Much ado is being made about the Black vote in 2020. Dems persist with recycled promises and platitudes. Meanwhile, Team Trump 2020 expands voter outreach to Black voters while enacting positive change in their communities. Will it be enough to win back their vote in 2020?
As Black History month 2020 comes to a close, we are reminded of the amazing contributions made to America by her Black citizens. Movies like “Hidden Figures” show us Black Americans challenging expectations, and how the country is better for it. Leaving behind the status quo, and community standards takes a strong will. Candace Owens is one such figure. And she’s determined to forage a path for those beside her. Despite the media slogging of low poll numbers in the Black community, she’s steadfast in her support. She is an example of what can happen if Black voters look beyond the Democrat party.
CNN is familiar with low numbers. If it wasn’t for low numbers, they’d have none at all. So it’s with little surprise that they are crowing about a recent poll by PRRI Research that shows the Black community has record low support for Trump. In fact, their analyst Chris Cillizza, writes,
Small gains could be a big deal for Trump in the black community. But these PRRI numbers make clear how hard those gains will be for him this November.“
How bad are those numbers? So bad that PRRI titled the research, “Despite Chaos and Controversy, Trump Favorability Stable Throughout 2019“! CNN took the unsurprising data, and ran a marathon. The poll actually isn’t really surprising when party identification is taken into account. It finds,
Black Democrats and independents are overwhelmingly unfavorable toward Trump, though the relatively small share of black Republicans hold mostly favorable views of him. A 55% majority of black Americans identify as Democrats, an additional 31% identify as independents, and 10% identify as Republicans. Nearly nine in ten (88%) black Democrats hold unfavorable views of Trump, including two-thirds (67%) who hold very unfavorable views of Trump. Nearly three in four (74%) black independents say they hold unfavorable views of Trump. Partisanship takes over for black Republicans, though, among whom only 36% hold unfavorable views of Trump.”
Buried in the research is a very important fact about Black voters, “10% identify as Republicans… Partisanship takes over for black Republicans, though, among whom only 36% hold unfavorable views of Trump.”
What I’m reading in that statement is the party affiliation, “partisanship”, is an overriding influence for the Republican voter. But not the Democrat voter? This is the limiting factor in extrapolating nuance from numbers, it’s hard to do in a polling format. Logically, and according to their own data, Democrats are unwavering in their dislike for DJT. Blacks are overwhelmingly Democrats. Therefore, their opinion of DJT is, logically, going to be low. Perpetually slanted media coverage, as shown on a Project Veritas video and in a VG post, doesn’t help him in those numbers.
Team DJT knows it can do better in Black communities (really, in all minority communities), and is making concentrated strides to address the issues important to the Black communities. These issues should be important across the board, and it’s good he’s addressing them. Criminal Justice reform, funding assistance for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, recognizing the contributions and successes of Black Americans at the State of the Union address, and creating “Economic Opportunity Zones.”
The campaign has also launched an outreach program, “Black Voices for Trump.” It is a focused effort and ideally return some of the Black vote to the Republican Party.
In The Atlantic, authors, Ismail K. White, and Chryl N. Laird adapt an article from their book – “Steadfast Democrats How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior.” In it they highlight the overlooked reason that outreach is ineffective,
If the Republican Party wants black Americans to stop voting for Democrats by such huge margins, it would need to target the racial segregation that undergirds black political solidarity. African Americans fully integrated into racially diverse social networks will be more likely to engage in political behavior that turns more on their individual economic and religious interests. Full integration would put the expectations of other black people at more of a distance; in mixed spaces, racialized social constraint would decline. The result would be a slow but steady diversification of black partisanship.“
If Trump is successful with Black voter outreach, it will diminish the Democrat party. Despite what the pundits at CNN write, Van Jones states it on CNN following POTUS 2020 SOTU address. The Hill summarizes,
“At the same time, warning the Democrats. What he was saying to African Americans can be effective. You may not like it, but he mentioned HBCUs, black colleges have been struggling for a long time, a bunch of them have gone under, he threw a lifeline to them in real life in his budget,” Jones, a former adviser to President Obama, added. “He talked about that. He talked about criminal justice reform. He talked about opportunity zones.”
“That [address] was a warning to us. That was a warning shot across the bow to us Democrats that he’s going after enough black votes to cause us problems,” Jones later concluded. “It’s not just suburban votes, he’s going after black votes.”
Reintegrating the Black vote into the Republican Party will be a huge win for the GOP, and the future of America. Democrats have relied upon their empty promises in exchange for the vote Black Americans for too long. Republicans need to support Trump’s efforts, and actively engage the Black community. Especially on issues within their community that impact us all.
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African Americans fully integrated into racially diverse social networks will be more likely to engage in political behavior that turns more on their individual economic and religious interests.
Precisely why the Democrats put so much effort into achieving the opposite.
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