After spending the last year living in the United States, I will mercifully be whisked back to my peaceful homeland of Australia before the tumult of November’s election season begins.

While I am not a US citizen, I certainly have a dog in the fight — as a green card holder, a taxpayer, the husband of an American wife, and the father of an American daughter.

Being a fellow Westerner in general and an Aussie in particular, I am also acutely aware that America’s destiny largely shapes that of my own country, not least as Communist China flexes its muscles in our largely undefended region.

Before my first visit to the US some five years ago, I had an image of a confident, prosperous America, of mansions and manicured lawns, clean cities and cutting-edge culture, risk and ingenuity — basically, the America I saw in the movies. While that America does exist, it is increasingly found in gated communities and elite coastal suburbs, far from where the majority live.

The majority live in cities like Milwaukee, where I have spent the last 12 months.

Battlefield

Milwaukee is a city of battlers. Located an hour and a half north of Chicago on the western shores of Lake Michigan, Milwaukee is a gritty industrial hub, famous for big-name breweries like Miller, Pabst and Schlitz, and the headquarters of Harley Davidson and Milwaukee Tool.

In Milwaukee’s early-19th century settlement by faith-filled German immigrants, its rapid industrialisation, and its incredible taming of wild frontiers, I see distinct reflections of my own native Adelaide Hills. I understand these people.

In many ways, Milwaukee is a microcosm of 2020s America.

It is a cultural and political battlefield. Here, farmers, factory workers and finance types are hustling to survive a cost-of-living crisis while their taxes fund foreign wars, DEI bloat and federal largesse. Schools have become a frontline in the fight over pronouns, pornographic library books and other propaganda.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court just re-legalised ballot drop boxes in a state where voter fraud allegations were widespread. Wokery is weaponising the empathy of everyday people to recruit foot soldiers for its cultural revolution, but most don’t realise the TV and newspapers are lying about how popular those ideas really are.

Indeed, it was in satellite cities of Milwaukee that the Waukesha Christmas massacre and the Kenosha riots (of Kyle Rittenhouse and “Fiery But Mostly Peaceful Protests” fame) took place, not to mention the death of George Floyd just across the border.

Additionally — paradoxically perhaps — political and cultural apathy are rife, not least in the circles I frequent. Most people take pride in their non-partisanship. Perhaps it’s their last line of defence in preserving the whimsical America of yesteryear. I often find myself tongue-tied, wanting to speak up about the ominous signs all around, but fearing the label of opining outsider.

The Good Land

Milwaukee is also the biggest city in one of the nation’s key battleground states. The Republican National Convention will take place here later this month, after the Democratic National Convention held its summit here in 2020 (though Covid fears forced it mostly online). In recent months, Milwaukee and nearby cities have played host to Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, President Joe Biden and VP Kamala Harris. Talk about hotly contested.

Finally, like so many other American metropolises, Milwaukee is a city battling decline. The population is shrinking. Aging roads and bridges lie in a state of disrepair. Shootings and other crime rates remain persistently high. The smell of marijuana smoke wafts through city streets and down freeways. Milwaukee’s growing health sector looks impressive until you realise it’s largely dedicated to managing lifestyle-related ailments linked to obesity and heart disease. Racial segregation is palpable, reflecting the city’s economic disparity, but more tangibly, reflecting a disparity in hope.

Writing for the Free Press in a heart-rending piece entitled ‘We’re All Soviets Now’, Niall Fergusson mourns similar ills seen nationwide. Rising infant mortality. A stagnant non-farm business sector. An expensive but underprepared military. A federal government soon to spend more on debt than defence. An epidemic of mental ill health among the young. An epidemic of deaths of despair among the aged. Record fentanyl overdoses. A rise in mortality and a decline in life expectancy unparalleled in the developed world.

I love America. I hope and pray there are better days ahead. The road out of this mess will be a long one, but I am ultimately optimistic.

Milwaukee’s battlecry — the meaning of its name — is “the Good Land”. May it be so again. And may America find the political, cultural and spiritual renewal it so desperately needs.

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Image Credit: Unsplash

This article was originally published on Mercator under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).