Milwaukee Republican Field Office Vandalized
State GOP says they're not leaving.
The Republican Party of Wisconsin’s field office in Milwaukee’s Bronzeville neighborhood was vandalized overnight, according to the Republican Party of Wisconsin. The photo taken Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2020, shows some of the spray-painted messages and shapes. Photos courtesy of the Republica Party of Wisconsin/WPR.
Less than two weeks after opening, the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s field office in Milwaukee’s Bronzeville neighborhood has been vandalized.
The Wisconsin GOP posted a video of the office, located on the southeast corner of North Avenue and Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, Wednesday afternoon on Twitter.
Our new field office in Milwaukee was vandalized last night. This won’t change our commitment to reaching voters in the community. What kind of intolerance can we expect to see when Democrats bring their convention to Milwaukee this summer? #LeadRight pic.twitter.com/sUXQKGAlLI
— Wisconsin GOP (@wisgop) February 19, 2020
Its windows had been spray-painted overnight, according to the post.
“This won’t change our commitment to reaching voters in the community,” the post reads. “What kind of intolerance can we expect to see when Democrats bring their convention to Milwaukee this summer?”
The 2020 Democratic National Convention will be July 13-16 in Milwaukee.
Andrew Hitt, chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, said the GOP doesn’t plan on going anywhere.
“We feel very strongly that there is a need to meet people where they are to tell our story,” Hitt said. “We believe that we need to talk about our accomplishments, the president’s accomplishments, and we need to do that by meeting people where they are.”
At the time, Hitt said he hoped to keep the office open after the 2020 election.
On Wednesday, Hitt said the office is “long overdue,” for the Republican Party.
“We need to be here, in the Central City and in the black community,” Hitt said. “This is one step in a long journey of developing a relationship.”
Before the vandalism, the GOP was planning to install security cameras. Hitt said there is now a greater sense of urgency to install them, so if there is another instance of vandalism, perpetrators will be caught.
During an interview after the State of the City address last week, Alder Milele Coggs, a Democrat who represents Bronzeville, said many of her constituents questioned the office opening.
She posted the following on her Facebook page Feb. 6:
To be clear I DO NOT CONTROL who individual private property owners choose to lease space to on Dr. Martin Luther King Drive or anywhere else in the 6th District. I DO have the ability to vote or approve (along w/ my colleagues) things like liquor, food & public entertainment licenses for businesses. My door is always open to speak w/ and share ideas w/ property owners & business owners in the district so that together we continue to build the best King Drive in the nation & a district & city we all love.
Newly Opened Milwaukee GOP Office Vandalized was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
So much for welcoming diverse ideas in our city… so sad
Drawing equivalency between a president celebrated by literal neo-nazis, who has very clearly ushered in a renewed era of tolerance toward hate crimes (not to mention federal crimes) and racism in general, and “diverse ideas” is completely absurd. The GOP is nothing compared to what it was 20 years ago. It has embraced the tug of the alt-right as much as the Democrats have embraced the pull of the far-left. The former is much more dangerous than the latter. The opening of this office is tantamount to the KKK (another group who has celebrated the president) opening a meeting place to exchange “diverse ideas” on North and MLK. MLK Drive of all places! Right after the reopening of the Black Holocaust museum a few feet away! I’m not saying vandalism is justified, but this seems like the GOP opened an office there hoping something like this would happen. To further paint MKE as intolerant of the poor old white man’s party and fans the flames of division In Wisconsin that help get them elected.
“Aging Millennial” is more cogent than Ryan Cotic. The hard right routinely seeks equivalence with what they perceive as the hard left when the hard right behaves badly, Remember Trump’s apology for the murder of a progressive protester in Charlottesville.
The vandalism of a Republican outreach office in Milwaukee’s inner city should stun nobody The Russian disinformation campaign in Milwuakee’s inner city and northwest side in 2016 distressed and discouraged voters and potential voters who ultimately did not vote in the 2016 .election. That Russian interference was encouraged by Trump,
Read the Mueller Report and disregard toady Attorney General Barr’s cavalier dismissal of that report, and you will see that there is no equivalence.here. The hard right is sucking hind teat in their pitiful efforts to defend an indefensible autocrat, narcissist and mean spirited individual who shows no regard for “truth, justice, or the American way.”