We keep being told that Michigan is the key battleground in the midterms, so where better to begin a rip through the swing states? Americans love to paint Britain as a sectarian hellhole, but if you want to see what Balkanisation really looks like, head to Detroit. Black and white workers live separate lives on separate streets, while the nearby city of Dearborn is fiercely proud to be a Muslim enclave. Nearly a third of its population is foreign-born, and community leaders revel in their bloc vote power. And they are really put out about Iran… but, then again, so is everyone else, as a president who promised to get prices down kicks voters squarely in the pump.
Some 900 miles east, rural Maine, the poor relation of the New England family, is also on the front line of Donald Trump’s trade wars. Plenty of loggers and boatmen still love veteran Republican Senator Susan Collins who has stuck it to the President on behalf of their industries. Yet thanks to uber-liberal urban areas such as Portland, the blue-hair brigade triumphed over the blue-collar workers on polling day. Collins was sent packing after 30 years’ service. An attempt to get some Charlotte’s Web merchandise for my nieces ends in a spot of bluster. It turns out E.B. White’s book has lent its name to a popular brand of local ganja.
To Virginia on a pilgrimage to see Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s Palladio-inspired masterpiece. My eight-year-old nephew, J.J., something of a student of American history, schools me as we cruise through the Shenandoah National Park. Monticello, saved for the nation, handles its relationship with slavery with far more aplomb than anything the National Trust has managed. There are no moralising lectures, for starters. My observation a few days later that I would have made a good Founding Father is greeted by a snort of derision from my producer, Vic. She appears to be keeping a list of my dafter musings as we spend hours on the road.
We arrive in Memphis in time for a rib supper at B.B. King’s blues club as the reassuringly well-armed National Guard patrol outside. It is a year since Trump deployed 1,500 Federal agents to the gang capital of the South and crime rates have plummeted. My cameraman, John, is even prepared to walk around with his kit. The Feds have done a spectacular job, but to what political gain? This is a cost-of-living election, not a crime election.
In Tennessee, my friend Sam Armstrong marries his southern belle Elise, in the company of many of his Reform colleagues who have jetted over. Tennessee weddings hit differently, but the magnificent sight of Robert Jenrick’s wife dancing with two giant glowsticks as if parking a 747 will linger. After too much local sippin’ whiskey, we all sneak on to the roof of The Peabody, the hotel where Elvis signed his first record contract with RCA. ‘It’s actually amazing what you get away with in black tie,’ I say, and Vic adds to her list.
We end our travels in Texas, where hundreds of millions of dollars were spaffed trying to keep the state red. The election night bash for Ken Paxton, the doomed Republican Senate candidate, was in a soulless hotel ballroom and felt like a sparsely
attended wake even before the results came in. Exhausted campaign staff huddled in prayer as the blue wave turned into a tsunami against Trump. Eventually they simply turned off the televisions. By 11 p.m. hotel staff were already hoovering the room, as tearful aides wheeled away a giant cannon from the Battle of Gonzales.
I can’t go to Dallas without an evening at Javier’s, the taco and cigar institution. Refreshingly, it’s one of the few places in America that bans the wearing of shorts. Its crispy cabrito – suckling goat – is not on the menu unless you know to ask, and now you do. Texas is a ‘free pour’ state, so the añejo flows at a rate that makes our Weights and Measures Act seem positively puritan. In the car park, a bumper sticker reads: ‘Don’t Sharia My Texas.’ There’s not much chance of that happening on Javier’s watch. The Hispanic vote has been a problem here for the Republicans, however, as the realities of Trump’s mass-deportation targets bite in communities where millions have been living peacefully and working illegally for decades. As the right in Britain grapples with a similar issue, it’s a reminder that while voters may like tough talk, they get rather squeamish when it comes to tough action.
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