On this first weekend in November and the last before Election Day, everything seems normal in downtown Philadelphia. It is a sunny day. The sports bars are packed. The football game between Ohio State and Penn State, two longtime rivals, is projected on the screens.
Dressed in blue or white, the Penn State colors, the many fans, often young, enjoy every move of the players. In one bar close to South Juniper Street and South 13th Street, there is a giant viewing party.
Not far away, an election gathering is being held in what appears to be a parking lot. Various booths are available to the curious. The operation is organized by supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris. Passers-by are urged to vote for the Democratic ticket. The audience is mostly women, young women to be precise. “I only sleep with pro-choicers,” reads one of the posters at one of the many entrances to the event.
About a 10-minute walk from there, the streets around Rittenhouse Square are crowded with people. The shops are all open. A small queue has formed in front of the entrance of the Walnut Garden, a family-friendly beer bar with a big outdoor space. Small and big groups dressed in green, or wearing green jerseys of the Eagles, the local football team, are present. On the next day, here in Philadelphia, the Eagles will be playing a game which could advance them to the top of their division.
But in the minds of some Black men whom I met in Philadelphia to talk about the election, there is a fear that this normalcy could give way to social unrest after November 5, if former President Donald Trump loses the election to Vice President Kamala Harris. The road to the White House passes through Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes, in most scenarios.
“Man, this s*** ain’t good,” Rahim told me when I asked him what he thought of the campaign. “Bro, I ain’t going to work on Tuesday. I’m talking 3 days off, bro. I am going to my brother in Baltimore.”
Rahim is a driver for a car rental company. I met him when he drove me and two other people from one of the airport terminals to the rental car location, where I was picking up a car on this final stretch my trip.
“We’re a swing state, bro,” Dia, the hotel valet said when I told him about the conversation I had earlier with Rahim.
I told Dia that Rahim seemed very worried that there would be violence in Philadelphia if former President Trump were to lose.
“100 percent with the bro. People from out of town will be here on Tuesday. Some will be here on Monday. They are going to cause trouble, man.”
“He told the American people, there’s going to be a ‘bloodbath’,” Chris, an older Black man told me. He then laughed, seemingly to mock my question. “Of course, there will be violence because he knows he is going to lose. She is the best candidate, he knows that.”
William Spivey
Trump used the word “bloodbath” earlier this year to predict the potential job losses, he said, the U.S. auto manufacturing industry would experience if he lost the election.
Chris added however: “We have a National Guard here in Philadelphia, so we should be safe.”
These concerns have been reinforced by Trump’s recent statements accusing Pennsylvania, a key state to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win, of fraud, despite the refutations from official authorities.
Pennsylvania was “cheating and getting caught at large-scale levels rarely seen before,” Trump said this week. A baseless accusation that was the conclusion of a week in which he multiplied misleading and false claims against the state to sow doubt and to affirm that the victory had been stolen from him and that the race was rigged in the event that he lost.
In any case, he is recreating the conditions which encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
“Wow! York County, Pennsylvania, received THOUSANDS of potentially FRUADULENT Voter Registration Forms and Mail-In Ballot Applications from a third party group,” Trump posted on X (former Twitter) on October 29.
He continued:
“This on top of Lancaster County being caught with 2600 Fake Ballots and Forms, all written by the same person. Really bad ‘stuff.’ WHAT IS GOING ON IN PENNSYLVANIA??? Law Enforcement must do their job, immediately!!! WOW!!!”
He repeated the same accusation at a rally in Allentown, PA, the same day: “They’ve already started cheating in Lancaster. They’ve cheated,” he told his fans, without evidence. “We caught them with two thousand and six hundred votes.”
There was an incident in Lancaster and York, two counties in Pennsylvania, regarding some problematic voter registration applications. But it was not related to voting fraud, according to the election officials, who reported the incident to law enforcement.
Richard lives in University City, a neighborhood that is home to the University of Pennsylvania and two other colleges. His older brother, a pastor, is in town with his family to meet the family of his son’s fiancée. The wedding is scheduled for June 2025. Richard said he made sure they didn’t extend their stay.
“I said, you guys go back on Monday. No discussion,” he said. “I can’t take the risk. Nobody knows what’s going to happen after November 5.”
He said he should be fine as he works remotely. He is worried that because his neighborhood is very liberal due to the students, they might just be the “perfect target for MAGA.”
“MAGA is certain they’ve already won,” Richard said, adding “nothing is going to change their minds.”
Richard expects major social unrest if Harris wins. Furthermore, he worries that it could be more deadly than the events of January 6, because, he argued, “MAGA had enough time to prepare.”
Azalea hopes that the people of Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, will not respond to the provocations of the far-right militias if Trump were to lose. For him, this would be the only way to avoid a “bloodbath.”
“People here are smart, bro. We know what MAGA is about. I just hope we won’t fall for it,” he said.
Rahim, Dia, Chris, Richard and Azalea asked that I do not use their last names because they are afraid of being targeted on social media by far-right activists.
On October 23, the Department of Justice announced that John Pollard, 62, a resident of Philadelphia, was charged for allegedly threatening, on September 6, to kill a representative of a Pennsylvania state political party who was recruiting official poll watchers.
“I WILL KILL YOU IF YOU DON’T ANSWER ME!” Pollard texted to the alleged victim, according to the indictment. “Your days are numbered, B****!” and “GONNA F***ING FIND YOU AND SKIN YOU ALIVE AND USE YOUR SKIN FOR F***ING TOILET PAPER, YOU F***ING KKK**T!”
Trump has never hidden his mistrust for local officials. In 2020, he declared that “bad things” are happening in Philadelphia. He told his supporters last December to “guard the vote” and to “go into” Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta to “watch those votes when they come in” this year.
“Guard the vote” became a thing during the midterms when right-wing activists started to monitor ballot drop boxes to try to identify fraud.
You only have to drive by a warehouse, located 15 miles from downtown, where ballots were counted four years ago, to see an outward sign of the fears that the authorities have around these elections. The Philadelphia Election Warehouse is where mail-in ballots will be processed on Election Day.
I could see three police cars stationed at different locations on the section of the boulevard that passes in front of the Philadelphia Election Warehouse, as I drove by. Orange bollards have been placed along the road close to the sidewalk. No doubt that it was done for safety reasons, as there is no apparent road construction; nothing, in fact, that would justify this.
If potential protesters wanted to drive their cars through the fence, they might not succeed. There is also a provision for people who might want to climb the fence, as it is topped with barbed wire.
The message is clear: officials want to avoid any disturbance and the scenes of four years ago, when protesters gathered at the downtown convention center to harass election workers.
In 2020, approximately 375,000 mail-in ballots were processed in Philadelphia, a significant number that was one of the causes of the delay in the announcement of the results. That year, Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by just a little more than 80,000 votes. The result was announced three days after Election Day.
This year, the authorities are anticipating fewer than 250,000 mail-in ballots.
“If it’s razor thin, then they’re going to throw everything they got, right?” Philadelphia City Commissioner Lisa Deeley, a Democrat, recently told Reuters “There’s nothing we can do to stop the former president from continuing his campaign of misinformation and disinformation. But what we can do is continue to push back on that with facts.”
The question, as my Black bros fear, is this: Given the former president’s track record of not admitting his 2020 defeat, and given his current narrative regarding election fraud, are we looking at a repeat of 2021? Or worse?
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Luc Olinga's work on Medium.