How Trump Can Win the
Black Vote to Win the Election
In the welter of cable commentary over
Donald Trump's overwhelming victories in the so-called "Acela
primary" Tuesday, among the most startling was an aside by CNN's Van
Jones that Trump could win the election if he got just 25% of the black vote.
Now this didn't make the African-American activist who co-founded and is
the current president of Dream Corps, a “social justice accelerator,”
particularly happy. Nor did or does it please BET's Tavis Smiley, who has made
similar mention of Trump's possible inroads in the black community. But it's
true.
Donald Trump really could win
the general election by being the first Republican in years to gain a
significant percentage of the African-American vote. He just has to make a
serious and sustained effort, with genuine proposals, to do it. If
the attempt is simply self-referential bluster (like bragging about the
actually paltry number of Hispanics who voted for him in Nevada) coupled
with unspecified pledges of "greatness," he might as well not bother.
It will end up a disheartening misfire that will not only be an
insult to his supporters but a continuing -- and worsening -- wound to our
country.
Nevertheless, the auguries for Trump
in this area are extremely good, certainly the best in recent years for a
Republican, if he should choose to act upon them. And for the sake of all
Americans, he should. In fact, he'd better.
The African-American community is in a
miserable condition that has been getting worse for decades and has reached its
nadir under Obama -- two-parent families disappearing, unemployment rates
skyrocketing, incarceration rates catastrophic, drug addiction epidemic. We all
look on in despair as gang members shoot children in the streets of
Chicago and murders -- almost all black-on-black -- proliferate in Baltimore
after years of decline.
What is to be done about all this?
Hillary Clinton will certainly have plenty to say, but it will all be the same
old disingenuous bilge. She can't be part of the solution because she
-- like the Democratic Party she has served loyally for almost her entire
life -- is part of the problem. For reasons of moral narcissism and
political expediency, beginning with the Great Society that party has set
up a system in black communities that has trapped African-Americans
into a non-stop cycle of government dependency, turning them into what
talk show host Larry Elder dubbed "victocrats," believers in
perpetual victimhood, a self-fulfilling prophecy, if there ever was one. The
#blacklivesmatter movement is only the most recent avatar.
Many black people -- just not the
brilliant minds like Thomas Sowell and Elder -- know this. They are just
constrained by the atmosphere in their communities, the evil influence and
machinations of those like Reverend Al and Maxine Waters, against speaking
up. Others have simply given up. It's hard to blame them. How do you
break this cycle?
Enter Donald Trump.
No, Donald cannot solve the problems
of black America by himself -- not by a long shot. That job goes to
African-Americans themselves. But he can do something, get things kick started
and possibly win (in this case deservedly) a presidential election in the
process. Here's why and how:
WHY: This is easy. He's Donald
Trump. As the biggest celebrity ever to run for president, he'll get the full
attention of African- Americans, especially if he goes to their communities
personally, which he must. (Do you think any other Republican of recent
vintage would raise a stir? In a recent episode of Watters' World,
several Harvard students didn't even know who John Kasich was.)
HOW: This is the important part. As
luck would have it, one of Trump's signature campaign goals -- bringing jobs
back to America -- refers directly to one of the key problems of black
America -- rampant unemployment. But it gets more specific. Trump speaks
continually of American corporations -- Carrier, Pfizer, and Ford, among others
-- moving their factories out of our country to lower their taxes and
other costs, while we lose jobs.
What if Trump were to propose that
those corporations could return to America tax free (for a certain
amount of time), if they were to build those new factories not in foreign
countries but in our own disadvantaged communities? (This is a variant on the
old Jack Kemp opportunity-zone idea.) In the case of a Ford, Trump could go
further, talking to the UAW and asking them to reduce their minimums in those
communities as well (for a similar amount of time) until the local work
forces were sufficiently trained and the factories humming. The man who
invented, or at least wrote, The Art of the Deal should be able
to get this done. It would be a win, win, win for everybody.
Republicans always
claim capitalism is the true motor of society and that earning a decent
wage for honest work is far better for the psyche than a welfare check. And
they're right, of course. But they don't do anything to demonstrate it --
all talk and no action. This is their opportunity. At the same time it
could begin to put a dent in the loathsome identity politics that drives us
apart and help get rid of ugly hyphenates like African-American, which I use
only regrettably. We should all just be Americans. There's nothing worse
for black people -- or any other group -- than to continue voting monolithically for
one political party.
Donald, are you listening?
Roger L. Simon is a prize-winning
novelist, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and co-founder of PJ Media.
His next book - I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying
Our Country, If It Hasn't Already - will be published by Encounter Books in
June 2016.
__________________
When
it comes to the women’s card, Donald holds all the Trumps. He knows What Women
Want, and it isn’t Hillary
‘They say every powerful man is good
in bed,’ I once asked Donald Trump. ‘That true?’
He smirked. ‘I think there is a
certain truth to that, yes. Put it this way, I’ve never had any complaints. A
lot of it is down to The Look. It doesn’t mean you have to look like Cary
Grant, it means you have to have a certain way about you, a stature. I see
successful guys who just don’t have The Look and they are never going to go out
with great women.
‘The Look is very important. I don’t
really like to talk about it because it sounds very conceited… but it matters.’
I thought of this
exchange when Trump launched into Hillary Clinton today about her lack of
appeal to women.
‘I think the only card she has is the
women’s card,’ he scoffed. ‘She has got nothing else going. Frankly, if Hillary
Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5% of the vote. And the beautiful
thing is, women don’t like her…’
He was instantly and roundly ridiculed
for being a revolting pig, of course.
Such is the habitual reaction from the
sneering swathes of America’s political and media elite to everything Trump
says or does.
They’re the same experts who predicted
Trump ‘won’t last three weeks’ when he entered the race last summer, and who
more recently predicted with equal confidence that he’d ‘never win the
nomination.’
Now they assure us just as vehemently
that Trump can’t beat Hillary because women hate him.
That’s what I keep reading and hearing
as the cocky billionaire tycoon continues to steamroller his way to what now
looks like an inevitable confirmation as Republican nominee.
(Seriously, Senator Cruz and Governor
Kasich, it was over from the second you two clowns decided last week to
tag-team against The Donald, thus making yourselves look utterly incapable of
beating him on your own. I’d quit the race now before you both lose the last
remaining vestige of dignity..)
The Women-Hate-Trump theory dictates
that if he IS the nominee and comes up against Hillary Clinton, then he’ll be
crushed not just because women loathe him but also because they all love
Hillary.
Really?
As Goldfinger used to say to 007: ‘Not
so fast, Mr Bond….’
I suspect Trump’s a lot more popular
with women than people think, and Hillary a lot less so.
I spent well over 100 hours observing
Trump in his former Celebrity Apprentice boardroom lair. First as a (winning)
contestant in 2008, then as one of his advisors in every subsequent season.
He was whip-smart, very funny and
brilliantly provocative at creating compelling television drama.
He was also extremely charming when he
wanted to be, especially with the female contestants. Many of them, including
sports stars, actresses, supermodels and rock stars, ended up melting like
fawning putty in Mr Trump’s famously delicate hands.
Even the legendarily ferocious
comedienne Joan Rivers used to blush from his effusive compliments. I know,
because I was there and saw it happen.
Part of this was because they wanted
to win, obviously, so sought his approval.
But part of it was undeniably also
because Trump is genuinely at ease with women and seems to love their company –
unless it’s Rosie O’Donnell - as much as they enjoy his.
I always think you can judge a man
pretty well by his relationship with his former partners.
Trump’s remained good friends with
both his ex wives, Ivana and Marla. He even let Ivana get re-married at his
Florida home.
His current wife Melania has proven to
be a very effective electoral asset, combining brains with beauty and a feisty
side which shows she’s no pushover.
And his daughter Ivanka is by common
consent, a beautiful, vote-winning working mother superstar whose respect for
her Donald is touchingly unequivocal.
Even fearsome Fox News star Megyn
Kelly has made up with the man who attacked her mercilessly in public after
they locked horns in a poisonously personal way after a heated presidential
debate.
If Trump can get Ms Kelly back onside,
after mocking her menstrual cycle, then surely he’s got a good chance of
persuading millions of other women in America that he’s not such a bad guy
after all?
I watch how the women behave at his
gigantic rallies in all parts of America and I don’t see much hatred in those
ecstatic eyes; I see fevered adoration.
Recent primary results, especially in
his thumping 5-state clean sweep last night, suggest that adoration is
beginning to translate into votes with more and more woman coming out for
Trump.
Why?
He’s charismatic, that’s why.
They like his swaggering
self-confidence, his non-PC and non-politician style, his fierce ‘I’ll make
America great again’ patriotism, and his often outrageous, off-the-cuff sense
of humour.
I spent some time in Texas and Florida
recently and most of the women I met there were positively cooing over the
prospect of a President Trump, and snarlingly scathing about the very notion of
President Clinton.
Hillary likes to boast that she’s the
only possible candidate for women, but I know a lot of women who can’t stand
her.
They think she’s hard, elitist, they
don’t really trust her after Benghazi and the email scandal, and they find it
hard to forgive her own repeated forgiveness of her husband’s brazen
infidelity.
They also feel she has a sense of
entitlement to become the first female president, and has sold her soul to Wall
Street through chums like Goldman Sachs.
This explains some of the
catastrophically bad results she had early on in this campaign. In the Iowa
Caucus, for example, she got just 14% of the under-30 female vote, while
74-year-old Bernie Sanders romped away with 84%.
The irony of Hillary’s position is
that there’s only one man in America who can possibly compete with Trump for
populist appeal right now, and indeed his ability to seduce women, and that’s
her husband Bill.
Unfortunately, he’s not running, she
is.
If it comes down to Trump vs Clinton
in November, as now seems likely, I think a lot more women are going to vote
for him than she assumes.
And that could be enough for the man
with The Look to win the White House.
