Trump’s outreach to black voters mirrors past GOP candidates
Unusual for a Republican? Not really.
Donald Trump made a speech recently in an appeal to black voters.
I’ve noticed many pundits on both left and right treating this as a very unusual thing for a Republican to do (see this, for example). And here’s how one commenter on my blog described it:
Trump makes the best speech of the campaign, and is the one of the first, if not the first, Republican to reach out to the black community in 50 years, a brilliant move both substantively and strategically…
Let’s put aside for a moment the question of how much difference a speech can make, and treat the question of whether this sort of outreach in a speech is unusual for a Republican.
On what is that assertion based? Memory? But memory can play funny tricks; that’s why Google is our friend.
A very quick search reveals that both Mitt Romney and George Bush reached out in a similar way during campaigns, as did Rand Paul during the 2016 campaign (see this, this for excerpts, and this). I haven’t tried to research all the Republican presidents and candidates of the last 50 years, but just now I chose one and looked for “Gerald Ford speaks to black community.” Up came this:
In the months after he assumed the presidency, Ford actively presented his views on domestic policy, including civil rights and urban affairs, to African American organizations, including the National Baptist Convention, and at forums such as the White House Conference on Domestic and Economic Affairs. He used a 1975 speech at the NAACP national convention to talk about the adverse impact of the recession and inflation on low-income workers and the poor. He promised that his administration’s policy of fiscal restraint wouldn’t mean turning the country’s back on problems of employment, housing, education, transportation and health care…
Meanwhile, the president reached out to African American audiences to sell his policies. For example, his 1975 speech to the predominantly black National Newspaper Publishers Association addressed the economy, crime, taxes, unemployment and voting rights. “Blacks in our society have too often been mentally segregated by some thinkers and planners who acted as if blacks did not have the same expectations and problems as other Americans,” he said. “I promised at the very beginning of my administration to be president of all the people, and I am keeping that pledge. The administration will not slice off a small portion of the pie and say, ‘This is enough for the 25 millions of Americans who are black.’”
There’s a good deal more at the link; the whole thing is an excerpt from a book entitled Presidents and Black America: A Documentary History (can’t find it at Amazon, though), which might correct the record on misconceptions about a lot of presidents.
The truth about the GOP and the black community in recent years is that the perception of “Democrats good, GOP bad” by the black community has become entrenched and is probably not amenable to a speech.
The MSM has long been engaged in promoting the idea that Republicans ignore black people. It’s said often enough by the left that I don’t think the right needs to repeat the falsehood. And yet, the right has all too often accepted that characterization by the left without questioning it much.
[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]
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Democrats promise criticism-free free goodies and services, paid for by THE MAN. Republicans stress family, personal responsibility, working for a living. Guess who wins?
The LA times poll is showing Trump’s support surging among black voters after giving this speech.
It is treated as unusual because it appears to be unusual probably because it is unusual.
For some, perhaps neo-neo, unusual aspects of Trump trigger mistrust or revulsion.
But Trump’s celebrity is unusual for a GOP candidate and seems larger than life with name recognition associated with deluxe living. Add a long running reality show playing The Boss and it’s not hard to understand he’s a white guy blacks can admire.
I agree that Pub candidates do reach out to minority voters in their campaigns.
Once.
Then they go back to their usual campaigns, moaning that black voters won’t come over to them.
If this is Trump’s “once”, then it will be the same story. It has to be done repeatedly. Trump (for example) should have spoken to the NAACP in Cincinnati just before the RNC. He should find more ways to speak out. Perhaps go visit Milwaukee’s or Chicago’s or Detroit’s neighborhoods. Keep repeating the message of how he’ll help, how he’ll change things, and how the Democrats take black voters for granted.
None of that will harm his base; most of his base will be nodding their heads in agreement.
You have to reach out. Repeatedly.
Having some black people on his team would be a good move too. Maybe he does, I don’t know.
IIRC, Katrina Pierson is a POC. And, of course, there’s Dr. Weirdness, Ben Carson, who is sort of on-off.
Yes, Dr. Carson, of course. Is Pierson actually a POC, or does she just identify as one?
Pierson was born in Kansas[2] to a white mother and a black father.[3] Her mother, who gave birth to her at age 15,[1] initially gave her up for adoption, but later changed her mind.[3] She grew up with her mother, in poverty.[3]
In 1997, at the age of 20, Pierson was arrested for shoplifting, to which she pleaded no contest, received deferred adjudication, and, ultimately, a dismissal with the case sealed.[1] She reportedly took $168 in merchandise from a J. C. Penney store in Plano, Texas, and had her then three-month old son with her at the time of the incident.[1] Pierson told authorities she needed the clothes for job interviews. She has said that the incident helped turn her life around, showing her that mistakes often come with consequences.[1]
Wiki, so look under the hood…
She also worked for Cruz before turning to the Dark Side…
But the latest polls say he’s so totally winning!
Ahahahahahaha
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=643909275764406&set=p.643909275764406&type=3
“it’s really a commentary on the credulity of Trump supporters that so many think this memo could be real”
https://twitter.com/ppppolls/status/766242738463502336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Trump projects have provided thousands of jobs to all manner of Americans. Including black’s. No past republican nominees can say that. He’s dealt with all types of people in all types of situations. No past republican nominee can say that in the same way.
You #never T-rumpers keep looking for ways to bring down a unique candidate. All you do is expose your own limited grasp of what the situation is with millions of people outside your own circle of activities. That’s been a longtime experience & observation of mine in my dealings with conservatives. Some conservatives realize this & those are the conservatives you can work with. Unfortunately there are at least as many that refuse to see that reality. You can’t work with those conservatives. Those conservatives are legion among #never T-rumpers.
BULLSPIT. As with Lyin’ Trump’s donations, he takes credit for the employees of those he contracts on his projects – the same people he routinely stiffs, costing jobs and even whole businesses.
Trump’s 40-year record is one of screwing his partners, investors, creditors, contractors, and workers, and pocketing the money as his projects usually FAIL.
Unfortunately Trump got his conclusions wrong. He blamed outsourcing to China for taking employment away from blacks. In reality that’s a tiny effect, the real reason is importing millions of illegal immigrants directly competing with them for jobs. He can’t go there without being slammed as an anti-Hispanic racist.
He’s already gone there – it was the cornerstone of his primary campaign. And yes, he was slammed, and is being slammed, as an anti-Hispanic racist for that. Strangely, Univision’s efforts notwithstanding, he seems to have a core constituency in the Hispanic community.
” In reality that’s a tiny effect, the real reason is importing millions of illegal immigrants directly competing with them for jobs. He can’t go there without being slammed as an anti-Hispanic racist.”
Only partly correct. The real reason their is so much poverty and family dysfunction in the Black community is because the Democrats and the Great War on Poverty. Social welfare has favored single moms over married couples. Financially it makes more sense for a woman to never marry. A Black man has to compete with other men, and the government welfare benefits. He loses. Employers lose. They must pay more than welfare, and they can’t. So there is the incentive for them to break the law and hire “people of illegal immigration status”.
Just saw an article about this problem in Europe. Subsidizing aggrieved minorities with welfare encourages them to stay in their enclaves. Force them to get jobs, and they must encounter the racists in the work place. Racist policies, without government subsidies, are expensive, and would eventually diminish.
Hilarious that the lowlife fanboys who defended Trump’s every outrageous word over the last year now demand we applaud him for his “regrets” (NOT apologies) for saying them.
Ignorant trash, all of you.
Tad excitable, today, are we?
Estragon
Some nerve talking about Ignorant trash!
Voting to support Crooked Hillary who for the last year
lies every time she opens her mouth about the criminal e-mail fiasco. She is not in jail for one reason her name.
She has shown extremely poor judgement not to protect national security material. Who would vote for Crooked Hillary?
Ignorant trash!
extragone is a democrat, a very trashy democrat.
It’s just this simple… A vote for the hildabeast is a vote for the status quo.
Are you satisfied with the status quo???
Mr. Establishment endorsed EVERY GOP incumbent.
Please… Be real.
He’s made more than one such speech. The difference is that he gets through.
“The Democratic Party has failed and betrayed the African-American community. Democratic crime policies, education policies, and economic policies have produced only more crime, more broken homes, and more poverty.”
“Let us look at the situation right here in Milwaukee, a city run by Democrats for decade after decade. Last year, killings in this city increased by 69 percent, plus another 634 victims of non-fatal shootings. 18-29-year-olds accounted for nearly half of the homicide victims. The poverty rate here is nearly double the national average. Almost 4 in 10 African-American men in Milwaukee between the ages of 25-54 do not have a job. Nearly four in 10 single mother households are living in poverty. 55 public schools in this city have been rated as failing to meet expectations, despite ten thousand dollars in funding per-pupil. There is only a 60% graduation rate, and it’s one of the worst public school systems in the country.”
“1 in 5 manufacturing jobs has disappeared in Milwaukee since we fully opened our markets to China, and many African-American neighborhoods have borne the brunt of this hit.”
And, no. I have been watching this race, and the Republicans have not been doing this well, at all. It has been one of my continuing frustrations with them, because conservative blacks exist and are the natural allies of the Repubs.
Between boris, myself, & now Valarie the count is now 6 up, 15 down votes. Which validates the point I, & they in another way are making as of 9am et.. That count will of course change over the rest of the day. Those 15 down votes are votes Donald Trump will not get. Those 15 down votes are 15 less votes Hilary Clinton will not have to get to be elected.
There are conservative’s you can work with, 6 ; and there are conservative’s you cannot work with, 15. There Mr. Ragsdale I. M. A. Dumbass Esq is my & their point.
In this time of existential crisis with never a more clear distinction you 15 choose your ego, vanity, & inability to admit you’ve been wrong & will thereby not only enable but in addition promote the ridiculous notion that Donald Trump, with all his faults, is an equivalent bad option over the most criminal woman in the country over the last quarter century.
I have no clue of how you all can live with that.
“…Trump, with all his faults, is an equivalent bad option over the most criminal woman in the country…”
But that’s a lie.
I NEVER make that analysis, and never had to.
I won’t vote FOR a Collectivist thug. I’ve said that for over a year, so we know you can’t (not even you) be confused about that.
You’re just a happy (actually miserable, but happy to lie) cultist.
For their own part, I believe the Republicans have the good will and the policies that would help all of our people, very much including our blacks and legal immigrants. They believe in equal protection under the laws as well as due process, something the Democratic Party has forgotten. They do not seem to be able to punch through the media curtain. This has been a chronic problem since at least the GWB administration.
I watched George Bush (who I did not vote for the first time) criss-cross this country, calming it down after 9/11, and read Zbigniew Brzezinski damn him by saying a recent speech (which I knew was his stump speech) was “less Islamophobic” than usual. The only reason I knew the editorial was an ugly misrepresentation was because I had been reading the White House logs and copies of his speeches.
I am not the only person that has learned how to do this. I am not the only person who spotted Tom Daschle & co. decide to 1) support the invasion of Iraq, and then 2) ride the self-declared “failure” in Iraq to the White House. I believe that decision was corrupt, and it has poisoned the party.
Fast forward, now it is easy to find full video, in nearly real time, of each Trump rally, along with a shorter version or some kind of hint as to where to start looking, for each of Trump’s “outrageous” statements.
Only, they aren’t outrageous, until some jerk completely mischaracterizes them. And then, the Republicans, like complete idiots, pile on and wind up making fools of themselves. They haven’t learned to dig just a little, first, to find out what they are talking about.
The Republican Party at the national level has not welcomed any new faces the way they should. They haven’t welcomed the TEA Parties, their new Representatives or Senators, or the new voters. This is no way to win an election.
Did you ever think you get so many downvotes, not for your blind cheerleading of Trump, but because of your condescension of everybody else on this blog? Your “work” with “conservatives” over the “last 40 years” and your superior know-it-all attitude in “dealing with conservatives” is why everybody thinks you’re a jerk.
I don’t know Boris. He made an innocuous statement which got him 1 up vote & 7 down votes. Explain that!
It’s undeniable Ragsdale I. M. A. Dumbass Esq, Aka ParrotMaster has a flock of parrots with which he’s infested this site. That is the source of the persistent down votes for anyone who differs from said ParrotMaster, Aka Ragsdale I. M. A. Dumbass.
Poor old failed nutter. You’re just pathetic. I bet you imagine all kinds of things.
Like conservatives are losers.
No, wait, you believe that down in your demented bones. And you want us “discredited”.
Sad.
What if Rasgpierre and I are one and the same person? What if my goal is to live rent free in your head so you lie awake at night and come up with snarky, condescending things to write to prove how morally superior you are? What if all of Legal Insurrection were one big ruse that was created just to play a big joke on you?
On second thought, maybe people like me, Ragspierre and his “parrotflock” are just really good at sniffing out a rat and calling it for what it is.
Wooooah, DUDE…!!! The LI matrix! Are we real or just a simulation? Parrots…ranks of parrots…wearing Ray-bans…!!!
Careful. That kind of prospect could sent a nutter off into pure psychotic break!
“It’s undeniable Ragsdale I. M. A. Dumbass Esq, Aka ParrotMaster has a flock of parrots with which he’s infested this site.”
Rags has been here forever. A number of his most vehement critics only set up their account(s) quite recently.
Including the Fifty Shades of Gary Britt.
HEH. And another HEH!!!
A lot of them are Blood and Soil bois from the alt-right, too. BTW, how did Hitler miss that as a title chapter in Mein Kampf…???
If I weren’t dead against T-rumpism, those anti-American pukes would have done it for me.
Monofart is resigning from the T-rump campaign.
Did he jump, or was he pushed…???
Do you realize that you have become the mirror image of the Trumpkins that were banned from here?
Tad excitable, today, are we?
But well-deserved snark aside, how was that not a legitimate question?
Valarie ;
The count is now at 7 up votes, & 23 down votes for you, Boris, & myself. Is it any wonder certain people get banned & certain hyperbolic others don’t? Especially ones who claim a special relationship with he who owns this site? Tho I add we only have the word of a congenital liar for that so who knows?
Given that, it doesn’t matter how else you “spit shine that turd.”
People don’t get banned for “down-twinkles” or voicing unpopular opinions here. I’ve managed to score as many as 20 down-twinkles with a single comment in some of the police brutality threads, and have mightily annoyed some of the regulars (including Rags) with my “bleeding heart” views.
Of course, all twinkles are wiped after a few weeks anyway, so that might tell you what level of regard our esteemed host holds them in.
“Especially ones who claim a special relationship with he who owns this site?”
If you have a link, you lying SOS, best post it now.
I’m calling you out as a dirty, stinking, lying POS. I…and nobody here I know about…has ever made such a claim, and for excellent reason. It would be a lie. Which you T-rump sucking cultists seem to traffic in and revel in.
You are getting more and more desperate in your lies, too, I note with no unalloyed glee.
“Tad excitable, today, are we?”
Just so you know, you reek of parrot crap.
Yes, yes. Quoting Val is a BAD, BAD thing.
But I see no link, liar.
C’mon, doublesucks. Where are those links? ONE link? I love demonstrating who you are here!
It is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo easy and so much fun!
Ford is very bland and boring. Trump explained how black communities are exploited for votes, promised by Dems to care for them etc. but Trump pointed out how Dems used them but then forgot all about them when elected. Failing schools another example of failed.Dem policies. Why?? No Republicans have never layed it on the line as he did. They just chose their words carefully so the wouldn’t hurt the feelings of the opponentwho kicked their butt.