“UNKNOWN AMERICA” – READ ALL THE PREVIOUS REPORTAGES BY LORETTA NAPOLEONI ON L’ANTIDIPLOMATICO
ARIZONA: The Limbo of migrants
SANTA FE’: What remains of the American dream in the “Mexican Disneyland”?
COLORADO: The migration factor in the US presidential race
DAKOTA: Indian reservations, fracking and Trump‘s dictates: “an America of another time”
WISCONSIN – Trump or Harris? In a swing state, politics is taboo
CHICAGO – The “non-voters” invisible to the system
NEW STOP: LAS VEGAS
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by Loretta Napoleoni – Las Vegas
October 30, 2024
Leaving the great prairie behind, we arrive in the southwestern states: New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and here we once again come across the contradictions of a polarized and deeply divided nation. Incredibly, in this semi-desert triangle even the landscape is in tune with America’s fractured soul.
Las Vegas, the Disneyland of gambling, is a glittering metropolis that rises in the center of the desert, a few hundred kilometers from Monument Valley where time has stopped in prehistory, and from the Navajo Indian reservation, where the future does not It has existed since the mid-19th century.
You can get there from one of the main roads and, traveling along them, you pass without realizing from the scorched earth of early autumn to the shop windows of the designer labels; the transition from a slice of the country that does not exist electorally to a city that represents an electoral metropolitan beacon is sudden and rapid. along a deep existential fracture.
Trump is in town when I arrive and MAGA is present everywhere, a very loud, vulgar and haughty red wave so much so that one gets the impression that Las Vegas is a red city. On a bright board depicting Trump and Harris in profile, two gladiators facing each other, the bets on the elections are scrolling in real time, naturally Trump is the favourite. But then you realize that the percentage of victory and defeat never changes. Will it be an advertisement? we ask ourselves.
The board is from Kalshi, the first non-academic prediction market to be officially legalized in the United States – the company won a court battle against regulators who tried to stop it from allowing election betting. Kalshi’s total betting volume currently stands at more than $50 million, indicating Trump has a 61 percent chance of winning over Harris. But will it be true? We ask ourselves again. The electoral betting market is inflated by billionaires aligned with both candidates who with millions of dollars try to change the victory percentages of the betting market
Super modern and futuristic Las Vegas has no charm, everything appears fake and kitsch; yet, taken individually, several of his spectacular buildings, eg the sphere or the pyramid, are works of great architecture. As in all of America, harmony is lacking and the inequalities are monumental, so frighteningly overwhelming that one has the impression that victims and executioners coexist.
Of course Nevada is one swing stateit became one at the end of the 1980s, until then it was a republican state. But like Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona the population of Silver State it grew suddenly due to internal migration. Since 1980 it has more than tripled, recording a growth of 35 percent between 2000 and 2010. And so internal migration has transformed Nevada into a swing state.
Las Vegas is also a polarized city poised between red and blue. It is based on a highly labour-intensive industry, the workforce is estimated at 1.2 million workers, but the true figure is much higher, and unemployment is practically zero. An army of valets, croupiers, waiters, chefs, prostitutes and artists entertain tens of millions of tourists daily. In this city there is work for everyone. The strength of the unions is immense and the union is the largest The Culinary Union he said he was in favor of Harris. But this does not mean that all members will vote for her. Trump could conquer part of it with his slogans about the future of the country.
The problem of those who work in Las Vegas is not illegal immigration, so dear to the Trump-Vance duo, on the contrary, unauthorized immigrants are welcome because they do jobs that others don’t want to do. The real problem for those who live and work in Las Vegas is inflation. And Trump appears more credible on the economy than Harris.
According to the latest survey by the Financial Times together with the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, 44 percent of the population believes that Trump is better suited than Harris to manage the economy while 43 percent support Kamala Harris. A very low margin but in a city like this, the capital of gambling and entertainment, where they want to give the visitor the impression that everything is granted to him, perhaps Trump’s economic message imbued with the American dream has more resonance than the socio-economic one of Harris.
