Photo Credit: Albin Lohr-Jones/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
The growing positive attitude of
black voters towards President Trump is the wildcard in the coming midterm
elections. It is real and it is expanding.
Polls are showing anywhere from 20 percent to 36 percent of blacks approve of President Trump. The Democrats even
may have lost 11 percent of black women.
The cracks in the black Democrat
bloc voting are one of the most consequential results of Barack Obama’s
presidency and the phenomenal effectiveness of President Trump’s pro-business
policies.
This could be a historic turning point.
Measurable Progress
Trump’s economic policies have
improved the lives of black Americans, just as he promised they would during
the election. Unlike Obama’s media hype, Trump’s progress is as real and as
solid as his buildings.
Black unemployment
continues to fall. Good manufacturing jobs are coming back. Paychecks are rising, too.
The roots of this political
watershed in the black community are more complex than job figures and will
last beyond Trump’s tenure. I have been listening for hours to ordinary black
Americans on the #Walkaway
movement’s YouTube channel.
This is a movement of former
Democrats explaining why they are leaving their party. While each face, voice,
and story is unique and fascinating, there are some striking recurring themes.
Ironically, the change seems to have
started with President Obama’s election.
President Obama raised the hopes of
black Americans to the highest they’ve been since Martin Luther King.
The entire country expected he would devote himself to
getting blacks better schools, more jobs, higher wages, and safer
neighborhoods. Instead, Obama ignored those bread-and-butter needs.
His
signature initiative was to send Eric Holder to stoke up publicity and fear in
the wake of the Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown shootings.
In the short term, hyping fake white
racism and police brutality worked to stanch the bleeding in black turnout in
the 2012 election. In the long term, however, Obama’s reliance on racial fear
and grievance increased black suffering. He broke people’s hearts and blew up
many black voters’ loyalty to the Democrats.
The #Walkaway videos are remarkably
consistent on that score.
Obama got
them paying attention to party politics for the first time. Next came the
emotional roller coaster, as joy turned to disappointment. Obama’s identity
politics agenda, now amplified by progressive Democrats, was a cynical ploy and
it has become is a total turn off to those now paying attention.
These black
voters hate illegal immigration. Obama marked the end of their romance with the
Democrat Party, not a new beginning.
Surprised by the Truth
Few of these ex-Democrats voted for
Trump, but they were willing to give Trump a chance after the election.
They
find Trump Derangement Syndrome ludicrous. In fact, they love what he is doing.
They appreciate the jobs he is creating, and they share his patriotism.
They are listening to—in some case
meeting—deplorables and finding them kind, decent, and not racist.
A last, and very interesting theme,
is after Obama got them engaged, most of these black Democrats started doing
research on the internet.
They were riveted learning the
history of the Democratic Party. They care deeply and viscerally about slavery.
What a shock to discover they had been lied to about it all their lives.
President Lincoln was not a
Democrat, as they’d been led to think in school. It was not Republicans who were the party of racism, but
Democrats.
They learned for the first time that Democrats were slave
owners. Over and over, they share their surprise
at learning the Democrats are the party of Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan.
Democrats
are the party that destroyed the black family. Bill Clinton set off the
explosion of black incarceration. They are done permanently as Democrats.
This is a revolutionary change of
perspective on the identity of the two parties. It was mentioned in almost every
video I watched.
Virtually every video begins with a
statement like this one from a GenX woman: “I always followed the crowd. . . . Everybody is supposed
to be a Democrat. Black people vote Democrat . . . . We were taught Republicans
are all bad, racist, only care about the rich. I fell for that for quite a long
time.”
Same words from a young business major:
“I never truly chose the Democrat Party. Being the family I’m in, the area I’m
in, the color I am. Everyone was Democrat by default . . . I never heard anyone
debate any political issue . . . I was on a conveyor belt of ‘next Democrat’ .
. . never had any information . . . I didn’t know which side was left (or)
right. I was so uninformed, so many people around me uninformed.”
A working guy sounds a
similar theme: “Way back when I was a kid, I was taught Republicans were evil
white people who didn’t want to share with black people. Black people were
Democrats. . . . there was a black party and a white party . . . I voted
straight Democrat . . . I finally stopped voting . . . They’re all greedy, just
another white man in the White House . . . I forgot all about it to be
honest . . . didn’t know who was in office.”
Obama Raised Hopes—and Dashed Them
President Obama got millions of
blacks interested in following politics for the first time in a long time. “Hope
and change” was not an empty slogan to them. They felt it, deeply,
emotionally. Even uninterested, cynical, disengaged people allowed
themselves to get invested.
A young vet speaks for many. “I was so happy, I
cried. I can’t believe I live in this day and age. I was told this would never
happen because white America hates black people. That’s how I was raised . . .
I was into him . . . I joined the military ’cause I wanted to serve Barack
Obama.”
Another woman expressed what many others also said: “[Obama
was] so eloquent, seemed intelligent, real cool . . . thought he’d try to get
the inner cities together, get better education for black children. That’s what
I assumed. Make things better for black people.”
A Millennial man who first voted in 2012 repeats the typical story. Obama got him interested. “This
is going to be historic.” He began to do “binge political researching.”
Obama got these supporters involved,
and euphorically hopeful. Then he let them down.
“As soon as he got in office, this
dude started going sideways . . . this isn’t what we voted for,” the Millennial
says.
Obama focused on getting money and votes from greens, gays, feminists,
and illegals, and used race-baiting to keep the black vote. They noticed
nothing got better.
These are people who did not have
the luxury to make excuses for Obama.
Many in the black community are enduring real
suffering—not the snowflake variety. They were looking for results,
not left-wing virtue signaling. Obama broke the spell. Here was the
ultimate Democrat who had a shot to come through and improve black lives, and
he fired blanks.
Under Obama, says a YouTuber who
calls himself “That Black Dude,” “I watched my paycheck decrease from $860 . .
. after four more years to 690 bucks every two weeks . . . I can’t
survive like this . . . and the news kept telling me that everything was great
. . . this was the hope and change, and we have to get used to unemployment.”
“They just make promises and don’t
do anything,” says another young black woman, “and our communities . . . education for our children are
still jacked up . . . I didn’t see any progress for Americans, for working,
everyday average Americans . . . Obama, all these promises he had not made and
weren’t being kept.”
“Democrat Party have no plan, no
direction, no future, no way of looking at growth . . . growing on hate is not
what this country should be, wants to be,” says a man who goes by
the handle “NtenseFit Way.”
"All [Democrats] want to do is
monetize white guilt . . . it’s not really productive, man, because we never
address the core issues . . . . [Democrat] policies do not work . . . enough is
enough. It is time to break the cycle. Me, I made a decision, man, I can no
longer support the Democrat Party. Because they are not the party for black
people, they’re not even the party of America. They are such a far-Left
socialist party . . . I don’t know who they’re working for—it ain’t us. In
every state they run . . . opportunities diminish . . . their policies are
failed. . . . I can’t do it anymore. I’m conservative."
Some blame Obama by name. Many do
not. But his failure to help, or even try, was their final break with the
Democratic Party.
“All you seen since you were a kid
and you were black were promises on things they were gonna change, things would
become better. All you seen, things have become worse,” says a man who
identifies himself as an ex-felon.
He asks and answers: “Who’s
responsible, who’s running this system? It’s the Democrats. Destroyed the black
family. Destroyed the black home . . . . They come every four years and they
take take take and they don’t give you shit back. I’m tired of it, tired of the
excuses.”
Identity Politics is a Loser
Hillary Clinton tried to follow in
Obama’s footsteps with identity politics. But many black men feel targeted by
feminism. Others are appalled by the Democratic Party’s promotion of abortion,
which disproportionately targets black communities.
Black men and women are furious that illegal aliens seem to receive better treatment from Democrats than
American citizens.
Intersectionality is failing
to unite them with the other privileged grievance groups. These voters realize
their interests are not identical or even similar to leftist politics.
Hillary personally was a turn-off
and her corruption was appalling.
A former Bernie Sanders supporter expresses
his disgust,
which extended from Clinton to all progressives, eventually including Sanders
himself. “The thing that completely opened my eyes like someone threw cold
water on you in the middle of the night . . . was the DNC rigging the
election,” he says.
…
The progressive Democratic Party has
no positive message for blacks.
“Party of victimhood. Party of excuses,” says Hermes Justin Wilson.
“Those who see themselves as eternal victims will always stay that way . . .
using black people as a stepping stool . . . keeping them low by having them
stuck in this mindset.”
And then Donald Trump happened.
Trump was not a turn off to them. He is familiar. Trump was known and liked
by many blacks because of “The Apprentice.” They are fine with his braggadocio
and outsized personality.
They admire
his success as a businessman. Some know his reputation as a friend of blacks.
Some were willing to give him a hearing and a chance.
Even those who did not vote for
Trump are open about how much they love him now.
President Trump is
delivering, big time, on jobs, on crime, on actually improving their daily
lives.
Making Patriotism Cool Again
Trump is delivering on another thing
a lot of these #Walkaways care about: patriotism and unity.
“We live in the greatest country on
earth and I am proud to be an American,” says a well-dressed man who calls himself YG Nyghtstorm.
“I am so happy to see so many of my fellow citizens standing against hatred and
putting America first.”
…..
They are listening to Republicans,
they’re meeting them at work. They like them and realize they have shared
values.
They are finding out for themselves that Republicans are not racist.
These black voters have Republican values on abortion, marriage, hard work,
creating opportunities for people to make something of themselves, and loving
America.
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