One of the most common knocks against Donald Trump is actually one of the things I like most about him. Whereas some find fault in Trump for not being sufficiently indoctrinated to the conventional wisdom of politics, I see a refreshing refusal to be a slave to it. A few things are more established as conventional wisdom than the idea that the black vote will always go overwhelmingly Democratic, because . . . well, because it does!
In an appearance on Friday in Dimondale, Michigan (just outside Lansing), Trump aimed comments directly at black voters and trained his sights squarely on that conventional wisdom. Conservatives have long believed the black community does itself a disservice by slavishly (yeah, I used the word) giving its votes to Democrats, who consequently take them for granted and do nothing to make their lot in life any better.
But most Republican candidates are too cautious to come right out and say that, let alone say it in stark and uncompromising terms. Not Trump:
"You're living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58% of your youth is unemployed -- what the hell do you have to lose?" Trump asked the audience in an unscripted moment from a speech in which he otherwise stuck to his teleprompter.
. . .
Trump later accused Clinton of wanting to give jobs to refugees rather than unemployed African-Americans in the US, saying they have "become refugees in their own country."
Trump -- speaking to an overwhelmingly white audience that featured only a smattering of African-Americans and other minorities -- also promised that were he to run for re-election at the end of his first term, he would win 95% of the black vote.
Such support would be a tall order for Trump -- a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows Clinton beating Trump 91%-1% among African-Americans.
Well sure it would be a tall order. Any major sea change would. But you know what do the trick? If Trump effectively execute policies that would significantly change life in the inner city for the better. He's right. For all the Democrats' talk about how they care about minorities, and about how Republicans are supposedly racist, how has the plight of black Americans improved even a little as a result of Democrats' policies? They haven't. When Trump asks, "What the hell do you have to lose?", it's a very good question for which no one can really come up with a plausible answer.
The Democrats throw them scraps and claim this means they care. What it really means is that Democrats want as many Americans as possible to be wards of the state so they'll become loyal voters for the party of big government. When black people become wealthy and independent, they tend to become Republicans. Democrats don't want that at all.
I think Trump's comments would have had a lot more impact if he'd made them in Detroit or some other majority black community, and he's getting some criticism for making them in mostly white Dimondale. But here's what I think would have happened had Trump taken this message to Detroit: Union leaders, inner-city politicians and black pastors would have organized a massive heckling effort and protests, and the media would have made this the story rather than what Trump said.
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Republican candidates should go to the inner city, I'm convinced, but if they do they're going to face a staged uprising and they'll have to face it down
He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Republican candidates should go to the inner city, I'm convinced, but if they do they're going to face a staged uprising and they'll have to face it down. It's hard to talk to voters who don't even want to listen to you, often because they've been told by people in whom they've wrongly invested their trust that you're a racist or in some other way their enemy.
But Trump is right: The thing that would get black to vote Republican is if a Republican president can deliver results for them. We certainly know Hillary would not deliver anything but the same-old-same-old. So what the hell do they have to lose by voting for Trump?
Nothing.
One of the most common knocks against Donald Trump is actually one of the things I like most about him. Whereas some find fault in Trump for not being sufficiently indoctrinated to the conventional wisdom of politics, I see a refreshing refusal to be a slave to it. A few things are more established as conventional wisdom than the idea that the black vote will always go overwhelmingly Democratic, because . . . well, because it does!
In an appearance on Friday in Dimondale, Michigan (just outside Lansing), Trump aimed comments directly at black voters and trained his sights squarely on that conventional wisdom. Conservatives have long believed the black community does itself a disservice by slavishly (yeah, I used the word) giving its votes to Democrats, who consequently take them for granted and do nothing to make their lot in life any better.
