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Trump’s Outreach to Black Voters Is Real, and Prominent Media Voices Are Beginning to Take Note

Trump’s Outreach to Black Voters Is Real, and Prominent Media Voices Are Beginning to Take Note

By John R Guardiano on February 7, 2020

In the immediate aftermath of President Trump’s State of the Union Address, we were struck by the fact that it was written in large part to appeal to black voters.

Trump touted the strong U.S. economy and explained how it is benefiting the poor and disadvantaged, who are disproportionately black, brown, and members of racial and ethnic minorities.

He heralded his tax cuts and enterprise zones as the engine of opportunity and upward mobility for “forgotten Americans” in the dilapidated inner cities. And he pledge to build “the world’s most prosperous and inclusive society—one where every citizen can join in America’s unparalleled success, and every community can take part in America’s extraordinary rise.”

In short, we will leave no American behind, Trump essentially said.

However, a close reading of the speech shows that it has even more explicit appeals to African Americans, and prominent media voices are beginning to take note.

The Wall Street Journal, for instance, published an editorial called “Trump’s Bid for the Black Vote. African-Americans,” the Journal notes, “were front-and-center at the State of the Union.”

Beyond the inclusive tone, Mr. Trump emphasized policies that address real inequities in American life.

Perhaps the most compelling was Mr. Trump’s extended brief for school choice. The quality of many urban government schools is a national disgrace, and African-American children suffer most.

Mr. Trump highlighted a black youngster whose “future was put further out of reach when Pennsylvania’s Governor vetoed legislation to expand school choice,” and he called for Congress to expand opportunities for scholarships to attend alternative schools.

This has become a sharp dividing line between the two parties, as Democrats have abandoned choice under pressure from unions.

In 2018 Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis won a close race thanks to the votes of African-American women who supported him out of proportion to other GOP candidates. One likely cause was his school-choice platform.

Mr. Trump should campaign around the country highlighting charter, private and parochial schools that help children of all races escape rotten union schools.

CNN analyst Van Jones, meanwhile, warned his fellow Democrats that Trump’s State of the Union Address was

a warning to us, a warning shot across the bow of Democrats that he’s going after enough black folks to cause us problems.

It’s not just the white suburban voters. He’s going after black voters, too… And what he was saying to African Americans can be effective.

In addition to the strong economy, enterprise zones, and school choice, Trump specifically mentioned his administration’s support of historically black colleges and universities, as well as criminal justice reform.

“Our black colleges have been struggling for a long time,” said Van Jones. “A bunch of them have gone under. He [Trump] threw a lifeline to them… in his budget.”

Indeed, according to the Associated Press, the Future Act, which Trump signed into law Dec. 19, 2019,

authorizes $85 million a year for historically black colleges and universities, along with $100 million for Hispanic-serving institutions, $30 million for tribal schools and $40 million for a variety of other minority-serving institutions.

“The money,” reports the AP, “is primarily meant to expand programs in science, technology, engineering and math.”

“To expand equal opportunity,” said Trump in his State of the Union Address, “I am also proud that we achieved record and permanent funding for our nation’s historically black colleges and universities.”

Criminal Justice Reform. Trump is equally proud that he achieved criminal justice reform, which, he said, is giving many former prisoners the ability to work and make a fresh start in life.

“Everybody said that criminal justice reform couldn’t be done, but I got it done, and the people in this room got it done,” he bragged.

“Mr. Trump’s willingness to buck political convention on this issue is making a difference for young black men especially,” says the Journal.

In fact Trump clearly wishes to communicate to African Americans and other minorities that he is fully committed to broad-based opportunity, inclusion, and second chances. His campaign thus spent “half of its $10 million Super Bowl ad-buy highlighting [his] commutation of a black woman’s life sentence for a drug offense.”

African-American Contributions. Moreover, the president made clear that African Americans have contributed mightily to our achievements and greatness as a nation. Thus he recognized one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen, Charles McGee, whom he promoted to Brigadier General.

The Tuskegee Airmen, of course, are a storied U.S. military unit of predominantly black fighter pilots and support personnel who served during World War II, when the U.S. Armed Forces were still segregated by race.

Trump noted that Brigadier General McGee flew more than 130 combat missions in the Second World War before serving in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars as well.

McGee is now 100 years old; and his great grandson, 13-year-old Iain Lanphier, aspires to follow in his footsteps through service in the United States Space Force

Finally, Trump rounded out his paean to American greatness by acknowledging that Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Martin Luther King, Jr. rank high in the pantheon of heroes and heroines who are responsible for “our glorious and magnificent inheritance” as a nation.

Leadership. Trump’s outreach to black voters is a demonstration of moral and political leadership, and it is the right thing to do irrespective of any potential political gains for him and the Republican Party in November. But sometimes, doing what is right is also good politics, and this may be one of those times.

Trump won about eight percent of the black vote in 2016; however, a conspicuous number of recent polls suggest that he is poised to significantly increase that tally on election day.

A new Zogby poll, for instance, finds that Trump’s approval rating has reached 50 percent among all voters; and that 26 percent of African Americans and 47% of Hispanics at least somewhat approve of the job he’s doing as president.

Even if just half of that 26 percent end up voting for Trump, that would represent a 62 percent increase in the president’s share of the black vote vis-a-vis his 2016 tally; and, with that, Trump would most likely easily win reelection.

It’s still too early to tell what will happen; but it’s never too early to do the right thing. And Trump, to his credit, is trying to do the right thing for African Americans and other minorities. Good on him.

Feature photo credit: Getty Images via MegaNewsEn.

In the 2020 Election, It’s Not the Economy, Stupid, But Maybe It Should Be

In the 2020 Election, It’s Not the Economy, Stupid, But Maybe It Should Be

By John R Guardiano on February 6, 2020

James Carville, the colorful Democratic political strategist who helped mastermind Bill Clinton’s 1992 win, famously said, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

The notion that American presidents are reelected or thrown out of office based on the nation’s economic performance has since become conventional wisdom. Yet, that maxim doesn’t seem to apply this year because of all the political drama, Sturm und Drang, that surrounds President Trump.

Impeachment is the latest drama, but there have been many others—Charlottesville, the Mueller investigation, the crisis at the border, the Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination, the government shutdown, Khashoggi, Syria, Ukrainian aid, et al.

Some of these crises, like the Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination, are beyond Trump’s control and must be laid squarely at the feet of his political opponents, who are determined to stop the GOP’s policy agenda, either by hook or by crook.

To the diehard partisans of the left, it doesn’t matter who is president. They would fight to the political death against any Republican President, be he Trump, Bush, Romney, or Mother Theresa.

But it’s also true that Trump has been his own worst enemy; and that his utterly undisciplined, shoot-from-the-hip nature has seriously exacerbated his political problems and created crises that need not have occurred.

Charlottesville, for instance, was a completely self-inflicted wound that could have been avoided entirely had Trump simply chosen his words more carefully and been more disciplined when responding to reporters’ questions.

This is why, despite relative peace and prosperity, Trump has been unable to achieve a 50-percent job-approval rating.

So it was good to see the president use his State of the Union Address to deliver a clear, coherent, and compelling message of American renewal led by a strong and resilient U.S. economy that is very much the envy of the world.

Trump called it “the great American comeback… The years of economic decay,” he declared, are over.

From the instant I took office, I moved rapidly to revive the U.S. economy—slashing a record number of job-killing regulations, enacting historic and record-setting tax cuts, and fighting for fair and reciprocal trade agreements.

Our agenda is relentlessly pro-worker, pro-family, pro-growth, and, most of all, pro-American…

Since my election, we have created seven million new jobs—five million more than government experts projected during the previous administration. The unemployment rate is the lowest in over half a century…

The unemployment rate for African-Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian-Americans has reached the lowest levels in history… The unemployment rate for women reached the lowest level in almost 70 years…

Real median household income is now at the highest level ever recorded…

U.S. stock markets have soared 70 percent, adding more than $12 trillion to our nation’s wealth, transcending anything anyone believed was possible. This is a record. It is something that every country in the world looks up to and admires.

Consumer confidence has reached new highs. Millions of Americans with 401(k)s and pensions are doing far better than they have ever done before, with increases of 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 percent…

Critics will carp that Trump inherited a growing economy, and this is in part true. But it’s also true that wages were stagnant and the economy was slowing. Trump has reversed that, and the U.S. economy has performed far better than the critics predicted when Trump took office.

Indeed, three years ago we were warned that the sky would fall. Today, by contrast, it seems as if the sky’s the limit.

“In just three short years,” Trump boasted, “we have shattered the mentality of American decline. We have rejected the downsizing of America’s destiny… and we are never, ever going back.”

The 2020 election doesn’t seem to be about the economy, but maybe it should be. America could be doing a lot worse than it is now, and the choice in policy direction—more or less government, higher or lower taxes, a bigger or smaller private sector—could not be more stark, and certainly not more economically consequential.

Feature photo credit: Getty Images via the New York Post.

Democrats Botch the Iowa Caucuses and Biden Is the Biggest Loser

Democrats Botch the Iowa Caucuses and Biden Is the Biggest Loser

By John R Guardiano on February 5, 2020

The Iowa Caucuses took place Mon., Feb. 3, but have not had the same catalyzing effect on the presidential race that they have had in past election cycles. That’s because, remarkably, Iowa Democrats were unable to announce an actual winner Monday evening.

In fact, only now, two days later, are we getting what appear to be final, clarifying results.

Iowa Democrats blame the delay on “inconsistencies” in the reporting of election data, and insist that the online app they developed for the caucuses was not hacked or compromised.

Maybe, but their failure to launch, so to speak, has invited understandable skepticism and snark. National Review editor Rich Lowry, for instance, wryly observed that “after years of obsession with the Russians, the Democrats somehow managed to hack their own election.”

“Cybersecurity experts,” reports the New York Times, “said that the app had not been properly tested at scale, and that it was hastily put together over the past two months…

“This is an urgent reminder of why online voting is not ready for prime time,” J. Alex Halderman, a professor of computer science at the University of Michigan, told the Times.

Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale gleefully piled on: “Democrats,” he said

are stewing in a caucus mess of their own creation with the sloppiest train wreck in history. It would be natural for people to doubt the fairness of the process. And these are the people who want to run our entire health care system?

This lack of clarity and confusion allowed all of the Democratic Party candidates—Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and and even Andrew Yang—to give what essentially were victory speeches Monday evening.

After all, if it can’t be shown that you lost, then you might as well say you won, while vowing to fight on to New Hampshire! And indeed, that’s pretty much what all of the Democratic presidential candidates did.

But, as the Times notes, the award for real chutzpah has got to go to Buttigieg:

“What a night!” he yelled to a mass of cheering supporters late Monday, declaring—with zero percent of precincts officially reporting—that “by all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious.”

“Because tonight, an improbable hope became an undeniable reality.”

In truth, that reality was very much deniable…

“So we don’t know all the results,” Mr. Buttigieg said. “But we know by the time it’s all said and done, Iowa, you have shocked the nation.”

Well, that much is certainly true, albeit probably not in the way Buttigieg meant it.

As it turns out, Buttigieg wasn’t blowing smoke. He and Sanders are in a virtual tie for first place in Iowa. However, their momentum has been dampened and blunted by the delayed reporting of the results.

The Biggest Loser. What was clear Monday night, and is even clearer today, is that Biden is the big and perhaps irreparable loser in Iowa. He finished fourth, well behind Buttigieg, Sanders and Warren, and not much higher than Klobuchar.

“His poor performance in Iowa this year reflected the ways in which Biden is bad at winning elections,” argues Tim Carney in the Washington Examiner.

He was in first or second place in all statewide polls. That makes sense, given his high name recognition. Yet despite this advantage, Biden was out-fundraised by Warren, Sanders, and Buttigieg. Biden was clearly out-organized, too, as the caucuses showed.

“Biden had every advantage in Iowa,” adds Quin Hillyer. “If he couldn’t make Iowa at least close, he evinces a politically hollow campaign.”

Indeed, polls show that Biden may also lose next week’s New Hampshire primary and is poised to win only in South Carolina and Alabama. Sanders, meanwhile, appears to be the frontrunner in most other states.

That would mean Buttigieg and Warren are Sanders’ only real opponents. But despite being slick and brainy, Buttigieg’s only real accomplishment in public life has been to serve as mayor of a small city (South Bend, Indiana) that most people have never heard of, and for good reason.

Warren, meanwhile, is fading in the polls and is hardly a plausible moderate alternative to Sanders. Instead, she occupies much of the same political space (on the far left wing of the Democratic Party) as Sanders.

All of which is to say: get ready for Bernie Sanders to be the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nominee, but this time largely in spite of Iowa, not because of it.

Feature photo credit: Google News.

Trump’s State of the Union Address Shows That He Intends to Compete Hard for Black Votes

Trump’s State of the Union Address Shows That He Intends to Compete Hard for Black Votes

By John R Guardiano on February 4, 2020

The most politically significant thing about President Trump’s State of the Union Address is that it shows he intends to compete hard for the votes of African Americans in the forthcoming 2020 election.

He thus directly appealed to these voters by pointing, with justifiable pride, to his record as president:

The unemployment rate for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans has reached the lowest levels in history. African-American youth unemployment has reached an all-time low. African-American poverty has declined to the lowest rate ever recorded…

Workers without a high school diploma have achieved the lowest unemployment rate recorded in U.S. history. A record number of young Americans are now employed…

In eight years under the last administration, over 300,000 working-age people dropped out of the workforce. In just three years of my administration, 3.5 million people, working-age people, have joined the workforce.

Since my election, the net worth of the bottom half of wage-earners has increased by 47 percent, three times faster than the increase for the top 1 percent.

After decades of flat and falling incomes, wages are rising fast — and, wonderfully, they are rising fastest for low-income workers, who have seen a 16 percent pay increase since my election.

This is a blue-collar boom…

Our roaring economy has, for the first time ever, given many former prisoners the ability to get a great job and a fresh start.

This second chance at life is made possible because we passed landmark criminal justice reform into law. Everybody said that criminal justice reform couldn’t be done, but I got it done, and the people in this room got it done.

Trump’s concerted effort to win the support of African Americans will strike many political pundits as either fanciful or ludicrous; but it’s actually very wise and strategic: because black voters may well hold the key to Trump’s reelection.

Conservative pundits think it’s fanciful because, they note, African Americans have been reliably Democratic voters for generations, and there is little reason, they think, to believe that will change in 2020.

So-called progressive pundits, likewise, think it’s ludicrous because, in their view, Trump is an obvious racist whom African Americans could never seriously consider supporting.

Trump and African Americans. But both the left and the right are wrong about Trump and the black vote. The Senate’s only African American Senator, Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), told Fox News’s Martha MacCallum this evening that four recent polls show Trump getting as much as 30 percent of the black vote.

Scott said we should discount those numbers and cut those estimates in half. He thinks around 15 percent of the black vote is a reasonable target for the president. If that’s true and those numbers hold up on election day, Trump will easily win reelection.

(Scott, not coincidentally, was specifically recognized by Trump for sponsoring Opportunity Zones in disadvantaged neighborhoods, many of them predominantly African American.

(“Jobs and investments,” said Trump, “are pouring into 9,000 previously neglected neighborhoods thanks to Opportunity Zones, a plan spearheaded by Senator Tim Scott as part of our great Republican tax cuts.”)

The Democrats simply cannot afford to lose more than 5-10 percent of the black vote, especially in key swing states like Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Wisconsin. And, despite Trump’s myriad flaws, the man is clearly not a racist, and most African American voters know this.

Certainly, the African American celebrities whom Trump has befriended and worked with over the past several decades know this. They can attest to Trump’s good will, even if his rhetoric is sometimes lacking and occasionally cringe-inducing.

Right Action. Competing hard for the votes of African Americans is smart politics and the right thing to do. It is smart politics, because America is rapidly becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. Thus to remain electorally competitive in 2020 and beyond, Republicans very much need to win more of the minority vote.

More importantly, though, it is the right thing to do. All Americans have a stake in our future and thus deserve the respect and consideration of our two major political parties.

National unity and social cohesion, moreover, are best served when key racial and demographic groups are well-represented throughout the political spectrum and across the political aisle.

Plus: competition in the political marketplace, no less than competition in the economic marketplace, spurs policy excellence and innovation.

The president may or may not win 15 percent of the black vote; we’ll see. But both he and the Republican Party, as well as the nation, will be better off and better served for seriously trying to do just that.

Feature photo credit: The New York Times.

Senate Republicans Shirk Their Constitutional Duty by Refusing to Hear Witness Testimony

Senate Republicans Shirk Their Constitutional Duty by Refusing to Hear Witness Testimony

By John R Guardiano on February 3, 2020

Senate Republicans have decided that their political interests are best served by not conducting a full and fair impeachment trial involving all relevant facts and witness testimony.

As a purely political matter, they may be right: Polls show that Republicans overwhelmingly oppose impeachment and believe Trump when he derides the hearings as a “witch hunt” and a “hoax.” But as President Kennedy famously put it, “sometimes party loyalty asks too much.”

Indeed, GOP senators have greater obligations than loyalty to their party. They have an obligation to the Constitution and to history, to the rule of law and the separation of powers.

Yet, by deliberately conducting a sham trial designed to conceal the truth from the American people while covering-up for Trump, Senate Republicans are shirking these greater obligations and doing themselves and the nation a great disservice.

Specifically and ominously, they are undermining the rule of law and he separation of powers, which are bedrock pillars of our Constitutional order.

Rule of Law. Senate Republicans are undermining the rule of law by ignoring or downplaying Trump’s wrongdoing and refusing to thoroughly examine the factual record to see what laws might have been violated.

And the fact that the House of Representatives did not charge Trump with violating any specific law (though it did charge him with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress) is no excuse for the Senate’s abdication of its Constitutional responsibility to conduct a serious and credible trial.

The House did the best it could in the face of obvious Trump administration stonewalling and obstruction of justice. The Senate, because it is controlled by the president’s own (Republican) party, has far greater political leeway and wherewithal to investigate the administration than does the House.

Trump, after all, is far less likely and able to stonewall GOP senators than he is Democratic congressmen. Yet, the Senate declined to fully exercise its institutional prerogatives during the impeachment trial, and the reasons offered up by Republican senators are weak, feeble, and beside the point.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), for instance, said that because the House proved its case re: the first article of impeachment (abuse of power, by asking Ukraine’s government to “investigate” Joe Biden and Burisma), there is no need for additional witness testimony or evidence—especially since, in Alexander’s mind, Trump’s offense does not warrant his removal from office by the Senate.

But this legalistic excuse for inaction won’t cut it. Impeachment, remember, is a political act. Consequently, there is a lot more to consider than simple guilt or innocence. The Senate has a responsibility to unearth all relevant facts and information, so that the American people can make an informed political decision on election day, Nov. 3, 2020.

This is especially important since the Senate isn’t convicting Trump—in large part, says Alexander, out of respect for the electoral wishes of the citizenry. There is, he notes, a presidential election Nov. 3, 2020, and Trump’s fate should be decided then not now.

Fair enough, but how is the electorate served by short-circuiting the trial and concealing information from the public record that the American people could otherwise review, weigh and consider on election day?

In fact, because the Senate is acquitting Trump, it has an even greater responsibility to ensure that all pertinent evidence and witness testimony are part of the public record.

The Senate, moreover, doesn’t know what it doesn’t know. While the House did not charge Trump with breaking the law per se, it still unearthed a myriad of information that implicates the president with wrongdoing and abusing his authority.

It is entirely possible that a full and complete trial, with firsthand witness testimony, would have unearthed additional information that might have established clearer-cut instances of illegality by the president.

At the very least, if the Senate had taken the time do its due diligence, we would know more than we now do, and voters would have greater situational awareness and understanding when they go to the polls in November.

Separation of Powers. As for the separation of powers, Congress is supposed to be an independent branch of government that serves as a check on the executive branch. Yet, by covering-up for Trump, the Senate has turned itself into a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump, Inc. and yielded its Constitutional authority to the demands of the executive branch.

In short, when it comes to impeachment, there is no separation, as prescribed by the Constitution, between the Senate and the White House. Mitch McConnell, in fact, said publicly before the trial even began that

“Everything I do during this I’m coordinating with the White House counsel. There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this.”

So much for fidelity to the Constitution and its original meaning.

Of course, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board ignores all of this and focuses exclusively on the question of removing Trump from office. They say Alexander’s “vote against witnesses was rooted in Constitutional wisdom” and is his “finest hour” as a public servant.

But while a legitimate case can be made that the Senate should not convict Trump, this does not mean it should abort its search for truth and give up on a full and fair trial. These are two separate and distinct questions, which the Journal deliberately and misleadingly conflates

Thus far from being Alexander’s “finest hour,” his vote against witness testimony was his most disgraceful and shameful act as a senator. And far from being rooted in Constitutional wisdom, this decision instead is an utter abdication of Constitutional duty.

Senate Republicans should hang their heads in shame and be on high alert come election day. The voters may be less forgiving than the GOP’s media apologists at the Wall Street Journal.

Feature photo credit: The Nashville Tennessean via Commercial Appeal.