Portrait of the Trumpist activist in training

Photo: Alex Brandon Associated Press Supporters of former Republican President Donald Trump applaud before he speaks at a campaign event at Linda Ronstadt Music Hall on September 12, 2024, in Tucson, Arizona.

Stéphane Baillargeon in Tucson, Arizona

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• United States

The presidential election in the United States in a few weeks will be played out in a handful of swing states, including Nevada and Arizona, where the Republican and Democratic candidates remain neck and neck. This series offers a political journey through these areas of fierce struggle. Third stop, this time around Republicans in training in Tucson, Arizona's second city.

Chase Petz works as a technician in the emergency room of a hospital in Tucson, Arizona, and he says it very frankly: he would not want a public health care system like Quebec. All things considered, he would not want the United States to become Canadianized.

“With all due respect, I don’t want my country to end up like Canada,” he says. “I don’t want a socialized health care system; I want a free market in health care. What happened in your country during COVID—the lockdowns, the arrest of truckers, the seizure of their bank accounts—terrifies me. I don’t want that to happen in our country.” The critical remark refers to the crackdown on the Freedom Convoy, a Canadian protest movement in the winter of 2022 against mandatory vaccinations and health measures.

At 36, Mr. Petz was by far the youngest of about 20 Republican activists forming in late September in Tucson, the second-largest city in the southwestern U.S. state. He was accompanied by his father, and vice versa. The volunteers for the door-to-door canvassing had been arranged to meet on the steps of a church in the eastern suburbs of the city.

Kristen Pruett led the political education. She spent a good hour laying out the rules of conduct to engage citizens in conversation. The goal was clear and simple: to register Republican supporters on the electoral rolls and encourage affiliated voting.

Photo: Stéphane Baillargeon Le Devoir Kristen Pruett (right) and two activists in training at the Turning Point Action event in Tucson

In the 2022 midterm elections, the Democratic Party reportedly hired a good thousand people to canvass in Arizona; the Republican Party, no one. More than 100,000 right-wing supporters in the state reportedly did not vote, and Democrats narrowly won four major offices (governor, senator, secretary of state and chief prosecutor). And this may have partly caused this.

So Ms. Pruett is working this year to stimulate and organize her party’s base. She is from Tucson, like Mr. Petz. She worked for the past few years as a graphic designer. She chose to get actively involved just before Christmas last year when she saw “the increasing degradation” around her. She cites the homeless, drug use, the state of the roads, etc. She was elected in July as a precinct committeewoman () associated with the Republican Party.

“In all cities run by Democrats, the problems accumulate and are never solved. I think the Democrats’ approach based on equality and not on equity is not the right one.” In America, opportunities are equal for everyone and it is up to each person to make the most of them: that is fairness,” she says.

Also read in our series Il était quelques fois dans l’Ouest

• Sheriff, for better and for worse
• In Arizona, meeting at the conspiracy cinema for the film “Vindicating Trump”
• Las Vegas, blue-collar city in a purple state
• The one who stays in Las Vegas…

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Help yourself and the state will help you ?

Conversations with these two Republicans—and others I met during this trip—confirm in a nutshell that two fundamental perspectives on life in society are at odds. These two radically opposed visions oppose the principle of equality (on the left) and that of liberty (on the right), as Ms. Pruett summarizes.

In the first case, the welfare state takes over from the old Christian charity to remedy the inequalities and injustices caused by capitalism, but also to prevent revolutions. The community compensates for unemployment and incapacity to work, it takes care of education, childcare services, health, pensions, etc.

Social problems such as human distress and their state solutions seem to multiply endlessly. Homelessness now occupies a central portion in the great pantheon of compassionate protocol. And there are thousands of homeless people in Tucson alone.

In the second paradigm, that of individualistic and neoliberal logic, everyone must assume their responsibilities and the government, small or large, constantly fails to change people's bad habits, wasting precious collective resources that these bad actors divert by asking the community to pay for their bad choices or their bad luck.

In addition, from this perspective, not asking individuals to take their responsibilities only adds misfortune to the pain, as if the conduct of one's life came with an insurance no fault, without regard to responsibility. In this vision, defended by Ms. Pruett with great eloquence, community mutual aid, while possible, can only come at the same time as individual responsibility—for example, to wean oneself off drugs or alcohol or to return to work in exchange for subsidized housing.

“I'm for policies that let individuals take charge of themselves,” she said. “Democrats keep saying that we have to take care of others. It's not my problem to take care of someone else, I want to give everyone the opportunity to be successful by taking responsibility.”

Trump, a divisive figure

Chase Petz, also very eloquent, explained his political choices at length and rationally based on his conservative values. He plans to endorse all the “R” candidates, including Senator Kari Lake (a diehard Trump supporter), Heather Lappin (who wants to be sheriff of Pima County, which includes Tucson) and, of course, Donald Trump.

The abrasive style of the would-be former president, who repeats lies ad nauseam, does not bother him ? And the legal proceedings and the mounting convictions ? Mr. Trump has endured two impeachment trials, a conviction for sexual assault, another for defamation and still others for fraud, after all.

Mr. Petz counters that Trump’s accuser in the assault trial is herself deranged (“she’s a fruitcake”). He describes the trials as “political malfeasance.” He knows well that the former president is a divisive figure, but he himself evaluates his character based on his family relationships (“he adores his children and his children adore him”) and on his reaction after the first assassination attempt in July in Pennsylvania.

He says: “The way he stood up with absolute bravery, courage and conviction shows that he could fight against any oppressive system, against any force that would come down on the American people.”

Tax and abortion

The young conservative presents himself as a Mexican-American “who campaigns to secure the border.” “Terrorism and criminal gangs” worry him. He cites Aurora, Colorado, where, according to Donald Trump, members of a Venezuelan gang have taken armed control of apartment buildings.

He says he supports Trump’s economic proposals “very, very strongly,” starting with the idea of ​​no longer taxing tips and overtime. “I worked a lot of overtime last year and doubled my income, but I had to pay about $3,000 more in taxes. It’s like a slap in the face, because I have debts to pay off.”

Abortion is also at the center of the campaign. Arizona made international headlines in 2022 when it temporarily reinstated an 1864 law that banned abortions from the moment of conception. Abortion is now legal up to 15 weeks of gestation in Arizona. And Proposition 139, which will be voted on next month, would enshrine in the state constitution a ban on limiting abortion until the fetus is viable.

“Abortion is a human rights issue, and every child has the right to live,” Petz said. “For decades, we have killed a generation that would be grandparents now. They would have children and grandchildren of their own who would help the country. Over 50 million babies have been aborted.”

This report was funded with support from the Transat International Journalism Fund- Le Devoir .