OPINION:
How can former President Donald Trump electrify the campaign trail, turbocharge his reelection prospects, and nauseate the Democrats? Stage “Make America Great Again” rallies in the ’hood.
Atop his usual Republican-leaning venues, the former president should hold his signature mass meetings in the Black neighborhoods of such swing-state cities as Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Richmond, Virginia. Mr. Trump would capitalize on one of the 2024 campaign’s most intriguing trends: the former president’s rising popularity among Black voters.
The Fulton County, Georgia, mug shot that made liberals salivate has backfired. The GOP base circled its wagons more tightly around Mr. Trump. Added advantage: This police-involved photo shoot gave Mr. Trump street cred as a victim of “the Man.”
The New York Post’s Jon Levine recently showcased pro-Trump rappers. Chief Keef told his 8.8 million Instagram followers, “He good in da hood.”
Badman Kevo, who boasts two Trump tattoos, complained that President Biden “actually got me paying a lot of taxes.”
And Buffalo, New York’s Benny the Butcher declared via X: “I’m votin Trump 2024.”
Black attitudes toward Mr. Trump are warming far beyond the recording studios. Edison Research’s exit polls gave Mr. Trump 8% of the Black vote in 2016 and 12% in 2020, including 19% of Black men.
Reuters/Ipsos discovered in July that 18% of Blacks favor Mr. Trump versus 46% for Mr. Biden. A late August Economist/YouGov study pegged Trump at 20% among Black registered voters compared with 62% for Mr. Biden.
Fox News on Thursday spotted Mr. Trump at 21% and Mr. Biden at 69% — down from 87% at the last election, according to Edison. These combined figures put Mr. Trump 9 percentage points ahead of and Mr. Biden 18 points behind their final 2020 results.
Mr. Trump should ask in person for the votes of this increasingly receptive audience. He should also discuss his overall record and how it specifically helped Black Americans.
He should remind Black voters about the broad economic boom that the Trump/GOP Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and deregulation unleashed, before COVID-19 wrecked everything.
• Real median income for Blacks grew from $39,490 in 2016, under President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, to $45,438 in 2019, during the Trump-Pence administration — up 15%.
• Obama-Biden’s Black unemployment tumbled from 8.0% in December 2016 to Trump-Pence’s 5.3% in August 2019.
• Blacks below the poverty line slid from 22% in 2016 under Obama-Biden to Trump-Pence’s 18.8% in 2019.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act included Sen. Tim Scott’s Opportunity Zone initiative. The South Carolina Republican’s measure has lured at least $48 billion in private capital into 8,764 low-income census tracts whose populations are 57% minority.
Mr. Trump arranged a steady stream of taxpayer support for historically Black colleges and universities. He extended Pell Grants to summer school students. HBCU presidents begged the Obama administration for this small reform and got nowhere.
Mr. Trump delivered. He reauthorized and funded the school voucher program in the District of Columbia. The Obama-Biden administration struggled to kill it.
Mr. Trump signed the First Step Act, which has granted second chances to 23,158 mainly Black nonviolent prisoners. After going home, 12% have reoffended, far below the general prison population’s 45% recidivism rate.
Mr. Trump should promise a vigorous economic renaissance, robust school-choice options, and a muscular fight against crime — to protect its disproportionately Black victims.
Rallying Black voters will also endear Mr. Trump to other minorities and even “nervous Whites.” They will see for themselves how the regime media shamelessly lies about Mr. Trump’s “White nationalism.”
Democratic officials will have seizures. They consider Blacks their political property and take them for granted — save for their condescending, quadrennial battle cry: “GOP = KKK!”
This might explain why Black turnout trailed national participation in 2020 and 2022. If Mr. Trump can attract 20% to 25% of disillusioned Black voters, Democrats will be cooked like Thanksgiving turkeys.
If Mr. Trump stumps in the ’hood, leftists who call him a racist will make fools of themselves. If Mr. Trump disables the Democrats’ overplayed race card, he will cripple them.
Mr. Trump should ask Black voters a question that will crystallize their sense of betrayal at the hands of their morally bankrupt “benefactors.”
“What have the Democrats done for you lately?”
• Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor.
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