The midterm elections are approaching. And the American president aims to win the vote of Italian Americans. Will he succeed?
La rubrica - Outside the Beltway: cronache e analisi di politica Usa
Donald Trump he stood up for Italian Americans. Last week, the US president threatened to suspend federal funding to New York if the Big Apple authorities do not include Little Italy in the new map of city neighborhoods inhabited by immigrants.
“New York officials recently released a map showing ethnic communities in our country’s largest city, and their map includes Little Senegal, Little Guyana, Little Haiti, Little Yemen, but does not include a place called Little Italy, an unthinkable omission for New York,” the White House resident said. «I think it’s a shame. We will get to work on this immediately, otherwise we will not send them even a cent of the billions and billions of dollars that they continually want to waste,” he continued, before concluding: “Those who hate our country want to see the Italian American community erased.”
The clash in New York between Trump and Mamdani
The controversy over the New York map had already exploded in July. At the time, a spokesperson for the mayor’s administration Zohran Mamdani he said the intent of the map was to “highlight neighborhoods in New York that are home to significant foreign-born populations from regions and countries around the world.”
However, as demonstrated by the words of Trumpthe issue continued to take center stage. The point is that the story fits into a more complex and structural framework. The US Democratic Party has been having difficulties with Italian Americans for some years now. And this is above all due to the demonization that the Asinello left has been carrying out for some time towards the figure of Christopher Columbus, painted as a genocidal colonizer.
It is no coincidence that, in his speech for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, Mamdani he praised “explorers like Verrazzano and Hudson”, avoiding mentioning the Genoese navigator. Not only that. The Colombo issue also entered the 2024 electoral campaign with a straight leg. On that occasion, the then Democratic candidate, Kamala Harriscelebrated Indigenous Peoples Day: the celebration with which the American left would like to replace Columbus Day.
Trump’s sights on the Big Apple
Furthermore, the current Democratic candidate for the Minnesota senatorial seat, Peggy Flanagandid not oppose, as deputy governor of the state, the demolition of the statue of Columbus in Saint Paul in 2020. On the other hand, Trump he constantly defended the figure of the Genoese navigator. It is also in light of these factors that, once firmly linked to the Democratic Party, Italian Americans have gradually begun to move towards the republican orbit.
Clearly Trump aims to conquer large segments of this electorate in view of the mid-term elections which will be held on November 3. Elections which, at least at the moment, promise to be uphill for the Republican Party, due to the high price of fuel recorded in the United States.
It is in this sense that the US president is looking for ways that can quickly lower the cost of energy. Obviously the issue also concerns the Italian American electorate. And that’s why Trump she’s trying hard to woo him.
