Famed singer Lizzo has told Democrats that if Kamala Harris wins next month’s US election, “the whole country will be like Detroit.” Former President Donald Trump has made the exact same claim, albeit disparagingly.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Detroit on Saturday, Lizzo told the crowd that she is “proud to be from this city.”
“You know, they say if Kamala Harris wins, then the whole country will be like Detroit, okay? Proud like Detroit. Resilient like Detroit,” the rotund songstress shouted. “We’re talking about the same Detroit that innovated the auto industry and the music industry, so put some respect on Detroit’s name, okay!”
The home of the American motor industry, Detroit was considered the world’s wealthiest city in the 1950s. However, the 1973 Oil Crisis and subsequent rise in popularity of imported cars hammered the city’s automobile industry, and after the passage of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) shifted manufacturing out of the US, Detroit became a byword for decline and urban decay.
One third of Detroit’s 640,000 people now live below the poverty line, while the city has the second highest crime rate in the US, according to FBI statistics compiled in 2019.
In a speech at the Detroit Economic Club last week, Trump compared the city to a “developing nation.”
“Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president. You’re going to have a mess on your hands,” Trump said, referring to Harris.
Trump and Harris are currently locked in a statistical dead heat in Michigan, with an average of eight recent polls compiled by RealClearPolitics placing Trump 1.2 points ahead of the vice president. Detroit is by far the state’s most populous urban area, and has long been a Democrat stronghold.
President Joe Biden won Michigan by just over 150,000 votes in 2020.