Though it’s been three weeks since I’ve written
about 2016 Presidential Politics, the Campaign has indeed continued apace. Both Parties have held their respective Conventions
and are gearing up to do battle for the next seventy days or so.
For her part, Team Clinton continues, and I
would expect will for the duration of the campaign, to absorb hits about her
use of email, this time involving the Clinton Foundation. Mr. Trump has gone so far as to refer to
emails that appear to connect the Foundation, Secretary Clinton, and wealthy
donors seeking meetings as evidence of a Pay-to-Play scheme. He has called for a Special Prosecutor to be
named to investigate the matter.
Needless to say, that would be a very convenient outcome, from his
perspective.
For his part, Team Trump has found itself in an
interesting position. After having an
eventful, though largely positive (for him) Republican National Convention, he received a significant 6-point bounce the following week that saw him surpass Hillary in
the Polls going into the week of the Democratic National Convention. Then came the Democratic Convention, which
brought its own 7-point bounce, which catapulted Mrs. Clinton back into a lead in
most Polls.
Then things really got interesting. The Trump Campaign hit a number of sour
notes, including one with a Gold Star Family.
The offshoot in summary was many of the Polls were unkind to Mr.
Trump. He trailed by double digits in
several, including in some states where Republicans are expecting to contend,
or even to have a slight advantage, such as Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
It is clear the Trump Campaign found these
developments unsettling. So with roughly
80 days to go before Election Day, Team Trump undertook it’s second significant
shake-up and installed it’s third new Leadership Team. This time Paul Manafort, who in the spring
replaced Corey Lewandowski as Campaign Chair, was displaced on August 17th,
by the duo of Kellyanne Conway, Campaign Chair, and Stephen Bannon, Campaign
CEO. Conway is the head of her own
Polling Firm, and Bannon is a former executive at Breitbart News.
I may be one of the few people who truly
believes this is still genuinely a race.
I absolutely think Donald Trump continues to have a viable shot, no pun intended
Second Amendment people, at becoming the 45th POTUS. Let me be clear, I think Mrs. Clinton will
win. However, today anyway, I feel given
the amount of time left, and the number of unknown variables that may still
impact the outcome, Donald J. Trump still has a puncher’s chance. And he’s obviously going to keep flailing
away.
Today though, I want to take a moment to
examine one of Mr. Trump’s most recent cavalier (in my opinion, anyway)
premises. This should not take long. Last Thursday, Donald Trump came to
Charlotte, NC and among other things launched his initial pitch to African
Americans. The next day in Dimondale, Michigan, Trump continued to hone, refine,
and embolden his pitch to the African American community. Recent polls suggest he is polling 1 to 2
percent nationally among African Americans, and actually zero in a couple of
swing states, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
With metrics like that, it is easy enough to understand why he would consider
targeting, again, no pun intended Second Amendment people, African
Americans as a group with whom he would like to expand his support.
With that disclaimer, it is important to note a
couple of distinct issues:
·
The first is that Mr. Trump
chose to issue his most passionate plea to date for African American support
in, as I noted above, Dimondale, Michigan.
Dimondale, according to the 2010 Census is 93% white, and includes 9, as
in one less than 10, African Americans, which translates into .73%. To be clear, that is less than three quarters
of one percent.
·
The second point I want to
elevate is the language Mr. Trump chose to use to implore support among African
Americans. He said, and I quote, "What the hell do you have to
lose?" That is the more indelicate
version of today’s title. Fine, call the
title politically correct, if you must.
But to be sure, the larger point here is, whether Donald Trump, his
surrogates, his supporters, and his newly minted Campaign Leadership Team
realize and appreciate, there are millions of African Americans who not only
take great exception to the brazen temerity of the query, but who would be
happy to respond…if only he would come to some location that actually presented
him with an audience of living, breathing African Americans.
While I think the question is disrespectful, he
upped the ante on the downright ludicrous by insisting if elected, in his 2020
reelection bid, he would actually garner more than 95% of the black vote. OK, if, as Mr. Trump eventually claimed, his
insistence that President Obama founded ISIS was sarcasm, his black vote
assertion, on its face, is sheer hyperbole.
President Obama, in his reelection bid attracted 93% of the black
vote. For Mr. Trump to fix his mouth to
say he would better that is laughable.
Hilarious in fact!
This has been a fairly popular discussion over
the course of the past several days. In
winding down this conversation, I will leave you with three responses, including
one of my own, to Mr. Trump’s presumptuous sounding question. Before I get to the responses, let me expand
on the meaning of “presumptuous sounding.”
It is a fairly common consensus that Mr. trump is really not seeking to
expand or increase his support among African Americans. Instead, he is executing a strategy to
increase his level of palatability among white voters, many of whom have
expressed the notion that he is not Presidential, that many of his rants are
racist and or bigoted, and that his proposed Muslim ban and wall separating us
from Mexico are in a word, contemptuous.
Now, here are responses from two of my friends
and me regarding “what we have to lose:”
1.
JW said, ”Donald
Trump paints a bleak picture of Black Americans and asks, "What the hell
do you have to lose?" Join me in the self portrait of a Black man’s what's
to lose challenge: This Black man is a comfortably retired Ph. D, all five kids
college educated, two with advanced degrees, living in a country club
community, multi-lingual, no arrest records, a registered Democrat and
veteran. What's to lose? My standing as an intelligent individual with
a full serving of political integrity. Chime in brothers...”
2.
KW said, ”Trump's
assertion requires critical analysis. Let's
start with my immediate family: I am a product of Detroit public schools. I have three college degrees including a Masters
Degree in Organizational Management. My
wife is a product of public schools in her hometown. She has two college degrees including a
Bachelors of Science degree. One of our
daughters graduated from college at the age of 17! She earned two more degrees from UCLA (a
public university). Our oldest daughter
has three college degrees. Our 22-year-old
son has two college degrees and will earn a third degree in May 2017. Our youngest daughter earns her first college
degree in May 2017 and she will be 19 years old. So: earned degrees in the Williams household:
13 to date with two more expected in May 2017.
Oh, I forgot. That's impossible because we are all Black. I also forgot to mention all 13 degrees were
conferred with honors ranging from Cum Laude to Summa Cum Laude. Trump: Get away from me with that minutia.
You embarrass Republicans and Americans. BTW: what college did your wife
graduate from??? Feel free to share
this. I wrote and approved this message.”
3.
I said, ”African
American, two degrees, 34+ year career in public service, retired, blogger,
with some definite ideas about what's at stake if African Americans and America
gamble on Donald Trump. I think Mr.
Trump is simultaneously pandering to blacks while enflaming the white racist
voting bloc, in an effort to offset the lack of support he is sure to garner
from us. Such racist and bigoted appeals
are certain to harden the shell that already makes life challenging for black
folks trying to navigate our society.
And then, there is this... Of
course you already know this, but you may not have seen it here.” http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/opinion/why-blacks-loathe-trump.html?_r=0
That sums it up pretty well, in my
opinion, just in case you were wondering, “What
The Aitch Do You Have To Lose?”
I’m done; holla
back!
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