andrewjtobias

The most surprising thing to me was how universally people I spoke with enjoyed Cleveland, particularly the media. Reporters can snark and complain with the best of them, and Cleveland is an easy target. But everyone I've spoken with — and everything I've seen — is that people had a great time here in the city.

As a corollary, I was a little surprised about how subdued the protest activity was. As far as I know, there was no property damage, no concerted efforts to impede the convention, no major fights. Particularly in light of the advance media coverage and general concerns that people had, all in all the atmosphere was pretty calm.

I don't think people were expecting Trump to be in Cleveland all four days. In fact, often times candidates will hold rallies and campaign events in other states while the convention is going on. I don't think this was really an object of concern or even great note for anyone.

It was a little heavy, tbh. But I believe that even though people disagree about politics, people are fundamentally good people, and our system is bigger than any one candidate.

As someone who lives here, the atmosphere was sort of surreal. There were a lot of people who were here who just didn't look and act like Clevelanders, and the presence of the police, metal barricades, helicopters, mixing with communist activists, suit and tie Republicans, street vendors, reporters, new neon lighted signs, etc. — It all created for a very energetic and eclectic atmosphere. Not nearly as bad as someone might expect based on coverage of protests, which are concentrated in narrow areas.

It's really hard to prove a negative, so who knows. I do suspect that the recent shootings have been sobering to people, I know some local protest organizers were especially sensitive to that issue. But I've been wondering why protest activity has been dampened at two GOP conventions running. (2012, 2016) Factors could be the heavy police presence, locations of the conventions, safety concerns and also possibly even changing trends in activism. But I'm really just speculating.

I'll say the convention from my POV was safe and people were given ample space to express their views.