Republicans embrace Trump, tolerate racism and give up on Black voters
Don't believe me? Take it from one who knows...
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
I've worked on winning Republican races across the South, and I've never seen a racist appeal like Trump's succeed. Why won't his party challenge him? Stuart Stevens | Opinion contributor | 8:59 am EDT August 2, 2020
About a year ago, I finished writing a book in which I posited that race was the original sin of the Republican Party and that the rise of President Donald Trump is based more on white grievance than any other factor. It was a conviction I'd come to after over 30 years of working in Republican politics, including five presidential campaigns. To me it seemed an inescapable if depressing reality.
My first campaign was for a congressional seat in Mississippi between a white Republican (my client), a white Democrat and a Black Independent. I quickly realized anything we could do to increase the profile of the African American would help divert votes from the Democrat to the Independent. It was our best play, since there was little we could do to attract African Americans to our own campaign.
That was a long time ago, and Republicans are still failing to win Black voters in substantial numbers. For decades the party admitted that was in fact a failure and at least attempted to change. But now it has settled into a comfortable embrace of white grievance and Trump is running as the Yankee George Wallace.
Trump is proving my thesis
I've worked with a lot of candidates, and for all the hocus-pocus mystique about consultants pulling strings controlling campaigns, I've found that ultimately candidates do what they most want to do. This is never truer than when a candidate and campaign are under stress. It's a natural instinct, the same phenomena of when someone who is multi-lingual reverts to their native tongue when most angry.
Still, I never expected Trump to base his re-election campaign around proving my thesis.
There are times when elections are, to borrow the Jerry Seinfeld description of his show, campaigns about nothing. For obvious reasons this tends to happen in times of peace and prosperity, with an electorate that is generally satisfied with the status quo.
Tom Ridge: Unlike Trump, Republicans must strongly, fully denounce racism
That's not this election. One recent poll shows only 18% of the country believes we are headed in the right direction, and others aren't much higher. This 2020 campaign does not lack for big issues that impact every American: the worst public health crisis in 100 years, the highest unemployment since the Depression. This is a moment that uniquely calls out for strong presidential leadership. Most presidents would grasp that their fate lay with the public's view of their response and act accordingly.
A different era: Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush and media adviser Stuart Stevens in Philadelphia on Aug. 2, 2000. DIANE WEISS, XXX USAT
Not Donald Trump. It's clear his instinct is to make the 2020 election a cultural war, which in his interpretation is just a socially acceptable term for a race war. Why? How does this make any political sense?
The answer is that it doesn't but it is what Trump wants to do. Steve Bannon liked to say of Trump, "Dude, he's Archie Bunker," but that seems overly generous. Archie had Meathead, who strongly disagreed with him and would argue. Trump has his children and son-in-law, who serve the same purpose in a Trump administration as the devoted Waylon Smithers does for his boss in "The Simpsons."
There is a need in Trump world to describe his erratic behavior and lack of discipline as some kind of brilliant hidden strategy because otherwise you are left with the conclusion that he is a blithering idiot. Which, of course, Trump is, but he's an idiot with deep racial animosity that dates back decades. Now with his reelection campaign crumbling around him, Trump is lashing out trying to divide the country along racial lines.
Baffled by GOP reluctance to speak out
This isn't surprising. We shouldn't forget that Trump still says the falsely convicted Central Park Five, African Americans he had said deserved the death penalty, are guilty despite exoneration. But what is shocking, if not surprising, is that the Republican Party is going along with Trump's strategy to model his campaign after Wallace's 1968 run for president. It reveals a combination of moral failure and political stupidity rarely evidenced by a major party.
Don't disregard our pain: We need leaders to affirm that Black Lives Matter, not exploit the phrase to divide us
Whenever I tell my Republican friends that I think racial animosity is the root of Trump's appeal, the inevitable and often angry rejoinder is, "Are you saying that 63 million Americans are racists?" What I try to point out to them is that you don't have to consider yourself a racist (and, of course, most racists don't consider themselves racists) but you do have to be willing to accept that having a racist president is less important than something else you are getting from that president.
That might be conservative judges, that might be tax cuts, that might be increased tariffs on Chinese goods (since anti-free trade is apparently the new Republican standard.) From defending Confederate monuments to attacking Black NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace, Trump seems determined to make it impossible to deny he's a racist.
President Donald Trump at the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto race in Daytona Beach, Fla., on Feb. 16, 2020 Alex Brandon, AP
I'm a seventh generation Mississippian who has worked on winning Republican races for governor and Senate across the South, and I've never seen Trump's level of direct racist appeal work. While there is still an angry racist constituency, not just in the South but in every state, it is small and growing smaller. Your average white teenager in the South looks to black rap stars as cultural icons more than Robert E. Lee.
What baffles me is the reluctance of Republicans to speak out and challenge Trump on race. With the exception of Utah's Mitt Romney, has any Republican senator or House member even uttered the words "Black lives matter?" What does it say about the future of the Republican Party when my home state of Mississippi finally lowered the Confederate battle flag just as a Republican president tries to raise it? It leaves me deeply pessimistic about the future of the Republican Party, while deeply hopeful about America.
Trump is trying to refight the Civil War. He'll discover in November that it's over. And America won.
Stuart Stevens, a senior adviser to the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, was chief strategist for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012. His latest book, "It Was All A Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump," will be published Tuesday. Follow him on Twitter: @stuartpstevens
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The author certainly knows what he is writing about.
Not really.... https://www.instagram.com/p/CDZSS1jgYKJ/?igshid=pjp5kqderi07
Oh wow, two black voters for tRump. Awesome!
I have never seen one MAGA hat in the Bronx!
Not one in four years. So what does that say?
There’s more where that came from.
The republicans/gop not only tolerate his outright racism, they endorse it.
Still no ticket for sweeping generalization. Why am I not surprised?
Personally i think that's great.
It's a nice shopping list AFAIC.
This entire article is one huge sweeping generalization.
Likely fueled by rampant TDS.
Sad!
Not like it's a surprise or expected.
Full of never Trumpers it be and should be considered accordingly but ..... the TDS ridden sure love em.
Figured as much!
They do make some really wonderful videos though:
Fellow Traveler 1,703,589 views•Jul 1, 2020
[TDeleted]
Yep, Biden hopes to be our first "basement bunker" President and the left will defend the decision.
Which just illustrates the hypocrisy at work here. Supporting a Presidential candidate that is not capable of simple debate .....
Amazing times to be sure ....
Indeed and the headline is not the one from the USA Today article.
The title is how the "Fetch" system captured it.
[Deleted]
[The headline was changed by the source after JBB seeded it.]
Now let’s talk about positive things Trump has done with Republicans to earn support from African American voters. Lowest unemployment rates ever and real wage growth pre pandemic for African Americans. Worked with African American US Senator to create opportunity zones to increase investment and job and small business opportunities for African American communities. Worked with Kanye and Kim to begin prison sentencing reform and benefit African Americans adversely affected by Biden’s crime bill Clinton signed. Greatly increased federal funding for historically black colleges and universities. Advocates for and supports school choice for parents and their children. Created an executive order to reform police departments and worked with an African American US Senator to create a senate bill to further such reforms. Trump has done a lot to outreach to African Americans and has shown the writer of the seeded article to be full of crap.
Oh, the Never Trumpers, the same Republicans who have taken Republicans money for years promoting most of the same things Trump has delivered and they were unable to deliver. Or could it be the only thing they ever intended to deliver was empty promises while packing their wallets with hard earned money from gullible Republicans who hadn't become aware packing their wallets was their goal all along.
Now, some of them have actually gone out of business, like the Weekly Standard, for lack of donations to the magazine and website. They're pissed because Trump promised basically the same thing they have been promising for years and Trump delivered, which exposed them for the frauds they have always been.
Funny you should mention that!
I just came across a most-excellent video by those amazing folks over at SNL...that addresses that very subject:
Voters For Trump Ad - SNL
14,782,461 views
Trump has opened up a bigger lead according to this poll in the crucial battleground states, meaning the president by this pollster’s estimates currently is projected to win 309 electoral votes—more than he did in 2016.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.br...0/08/02/poll-trump-takes-lead-over-biden/amp/
This is huge.