At the start of the evening, the mood was jovial around the White House. A small crowd gathered in front of the “wall”, in this case a high palisade erected to keep possible demonstrators at a distance on which all kinds of anti-Trump signs had been stuck. The recently renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza had a little carnival air. Some had dressed up in clown costumes, others waved anti-Trump flags or placards, a group of Christians prayed for peace while others danced to the sound of drums, awaiting the results of the election. At one point, a huge “Trump lies all the time” banner was unfurled. A little further, in a square, musicians had organized a concert next to a huge balloon bearing the image of Donald Trump.
Among the spectators was Donna, dressed in a pink and blue tutu and striped knee socks, who came with her scooter. “I did not want to be alone to celebrate the victory of Joe Biden, explains this young firefighter. We must get rid of Donald Trump, he has divided the country too much. How can we vote for him when we see his management of the pandemic? It’s like a cult of personality, I see it in my male colleagues. They admire him because he projects an impression of strength. But it’s like the tough guy in the playground. ”
Nearby, Brad and Peter, who both voted Democrats, also came to “celebrate the event”. The pro-Trump were much rarer. “Here, it is not representative of America”, confided almost whispering a boss of SME in the building came for a walk with his daughter, who said he was confident of a victory for the president.
“We need to keep our strength for tomorrow”
But around 9 p.m., the atmosphere abruptly changed and the small crowd began to gather in front of a giant screen that was showing election night on CNN. On occasion, she applauded when, for example, it was announced that Democrats had won a senator’s seat in Colorado. But as the evening wore on and Joe Biden seemed to be lagging behind in several key states, Donna grew increasingly anxious. “In 2016, I was so proud to have voted for the first female candidate and I went to bed confident. And when I woke up, Donald Trump had won. This year, I don’t want it to start again, ”she said, saying“ keep the hope ”.
Rebecca Chandler, a lady with very short hair, is very bitter: “I don’t know why we still have this electoral college system, it’s archaic. And then Joe Biden should have gone more into the field, the Democrats should have focused on certain states and not try to have, for example, Texas where he had no chance. ”
Jessica, a bit tipsy in her thirties, sums up the feeling: “As Jimmy Kimmel said [un humoriste, NDLR], I oscillate between the mood on Christmas Eve and that on the eve of a liver transplant. Then, at 10 p.m., one of the officials came to say that the screen was going to be turned off, the concert ended, and even the Trump balloon was deflated. “We need to keep our strength for tomorrow,” he told the a little crestfallen crowd.
A few scuffles
The tension mounted and there were some scuffles. A young man in a Make America Great Again t-shirt lashed out at another man who allegedly insulted him. A policeman intervened. Several hundred all-black protesters with helmets and gas masks marched through the streets of Washington, sheltered by black umbrellas so they could not be filmed. They blocked traffic, threw firecrackers.
But we are far from the riots feared by the police who had blocked traffic a huge perimeter around the White House. At around 2:20 a.m., when President Trump announced that he believed he had won the election, there were only a few TV crews and a handful of people in front of the fence who followed his speech on their cellphones. On one of the buildings facing the White House, we had hung a luminous slogan: “No concessions until every vote is counted”.
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