He added that “black people” are “on my side now because they see what’s happening to me happening to them.” He portrayed himself as a martyr for civil rights, claiming, “I’m being prosecuted for you, the black people.”
Additionally, President Trump claimed that African-Americans are particularly attracted to mugshots taken while being detained on felony charges in Fulton County, Georgia. You know who embraced it more than anyone else? black population. That’s unbelievable. There are black people walking around with pictures of me, they’re wearing shirts,” Trump said.
For the record, no prominent black right-wing figures joined Mr. Trump at campaign events — the group included Sen. Tim Scott (R) and Rep. Byron Donald (R). (R-Fla.), former Housing Secretary Ben Carson — who stormed off the stage. Donald later went so far as to defend Trump’s comments. I’m sure some people don’t care when they hear stereotypes about African Americans being ignorant, gullible, and criminally inclined.
In honor of Black History Month, let’s take a look back at President Trump and Black history. In 1973, his real estate company was sued by the Department of Justice for discriminating against African American renters. The company entered into a consent decree pledging to eliminate this practice. In 1989, Trump took out full-page ads in four New York newspapers that referenced the Central Park Five, a group of black and Latino men wrongly convicted of brutal rapes, and called for the state to carry the death penalty. He appealed for the revival of the Even after the men were proven innocent, President Trump refused to apologize.
Trump began his political career by falsely claiming that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and becoming the most prominent proponent of the racist “birther” conspiracy theory. . During President Trump’s first year in the White House, after a counter-protester was killed at a rally by white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, he said, “There are very good people on both sides.” “There is,” he said. In 2018, President Trump cited immigration numbers and called Central American, Caribbean and African countries “shitholes that send people they don’t want.” And that’s in addition to President Trump’s opposition to the views held by the majority of African Americans on issues such as affirmative action and voting rights.
Trump won 12% of the black vote in 2020. That’s more votes than Republican presidential candidates typically receive, but still only 12%. Republicans are salivating over recent polls showing growing support among African Americans for President Trump and relatively muted support for President Biden.
But the only time black voters have had a chance to vote in significant numbers so far, in South Carolina’s decidedly less competitive Democratic primary earlier this month, black voters outnumbered other Democrats. also expressed great enthusiasm for Biden’s re-election.
In election after election, the African American vote was a fool’s trove for the Republican Party. The problem is not that black conservatives don’t exist. In fact, there are many. That is, the Republican Party has confronted African Americans with either ignorance or outright hostility. We’ve seen Republican officials like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis try to censor African-American history so as not to offend anyone, and Republican candidate Nikki Haley who said, “America is a racist country.” “The Republican Party’s credibility among black voters tends to evaporate.” .
President Trump’s crude rhetorical pandering is certainly a different approach. But not in a good way.
In a speech Friday, President Trump boasted that he had gotten a better deal on the price of the new Air Force One than the Obama administration had negotiated, a claim that turned out to be completely false. He asked, “Would you rather have a black president or a white president discounted by $1.7 billion?” The crowd of African American conservatives applauded, and President Trump boasted, “I think they want white people.”
Of course, I can’t speak for all African Americans. But my guess is no, actually not. No, it’s not.