The first thing that hit me when I walked into Travis Coffee Shop was that it is not a coffeehouse but a no-frills 24-hour diner.
Not what I expected. I’d planned to sit down with a cappuccino and write about Joe Biden’s visit to Michigan. But as I traded coffee for a mushroom Swiss hamburger, it turned out to be an ideal spot to absorb the environment of Macomb County, one of the state’s most crucial swing counties in the Detroit suburbs.
In one booth sat a white-mustachioed man wearing a white Trump 2020 hat. Across the room was a woman with her short pixie-cut hair dyed blue and a Pink Floyd T-shirt. An older couple, learning to navigate coronavirus-era etiquette and social distancing rules, sat one seat apart at the diner counter before a hostess assured them they could sit together.
Blue vinyl seats were the defining feature of the half-century-old diner’s nondescript interior. The unusually walkable commercial strip it sat in holds remnants of a bygone economic area along with hopes of restoring local businesses. Instead of a Party City and a Victoria’s Secret was a locally owned party supply store and a lingerie store; across the street, an expanding brewery.
In contrast to the common claim that those who intend to vote for the president are “silent” in public for fear of retaliation, supporters of Biden seemed to be the shy ones in Macomb County.
One young man, who told me that he had hoped Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders would win the Democratic primary but is settling for Biden, remarked on how often he sees Trump hats, shirts, and signs. “These people just came out of the woodwork,” he said. —By Emily Larsen
