Unreality TV: 'The Donald' Meets 'the Blacks'
I agree with this well-argued letter that "siding with a political candidate whose rhetoric pathologizes black people" sends a questionable message. But that, to me, is a reason to meet with Trump, not avoid him.
You negotiate with your adversaries to bring peace, as an old saying goes, not your friends. Maybe exposure to the truth will break through even Trump's iron resistance to inconvenient facts.
Besides, as dangerously ridiculous as Trump's campaign often seems to me, I am pleased to see him and some courageous black clergy take a step toward restoring at least some of the vigorous competition both parties used to wage for the black vote.
I also am pleased to see him remind his own hyper-conservative base that conservative principles are not for white people only. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, another contender for the Republican nomination, demonstrated that last year when he won re-election with 26 percent of the black vote (33 percent of black men and 20 percent of black women) according to CNN exit polls.
Those numbers contrast sharply with the Grand Old Party's black support presidential elections, which rarely has risen above 15 percent since 1960, when it was 32 percent, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington think tank that specializes in black issues and keeps tabs on black voting patterns.
Kasich is one of many Republicans who have done well with the black vote in state and local races. It is on the national level that a different picture emerges: We African-Americans have not left the party of Abraham Lincoln as much as the party of Lincoln left us.
Even so, Trump remains the party's frontrunner and Kasich hasn't been able to rise out of single digits. Unfortunately, a lot of it has to do with how well he stirs up, often with Mussolini-like vigor, the frustrations of conservative Americans about a government and political parties that don't seem to be listening to them. Black folks know that feeling, too.
I await evidence that Trump really can build "great relationships" with "the blacks," although I'm not holding my breath.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)
(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
