‘What’s happening out there’ with Black men and Trump?

Analysis by Eugene Scott @  WashingtonPost.com, Oct. 23

In the final presidential debate, President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden argued over who had been better for the Black community, in ways we’ve heard them do before.

Trump attacked Biden’s support for tough on crime policies in the 1990s; Biden called Trump “one of the most racist presidents we’ve had in modern history.”

At one point, Trump offered a retort that got at something that has been cause for no small amount of worry among Democrats and the Biden campaign in the last few weeks.

“Tens of thousands of Black men, mostly, in jail. And you know what? They remember it, because if you look at what’s happening with the voting right now, they remember that you treated them very, very badly. Just take a look at what’s happening out there,” Trump said.

Black voters overwhelmingly back the Democratic Party in presidential elections, more than any other group — especially Black women. But while the large majority of Black men are also voting for the vice president to America’s first Black president, some data shows Trump is on track to perform as well — if not better — with Black male voters this year, compared with 2016. Nearly 1 in 5 Black men approve of the job Trump is doing, according to a recent Gallup survey. And about 10 percent of Black men are leaning toward Trump, according to the latest Pew Research data.

A couple of recent incidents involving celebrities ignited social media uproars and exacerbated worries over this for Democrats last week; hip-hop artist 50 Cent expressed his support for Trump on social media after realizing that as a multimillionaire, he would be taxed at a much higher rate under a Biden administration than if Trump remained in the Oval Office.

And hip-hop artist Ice Cube raised eyebrows last week when Katrina Pierson, a senior adviser for the Trump campaign, tweeted that the longtime critic of police violence against Black Americans was working with the Trump administration to connect with Black voters. Ice Cube later said he had had conversations with the campaign but denied that he was endorsing Trump, a candidate who has repeatedly defended law enforcement in conversations about police brutality.

The idea that Black voters take their cues from rappers is rooted in stereotypes about entertainers being the most influential voices in the Black community even when it comes to issues of policy and politics. When longtime Trump supporter Kanye West launched his own presidential bid, some feared that the hip-hop artist would take Black votes from Biden. That hasn’t come close to happening, polls show. And that might not happen with Ice Cube or 50 Cent.

A big surprise of 2016 exit polls for many Americans was the revelation that Trump won the highest percentage of Black male voters (13 percent) of any GOP candidate in recent history. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by far won the majority of Black male voters (82 percent). But Trump’s stronger-than-expected performance with the demographic revealed that the president was in better standing with Black men than many expected.

Supporters of the president would argue that this support is the result of Trump’s controversial yet often-repeated claim to have done more for Black Americans than any other president in American history besides, perhaps, Abraham Lincoln.

For example, NFL legend Herschel Walker defended Trump against accusations of racism at the Republican National Committee convention in August.

Growing up in the Deep South, I’ve seen racism up close. I know what it is and it isn’t Donald Trump. Just because someone loves and respect the flag, our national anthem, and our country doesn’t mean they don’t care about social justice. I care about all of those things. So does Donald Trump. He shows how much he cares about social justice in the Black community through his actions and his actions speaks louder than stickers or slogans on a jersey. He keeps right on fighting to improve the lives of Black Americans and all Americans. He worked night and day. He never stops. He leaves nothing on the field.

But some Black male voters may be drawn to the same thing many Trump supporters find attractive: a worldview that the America of yesteryear was a country at its greatest on cultural issues. And because of this, some Black male support for Trump is a repudiation of a society that increasingly rejects the sexism, misogyny and homophobia that are often prevalent in traditional ideas about manhood.

Brittney Cooper, a women’s studies associate professor at Rutgers University, elaborated on this point while talking to The Post’s Jonathan Capehart on the “CapeUp” podcast.

There is a way that Black men have been made to believe that because white supremacy has worked on them, primarily by restricting their access to all the spoils of manhood, to the money, to the political power, to even to the sort of noble power of protecting their women, for a lot of Black men, their racial freedom aspiration is to just be equal with White men, which is to say they wanna be patriarchs or male-dominant in the way that White men are.

The numbers have led the Trump campaign to invest even more in connecting with Black male voters — a demographic that some argue has been somewhat forgotten by the Democratic Party — in the 2020 election.

Because of Black voters’ long support for the Democratic Party, there is an assumption that the party need not work as much for Black Americans’ support. But the Black Swing Voter Project, a new study by American University, shows that younger Black voters — and particularly young Black male voters — are not as much of a sure thing for the Democratic Party and could ultimately decide to stay home at rates that could cost liberals the election.

Knowing this, the Trump campaign has responded by aggressively targeting these younger Black men with less of a voting history. The president has spoken at prison graduation ceremonies; welcomed a number of Black athletes and celebrities to the Oval Office to endorse him; and opened outreach sites in predominantly Black neighborhoods in swing states to increase the campaign’s visibility.

Democratic pollster Terrance Woodbury, founding partner at HIT Strategies, a research firms focused on understanding the politics of people of color and other overlooked groups, wrote about the Trump campaign’s efforts earlier this month in Blavity:

Since George Floyd’s death, the Trump campaign has spent over 6 million dollars on Facebook advertising addressing criminal justice reform — over 800 times more than Biden has spent. This number is a powerful indicator of his overall strategy to peel off Black men from Democrats. For the Trump campaign, success is not winning 20, 30, 40 or 50 percent of Black men. In a close election, winning 10 percent of Black men could make him a two-term president.

In these final weeks, having more prominent Black men back Trump could seek to do something else that could benefit the president — suppress the Black vote by creating confusion among Black male voters still unsure of what to do. Whatever the intent, the impact could be consequential. Although Biden has a double-digit lead over Trump in some national polls, how the president performs in swing states with sizable percentages of Black male voters could matter significantly. Trump and his campaign certainly seem to think so.

Trump and Biden fight for Black male voters

CBS NEWS October 23, 2020, 9:05 AM WITH FULL VIDEO REPORT

[....] Black men have increasingly become a coveted target of both campaigns in the run-up to Election Day. President Trump and Former Vice President Joe Biden defended their records on race during Thursday night's debate.

"Nobody has done more for the Black community than Donald Trump," the president said. "Criminal justice reform, prison reform, opportunity zones."

"We have to provide for economic opportunity, better education, better health care, better access to schooling, better access to opportunity to borrow money to start businesses," Biden said.

Both campaigns have unveiled specific plans appealing to the estimated 30 million eligible African-American voters. According to Pew Research Center, only 54% of eligible Black men voted in 2016. 

Thirteen percent of Black male voters supported President Trump in 2016, more than three times the rate of Black women.

Harold Rucker, a retired marine, said he didn't vote for Mr. Trump or Hillary Clinton during the last presidential election.

"I pretty much voted for the Libertarian. I couldn't see either one of those two," he said.

Myles Harris, a senior at Fisk University, said he sometimes feels ignored by politicians.

"I don't feel like anybody has really just came out and took an extremely strong position to not only protect African Americans but to progress African Americans," he said.

Stumping for Biden in Philadelphia this week, former President Barack Obama made an appeal to Black men.

"What I consistently try to communicate during this year, particularly when talking to young brothers ... is to acknowledge to them that government and voting alone isn't going to change everything," he said.

Short acknowledged there are a lot of Black men who don't vote [....]

Former Republican political operatives help create a service where one can report all reported incidents, we are indeed in new times:

Very long article, with much proof that Trump campaign is NOT trying to "suppress the black vote"

Both Biden and Trump camps see young Black men as key to their chances

By Chelsea Janes @ WashingtonPost.com, Oct. 31

[....]

Although they are still expected to favor Biden by a wide majority, they have become an unexpected target for both sides in the closing stretch. The Trump campaign sees young Black men as a potential soft spot in Biden’s coalition, while Democrats are scrambling to keep them in the fold.

President Trump’s long history as a media figure has made him familiar to many Black men, said Terrence K. Williams, a sometimes inflammatory comedian who is a longtime Trump supporter.

“People don’t realize that before President Trump became president, the Black community loved President Trump,” said Williams, who is Black. “You would hear his name in rap songs. He used to hang with 50 Cent and Puff Daddy and all these guys. Everybody wanted to be like President Trump, because he was a successful businessman.”

A Washington Post-ABC News poll in June found that 81 percent of Black men under 40 were expected to vote for Biden — a high number, but considerably lower than the 94 percent of younger Black women favoring him. And in 2016, exit polling found that 13 percent of Black men supported Trump, compared with 4 percent of Black women.

Those numbers could matter in a race where swing states may hinge on a handful of votes. Some Black and Democratic leaders are aghast that even a minority of Black men support a president they believe is racist. While some attribute the support in part to Trump’s economic policies, such as low taxes, which they say empowers the Black community, others cite his image as a wealthy and traditionally masculine figure.

Cornell Belcher, a former pollster for President Barack Obama, stressed that 85 to 90 percent of Black men still support Biden. But he said he does worry about whether “those five million Obama voters who sat out 2016 show up,” noting that “they were mostly African American.”

[....]

In 2016, of the roughly 137 million total votes cast for president, about 10 million came from Black women and 7 million from Black men — a bigger turnout gap than for any other group, according the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

The Trump campaign is doing what it can to capitalize on that disparity. It has deployed prominent Black men like football great Herschel Walker to campaign for the president, starting with appearances at the Republican National Convention.

[....]

The Trump campaign is not trying to win a majority of Black men, which is probably out of reach, but simply to make a dent in Biden’s broad support. Its “Platinum Plan” promises to increase access to capital for Black-owned businesses by almost $500 billion, create 3 million jobs for the Black community and achieve other economic milestones, though details are scarce in the two-page document.

The Trump team has also opened what it calls “Black Voices for Trump Community Centers,” hubs for organizing in 15 locations where Black turnout could make a difference in a swing state.

[....]

But Terrance Woodbury, a Democratic pollster, said the party has not done enough to persuade these voters it will help them. Woodbury said his conversations with young Black men often yield the same few Trump talking points — a sign that Trump’s messaging has penetrated more effectively than the Democrats’.

“When you ask young Black men how their lives will be better, or how their lives have improved from them voting, and they don’t have an answer . . . . To me, that means that Democrats have not made the argument clear enough,” Woodbury said.

[....]