By Frances Rice
The fate of our
nation hangs in the balance on Election Day, just 81 Days away. Between now and
then, please do whatever you can to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.
Please view Trump’s first campaign TV advertisement for the general election and pass it
on.
Below is an article
by Thomas Sowell that provides a compelling analysis about the impact this election will have on black Americans whose lives and communities have been devastated by
the policies and actions of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.
________________
Trump
and Blacks
Who would have
thought that Donald Trump, of all people, would be addressing the fact that the
black community suffers the most from a breakdown of law and order? But sanity
on racial issues is sufficiently rare that it must be welcomed, from whatever
source it comes.
When establishment
Republicans have addressed the problems of blacks at all, it has too often been
in terms of what earmarked benefits can be offered in exchange for their votes.
And there was very little that Republicans could offer to compete with the
Democrats' whole universe of welfare state earmarks.
Law and order,
however, is not an earmarked benefit for any special group. It is a policy for
all that is especially needed by law-abiding blacks, who are the principal
victims of those who are not law-abiding.
Education is another
area where something that is needed by all segments of the population is
especially needed by blacks and other low-income minorities. In other words,
here again there is no need for a divisive policy of earmarked benefits, in
order to attract new voters into a "big tent."
No matter what policy
Republicans follow, they are not going to win a majority of the black votes
this year, nor perhaps even this decade.
Nor is that
necessary. Just an erosion of the Democrats' monopoly of the black votes can
benefit both Republicans and the black community, who are currently taken for
granted by the Democrats. Republicans may also get more white votes if they
are no longer seen by some as racists.
Education is a slam
dunk issue for Republicans trying to appeal to black parents with school-age
children,
as distinguished from trying to appeal to all black voters, as if all blacks
are the same.
Education is an issue
with little, if any, down side for the Republicans, because the teachers'
unions are the single biggest obstacle to black youngsters getting a decent
education -- and among the biggest donors to the Democrats.
Among the few signs
of educational success for low-income minority children in the public schools are
the KIPP and Success Academy charter schools. But teachers' unions are
bitterly opposed to increases in the number of such schools, and Democrats
do what the teachers' unions want, because money talks.
As long as blacks
vote automatically for Democrats, while the teachers' unions insist on getting
their money's worth, it is all but inevitable that the education of black
children will be sacrificed in the public schools, wherever Democrats are in
control.
Republicans have
nothing to lose by taking on the teachers' unions, which donate more than 90
percent of their money to Democrats. Again, Republicans may not win a majority
of the votes of even those parents who have children in the public schools. But
that is where any inroads into the black vote can begin.
Here, as elsewhere, a
journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. That step should
include appeals not only to black parents with children in successful charter
schools, but also the larger number of black parents on waiting lists for
charter schools, and anyone else in the black community who understands that a
good education is the key for the next generation to advance.
The black vote has
not always been a monopoly of the Democrats. From the time of Abraham
Lincoln to that of President Herbert Hoover the black vote was Republican. Even
in the depths of the Great Depression of the 1930s, the black vote was one of
the few that went to President Hoover in 1932.
Even after President
Franklin D. Roosevelt won over black voters in FDR's 1936 landslide,
Republicans continued to get a significant share of the black vote over the
next 20 years. But not in recent elections.
Someone on CNN said
that if Trump were serious about wanting the black vote, he would address
groups like the NAACP. That was in fact a big mistake that even President
Reagan made.
Blacks voters are not
the property of the NAACP, and they need to be addressed directly as
individuals, over the heads of special interest organizations that have led
blacks into the blind alley of being a voting bloc that has been taken for
granted far too long.
Whether other
Republicans will re-think their approach to attracting minority voters is a big
unanswered question.
