OPINION:
Donald Trump has a new pitch to minority voters: “To those suffering I say: what do you have to lose by trying something new?”
Mr. Trump continued at his rally in Austin, Texas, Tuesday night: “Let me also tell you what you have to gain: more jobs, higher wages, and a massive reduction in the terrible crime plaguing our inner cities.”
At its heart, it’s the exact same pitch he’s been giving all voters — it’s time to rebuke the status quo, go with an outsider for president, someone who can shake things up for the better.
And he’s not wrong for detailing the plight of some living within the black community.
The overall labor force participation rate for black Americans is down 3.2 percent, and is worse among black teenagers. The black poverty rate has grown, as has the number of blacks receiving food stamps. Home ownership has plunged among this group, and nearly 4 in 10 black children live in poverty.
Homicide rates in our major cities is also spiking. In Washington, D.C., it’s up nearly 50 percent and is higher than 60 percent in Baltimore. Violent crime has risen 17 percent in the 50 largest cities.
Yet, when Mr. Trump says these words, the press has a knee-jerk reaction: No, that can’t be true, they say. Mr. Trump really just wants to shore up the white vote. He doesn’t care about minority communities!
Left-wing blog Salon.com wrote the headline: “Insult politics: Does Trump really think he can appeal to black voters by being condescending?”
As if Hillary Clinton does better by pandering.
The article then goes on to detail how blacks have access to better educational attainment then they’ve had since the civil rights movement, how now 90 percent of them have high school degrees, how health care is more affordable and there are not more black men in jail than in college.
“The Age of Obama did not usher in a paradise or utopia where the black freedom struggle could cease and prosperity and equality were birthed into existence for all peoples on both sides of the color line,” Salon admitted. “But despite Trump’s description (and perhaps wish and psychological projection) Black America is not mired in a dystopian hell, bereft of hope, and clinging to survival in a real-life version of John Carpenter’s film ’Escape from New York.’”
OK, then. I seem to have misunderstood — somehow — between reading the demands of the “Black Lives Matter” movement and following the work of The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, that life within the black community was rosy.
The Washington Post assured its readers Mr. Trump’s outreach to minorities is just a ploy to convince white voters he’s not a bigot — that there can’t be anything genuine in his call for minority votes.
“One objective of Trump’s new black outreach strategy is to reassure wavering whites that he’s not a racist,” Phillip Rucker, a reporter at The Post, wrote on Twitter.
The Atlantic predicted Mr. Trump’s outreach was doomed to fail, given blacks are actually more upbeat than Mr. Trump’s downer message.
“Trump’s dour, bleak message is increasingly at odds with attitudes among black Americans, who, while concerned about racism and other problems, are more optimistic about the future than their white counterparts,” the Atlantic wrote.
Interesting. Where have these articles been before Mr. Trump made his overtures?
Democratic leaders and the mainstream media have long been the ones to highlight black struggles, but when Mr. Trump makes those same points, he’s ridiculed.
Donna Brazile, the new chairwoman of the Democratic National Convention tweeted on Tuesday: “Alleviating the wage gap for black women needs to be a key issue in this election.”
She then linked to an op-ed that stated: “African-American women must work 20 months to make what white men earn in 12. … When their full-time, year-round wages are compared to those of white men, black women make just 60 cents on the dollar.”
That doesn’t seem too rosy.
Mrs. Clinton excoriated Mr. Trump’s assessment that blacks are living in poverty, their schools are no good, and that the job market’s a mess as “so ignorant it’s staggering,” though she herself has used the same pitch in getting minority votes.
“Something is wrong when the median wealth for black families is a tiny fraction of that of white families,” she tweeted in May.
In March she wrote: “Black students are 16 percent of student populations but are subjected to school-related arrests 31 percent of the time.” She then linked to her webpage on her suggestions on how to end the school-to-prison pipeline.
The double standard is staggering.
Should Mr. Trump be delivering his minority outreach message in front of more black audiences? Yes. According to reports he’s scheduled to visit black churches and urban charter schools in a tour of Detroit with Dr. Ben Carson.
Does he need to have a better pitch than “you’re doing so bad, how much worse can it get?”
Maybe.
But again, that’s the pitch he’s made to all voters — and it resonated with the Republican base. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Trump can’t do any worse with black voters than he already has in the polls, and any incremental steps he can make directly addressing this community is positive.
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