinese-American woman who calls herself Stephanie, says they are here to “wake up America.”

“They hate him. But that’s because they don’t know the truth.”

Reason

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