Can the Right Capture a Small, But Decisive Percentage of Minority Voters?

Nothing would drive the Left crazier than knowing Donald Trump won back the presidency due to minority voters.

The math is quite simple. The Democrats depend and, by depend, I mean their entire viability as a political party is inextricably tied to securing 92% of the black vote in statewide and presidential elections. If they only earn 80% of the black vote, they mathematically cannot win elections given that there are not other chunks of voters from which to make up the lost ground. That fact is why the Left spends sooooooooooo much time throwing the race card around and labeling anyone on the Right as a racist, white supremacist with a white hood and sheet hanging in the closet. For nearly sixty years, that plan worked brilliantly. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, with the arrival of Trump in 2016, the Left’s hold on black America has increasingly gotten weaker, especially its hold on black men. A recent CNN poll showed Donald Trump beating Joe Biden among minority men.

The issue of race and Trump is fraught with landmines. I lost a good friend because I had the audacity to write an op-ed in June 2020 asking the simple question “Can Trump Appeal to America’s Black Silent Minority?” and a follow-up column in July 2020 noting that “Trump’s African-American ’Silent Majority’ Could Swing the Election." In those op-eds, I stated:

Though no Republican will win the African American vote in my lifetime, I do think Trump has the chance to reach or exceed the 15 percent threshold, which would make it near impossible for Biden to win any of the key states. 

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Contrary to the current conventional wisdom, I think there is a growing silent minority among America’s minorities, especially African Americans, in the cities where the recent rioting destroyed their businesses, homes, and communities. Biden’s pandering and attack on Trump for Floyd’s death simply missed the mark and came across as shrill.

African Americans want law and order as much as anyone. They’re as outraged by the African Americans killed by the rioters, as they were of Floyd’s tragic death knowing that all black lives should matter. One African American killed was retired police captain David Dorn who was guarding his friend’s pawn shop on, ironically, Martin Luther King Drive.

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Barack Obama, despite being the first African American president, failed to deliver criminal justice reform — a top priority for black voters — after eight years. Trump got it done in two. Trump also increased funding for Historical Black Colleges and powered an economy that, before the pandemic, drove the unemployment rate for African Americans to an historical low.

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Democrats make a big and arguably racist mistake in thinking that black voters are allergic to the idea of law and order. According to Rasmussen, 67 percent of African Americans are most concerned about public safety where they live. Contrary to the spin from the Black Lives Matters leaders, African Americans know by experience that the police aren’t the cause of death and mayhem in the black community; rather, the police are the force that has kept the criminal elements at bay. It is the police who have saved thousands of black lives as murder rates across America plummeted from the 1990s onwards.

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Just as blue-collar union workers turned to Trump in 2016 after years of being left holding an empty bag by the Democrats they elected, one outcome of the Floyd murder just may be that a small, but growing minority of African Americans turn to Trump and the Republican party to do for them finally what the Democrats have promised to do for 50 years. It could be another political earthquake

Though black men did vote for Trump in higher numbers in 2020, the lack of movement by black women kept the total number low enough that Joe Biden still squeaked out a 43,000-vote win in three states. Polling this year suggests even more black men are moving towards Trump and the Right, with Trump also getting more support from Hispanics and possibly Jews given the absurd and offensive response to the 10/7 Hamas terrorist attack by the Progressive Left.

Don’t take my word for it. Here is what Mark Fisher, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement in Rhode Island said when endorsing Trump on Tuesday as he echoed my words from June and July 2020:

The [Left’s] policies actually strike at the heart of the Black family and the nuclear family. We've been used and abused for so long by that party, they don't value our vote. Their policies are basically racist policies. I believe it's a racist party. Donald Trump is just the opposite. He's going to tell you how it is. He's going to give it to you straight. Trump has done more for the Black community than any president I can think of in my lifetime.

While I don’t think the Democrat Party is racist, I do firmly submit it is a racialist party; meaning, they unequivocally believe that race determines human traits and capacities. The Democrat Party’s entire approach to the black community is based wholeheartedly on it being a monolithic entity with little to no difference among members. If a member happens to stray from the racialist orthodoxy of the Left, that member, like Clarence Thomas and Tim Scott, is an Uncle Tom or “not really black.” It is repugnant and exactly why a small, but growing segment of black America, is waking up to the Left’s caricature of it as the helpless monolith desperately dependent on wealthy white liberals for the crumbs it gets. 

Other events have occurred that have softened the hold the Left has on black Americans. As I wrote about two years ago in “Hilarious “Let’s Go Brandon!” Songs Could Signal Historic Shift to the Right” when the infamous “Let’s Go, Brandon!” incident happened at a NASCAR race leading to two rap songs:

Both versions of the song detail the various debacles of Joe Biden and his Administration. From the withdrawal from Afghanistan to the pandemic vaccine mandate, Gray and Alexander hit Biden and praise Donald Trump throughout the songs. As you wipe tears of laughter from your eyes, don’t dismiss the songs as little more than funny one-hit wonders that have no more significance than when a late-night Trump tweet made “covfefe” famous. Virtually every night in major league sporting venues and high school stadiums, people are yelling both versions of the chants, including in Democratic bastions like New York City and San Francisco.

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First, both Gray and Alexander are black Americans using a style of music enormously popular within the black community (and suburban white teen playlists). These songs will get listened to by other black Americans. Two critical messages – one overt and the other covert – are being conveyed through the songs. The obvious message is the critique of Biden and his fellow Democrats along with the praise of Trump. That message is one that many black Americans may not be hearing given how the media and Big Tech have censored the Right and aided the Left over the last five years. It frankly is a shock the songs are still available on iTunes and Spotify (YouTube banned the songs for imparting “medical misinformation”). The less obvious, but, more vital message, is that it signals within the black community that it is okay to leave the Democrat Party and like Trump and the Right.

The message seems to be sinking in. According to a recent survey, "Black voters in Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are now registering 22 percent support for Trump, up from eight percent in 2020.” Even black females are moving towards Trump, with rapper Azalea Banks saying she will vote for Trump because she believes in the 2nd Amendment’s right to bear arms.

Whether the support lasts for another year will largely depend on three actions. First, can Trump continue to build inroads to minorities via the policies he pushes that are in stark contrast to Biden’s disastrous policies? Next, can Trump maintain the discipline with his language and conduct so as not to give the Left soundbytes to use with minorities to stop his momentum? Lastly, can the Republican Party under ineffective Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel produce a get-out-the-vote (GOTV) program that matches the Left step-for-step, including in key minority communities in key cities in key states? Given McDaniel’s track record in 2018, 2000, and 2022, I’m far less worried about the first two items re Trump’s ability to snare a critical level of minority votes than I am about the Right’s GOTV.

Let’s hope the recent history of failed Republican gains doesn’t repeat in 2024 and a growing chunk of minority voters finally break free from the Left’s grip on it. Nothing would drive the Left crazier than knowing Trump won back the presidency due to minority voters.

P.S. In follow-up to my column on Ohio building a world-class airport in the Greater Columbus Area, not only is no one moving in that direction, but instead elected officials and bureaucrats are doubling-down on John Glenn “International to Just Toronto” Airport by spending $2 billion to add another terminal to that landlocked airport. Even worse, those officials are pushing for a Project Labor Agreement that will require unionized workers (or workers paid at union rates), which only results in more being spent to build less. Regardless, the $2 billion would have been an excellent start to the world-class airport at Rickenbacker where evidence grows that airlines might be willing to ditch Chicago and other East Coast locations for a far weather-friendly Midwestern location free of rampant crime.

P.P.S. Several of my Dublin-based subscribers have recently asked me how conservatives lost the recent election for Dublin City Schools (the two conservative candidates came in last and second to last, with a third squishy Republican being reelected largely due to being an incumbent). My response has simply been that too many professors, doctors, lawyers, and such have moved into Dublin, thereby increasing the number of people with a bachelor’s degree or higher. In fact, from 2000 to 2022, the number of Dubliners holding bachelor’s degrees or higher increased from 64.7% to 73.2%, which has turned Dublin from a purple suburb to a blue suburb. As I wrote in “The Bell Curve Electorate” two years ago, "Based on 2020 exit polling data, America is increasingly becoming segmented by party by educational attainment. Broadly speaking, Joe Biden won college graduates 61% to 37%, as Donald Trump won those with some college or less 53% to 45%, with both margins increasing since the 2016 election.” This analysis applies to any community in America so that more bachelor's degrees translates into more Democrats (and Volvos, Subarus, Whole Foods shoppers, and NPR listeners:-)