Miami

I can’t believe it took me this long to get to Miami but what an experience it was! Originally conceived as a week of blowing off steam for Music Week, my trip became an unintentionally fascinating window into Trump’s America, following a few months after his historic second inauguration. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make pilgrimage to the Mecca of MAGA – Mar-a-Lago – owing to tight security restrictions. Yet Miami-Dade, Florida’s most populous county and where the eponymous city is situated, is arguably a more interesting story, flipping Republican for the first time in thirty-six years.

I can’t comment on how it was pre-red wave, but the Miami I saw was exactly as I imagined: confident, high-octane and replete with Americana. And while I can understand why many would find this off-putting, I candidly found it intoxicating – not for overly political reasons, but rather the vibrancy and dynamism it exuded. To me, it avoids the pitfalls of other parts of the US that I hold dear: less parodied than Vegas, less hoobly-woobly than California and less claustrophobic than New York. Add to this a booming economy and it’s easy to see why so many within the country are moving here. Even the wild weather, which lurches between sunshine and showers, seemed to embody the energy here.

I stayed in Wynwood, a neighbourhood famous for its street art and murals. It’s the kind of aesthetic I would bemoan in London, but that works wonderfully here and matches the people. Miami’s residents are fit, tanned and good-looking – even if a little plastic in places for my taste. The quality of life, notwithstanding cost, is enviable. I ate superbly well across a host of cuisines and couldn’t believe how much outdoor recreation space there was – 260 parks spread across 12,825 acres, according to Miami-Dade Beacon Council. It all came to a head during Music Week, the real highlight of my trip. I won’t go into the lurid details, but suffice to say it was a lot of fun and further speaks to the city’s culture and vibrancy.

Yet for all Miami’s cool, cosmopolitan energy, I was curious to see its political alter ego. A short drive to Homestead and Miami’s NASCAR circuit revealed a different cultural register – though the same political one. Things got off to a suitably patriotic start, with a cute girl serenading the crowd to rapturous applause as a fighter jet roared overhead. The noise throughout was deafening. I initially baulked at the offer of ear buds until I saw a guy with a MAGA hat wearing them. I hastily put them in for what was still a fairly cacophonous affair. The sight of forty-odd cars roaring and racing around was fun for the first few laps but, as the track is circular, didn’t make for particularly scintillating viewing thereafter. Thankfully there were plenty of stands all too eager to ply me with food and booze, so I ping-ponged between them and track wassailing the afternoon away.

What ties these two Miamis together is perhaps Trump’s most underappreciated achievement: assembling a coalition of people who are culturally worlds apart but aligned on the things that matter to them: economic growth, freedom of expression and national pride. Nowhere is this clearer than in how Hispanic the city feels. I don’t just mean culturally. Spanish and English share almost equal billing on airport signs, road signs and shop fronts – a linguistic confidence you don’t expect in a country where English is the official tongue. America has long appeared the best cultural melting pot, but I really felt a degree of culture and cohesion here. That 51% of Miami’s population is foreign-born underscores America’s unrivalled ability to assimilate. The city makes you feel that America, for all its chaos, might have figured something out – that, in Europe at least, we are still grappling with. Hasta la próxima, Miami.