“I’ll have those n*****s voting Democratic for 200 years,” author Ronald Kessler quoted President Lyndon B. Johnson as saying. But this prediction may fall flat, according to CNN analyst, ex-Obama Green Jobs “Czar,” and self-proclaimed communist Van Jones.
Rendering commentary on CNN after the State of the Union address Tuesday night, Jones warned Democrats that they may face electoral disaster in November because President Trump is “going after enough black votes to cause us problems.”
While Trump won only eight percent of the black vote in 2016 — which accords with post-1970 GOP norms — a January Rasmussen poll shows black voters’ support for the president doubling during the last year alone to a striking 42 percent.
As the online Daily Caller reports:
“What he was saying to African-Americans can be effective,” Jones told a CNN panel following Trump’s State of the Union address. “You may not like it but he mentioned HBCUs [Historic Black Colleges and Universities]: black colleges have been struggling for a long time, a bunch of them have gone under, he threw a lifeline to them in real life in his budget. He talked about this. He talked about criminal justice reform. He talked about Opportunity Zones.”
Jones insisted that blacks will overlook Trump’s normally inelegant rhetoric, such as Trump’s reported use of the phrase “sh**-hole nations” to describe Third World countries, and embrace the policies that Trump is promoting.
Jones proceeded to say that leftists have to “wake up,” that they’re living in a “bubble” in which everyone reinforces the mistaken notion that Trump’s rhetoric (as liberals perceive it) will permanently alienate blacks. But actions speak louder than words, and Trump can say to blacks: Look “at my results and my record for black people,” the analyst explained.
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Below is the video of Jones’ remarks. Note that he begins with the false claim that “sanctuary” cities are safer than more lawful municipalities, citing the open-borders-advocating Cato Institute as a source. Its assertion, however, has been debunked: Illegals’ criminality exceeds that of native-born Americans.
Jones also said that Democrats need to focus more on the Hispanic vote as well and that they must be more “clinical” about these matters. “We get so emotional about it,” he complained.
Of course, denying Truth’s (Objective Moral Reality’s) existence and being relativists — and thus believing there are no real answers to be found and, therefore, none to be apprehended by the intellect — modern liberals operate and are defined by emotion. (“If it feels good, do it” didn’t come from nowhere.) So Jones shouldn’t be surprised.
In summary, the ex-Obama official warned that Democrats should not “underrate Trump’s ability to attract non-white voters.” This could drastically effect this year’s upcoming election, too. As WND.com writes:
An analysis by the Washington Examiner in November showed the dramatic rise in support by blacks could make the difference in the 2020 election.
Boosting his percentage among blacks in November to between 10% and 15% could be enough to put him over the top, said pollster Jonathan Zogby of Zogby Analytics at the time.
Zogby found at that time that Trump was receiving 12% of the black vote against Joe Biden, 14% against Sen. Bernie Sanders and 17% against Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Those levels are the best for a Republican president or presidential candidate since 1968.
Senior Trump campaign official Katrina Pierson said in November that Trump’s support among blacks is “going in the right direction.”
Of course, if Trump could capture black votes equivalent to even half his 42-percent black approval, his reelection could be a blowout.
None of this should be surprising, however. Pierson also noted, “Trump had respect in the black community long before he ran for president, with Don King and Jesse Jackson counted among his friends,” WND.com also tells us. In fact, Jackson actually praised Trump for his work in the black community. What changed?
Trump ran for president, became credible — and thus threatened Democrat power.
So the leftists then rolled out their patented attacks, calling Trump a “sexist,” “bigot,” “homophobe,” “misogynist,” and, of course, a “racist.”
Another factor in Trump’s recent popularity among blacks is his support from rap star Kanye West, who once famously told fellow blacks, “Your power is not to just vote Democrat for the rest of our lives,” WND further relates.
In reality, blacks are not exactly of one piece with the Democrats on the issues; for example, they often split with the party on prenatal infanticide and, in particular, the Sexual Devolution (“LGBTQ”) agenda.
As an example, while a slim majority of whites voted in 2008 against California’s Proposition 8 — defining marriage as what it is, the union of a man and woman — 70 percent of blacks voted yes and won its passage. This earned them the ire of the Left’s “tolerant” sexual devolutionaries, some of whom expressed their displeasure using racial epithets.
So why are black Americans nonetheless almost monolithically Democrat? Because they “have been ‘brainwashed’ by Democrats,” WND quotes West as explaining.
Unfortunately, this brainwashing means that Trump’s black-American polling number is actually a silver lining in a very dark cloud. To wit: Despite all the talk about “Blexit,” actual electoral success with blacks has eluded the GOP. In fact, 90 percent of them voted Democrat in the 2018 midterms — same as usual.
(It was likewise with other typical Democrat constituencies: 79 percent of Jews, 77 percent of Asians, 69 percent of Hispanics, and 59 percent of women also favored their party in 2018.)
President Trump, of course, could buck this. He’s not a typical Republican (or anything), after all, being a nationalistic, anti-establishment populist, outsider, and celebrity. Also note that while he’s sometimes mocked for having been in reality TV, what brought him success there also makes him a political sensation: He’s a true character with a big personality, a larger-than-life figure — who thrives before the camera.
In brief, love Trump or hate him, he’s a phenomenon who can transcend party. Thus, blacks may embrace him — but this is not synonymous with adoption of the GOP.
Selwyn Duke (@SelwynDuke) has written for The New American for more than a decade. He has also written for The Hill, Observer, The American Conservative, WorldNetDaily, American Thinker, and many other print and online publications. In addition, he has contributed to college textbooks published by Gale-Cengage Learning, has appeared on television, and is a frequent guest on radio.
