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Hillary and the Democrats Continue Their War on Blacks

September 30, 2016

Hillary and the Democrats Continue Their War on Blacks, PJ Media, Roger L Simon, September 30, 2016

hillary_mlk_banner_9-29-16-1-sized-770x415xc

Forget all the back and forth on the first debate, the pundits, the people, the polls, the bizarre claims and counter-claims of an aging Venezuelan porn star.  All that can and will change, if it hasn’t already. Or will disappear among a new set of talking points, real or imagined, after the second debate.

Only one assertion of enduring importance was made on Monday—one that slipped quickly by, but will continue to fester under the surface for those eighty or so million watching and have a profound and deeply unfortunate effect on our culture.

Hillary Clinton declared that all Americans are racist, at least implicitly. The exchange went as follows:

Lester Holt: Do you believe police are implicitly biased against black people.Hillary Clinton: Lester, I think implicit bias is a problem for everyone not just police.

So we’re all racists now in Hillary Land.

Note I didn’t say Hillary’s view because this statement was not based on any form of reasoned observation, but on pure political calculation under the self-aggrandizing and self-deluding mask of moral narcissism. (I apologize for bringing up the subject of my recent book. But this just happens to be one of the most perfect and dangerous examples I have ever encountered of this increasingly pervasive phenomenon.)

Here’s the calculation part that occurred as I see it: In response to Holt’s question,  Hilary didn’t know what to say about the police that wouldn’t offend someone, so she spread the accusation to everyone. We’re all guilty (meaning, one assumes, all white people, although that was naturally left unsaid). At the same time, obviously, she was doing her best to pander to the black vote that, for the first time in a long while, has been a tiny bit more fragile for the Democrats.

The moral-narcissism component allows Clinton to assume the mantle of the “good person,” that she is doing  the”right thing” when her policies and those of her party have had the exact opposite result for black communities that have been in steep decline for some time. Holt, of course, never raised that possibility.

Underlying all this is a ruthless attempt to encourage that most pernicious, self-defeating and self-fulfilling prophecy that African-Americans will always be victims.  And if they are victims, they always vote Democrat, the party of victimhood. (If they  don’t vote Democrat, they support professional victimhood organizations like Black Lives Matter until the proper deals are made and they do vote Democrat again, a roundelay of  unhappily ever after.)

The result of all this? Bodies in the street. A lot of them. Almost all black.

But we know that. The facts are readily available to anyone who wants to see them. But Hillary and her party are not interested in the facts—they are interested in generating emotions that translate into winning elections and remaining in power, even if it necessitates they hide the truth from themselves. This is  normal political behavior, except in this case, as mentioned, people die.

It’s ineffably sad, most notably for black America, of course, but also for the rest of us who have to watch, usually helplessly. Or live in a world seemingly on the brink of frightening disintegration.

Nevertheless, the Democrats and Hillary soldier on in their assault, thanks to moral narcissism.  They think (or pretend to think) they’re doing the right thing.  It’s “virtue signaling” taken to the nth power as stores get looted and buildings burn.

In reality, it’s a war on blacks for the advantage of a pseudo-liberal/pseudo-progressive elite. They get all the goodies at the end, along with a small sector of cooperative black elites who play the game.

This war kicked into high gear at the beginning of the Obama administration. To say the first black president instigated and perpetuated a war on blacks is pretty outrageous, but before his inauguration the relations between the races in our country were incomparably better and had what appeared to be a bright future. Perhaps that future was too bright and had to be annihilated before one party lost its raison d’être.  

That’s something to think about while Donald Trump makes his fitful attempts for the black vote.  At least he’s trying.  What other Republican presidential candidate really has? I wish he did it more skillfully, but when I hear Hillary Clinton accusing us all of being racist, I thank God for his attempt.

Categories: 2016 elections, Black voters, Democrat plantation, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and racism
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Democrats Have Nothing to Fear but Losing Black Votes

August 27, 2016

Democrats Have Nothing to Fear but Losing Black Votes, American Thinker, Eugene Slaven, August 27, 2016

(They have more to fear than that — Clinton Foundation, Clinton e-mails, etc. — DM)

Donald Trump’s outreach to black voters was predictably met with unbridled, laughably over-the-top scorn and derision from Democrats and their media allies – media allies who at this point are so blatantly unfair that one might think they would no longer even have the audacity to object to being mocked as Clinton shills.

Gripped by fear that Donald Trump’s efforts might peel black votes from Democrats in key battleground states, the Clinton campaign has embraced the lowest brand of gutter politics: tying Donald Trump to the KKK and other white supremacist groups.  While slandering Republicans as racists has been a favorite tactic of the left for decades, the offensive against Trump is abhorrent even by the left’s low standards.

Setting aside the fact that unlike Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton has direct, personal ties to a former powerful KKK grand wizard, the left’s line of attack against Trump is the most desperate counteroffensive since the Wehrmacht’s ill-fated Battle of the Bulge gambit in the waning months of World War II.

And yet it’s perfectly rational.

The centerpiece of the left’s critique of Trump’s speeches targeting black voters is that Trump’s arguments are “condescending” to black Americans.  Why condescending?  Because Trump has been emphasizing the disproportionately high unemployment, poverty, and crime rates in predominantly black neighborhoods.  Deliberately amplifying the most provocative snippets from Trump’s substantive speeches, such as the “what the hell do you have to lose [by voting for Trump]” line, the left is incredibly claiming that citing poverty statistics is tantamount to talking down to black Americans, most of whom don’t live in poverty.

It’s true that most blacks don’t live in poverty, and millions of blacks are successful, patriotic, hardworking, productive members of society.  There are black business executives, entrepreneurs, movie stars, music legends, sports icons, writers, artists, and so on.  Also, the president of the United States happens to be black.

But that reality hasn’t stopped the left from arguing that blacks are systematically oppressed.  Indeed, the alleged plight of black Americans has been a central theme of the left for decades, becoming increasingly prevalent over the last several years as radical fringe terms such as “white privilege” have been mainstreamed.

In a stroke of audacious hypocrisy, leftists, who routinely highlight every statistic showcasing socioeconomic disparities between whites and blacks, are now hammering Trump for doing exactly the same thing.  In fact, many of the left’s foremost intellectuals – including neo-Marxists Ta-Nehisi Coates and Cornel West – go much fartherthan Trump, arguing that black Americans are permanently doomed to second-class status in a capitalist society.

There is one key difference between Trump’s and the left’s messages vis-à-vis the state of black Americans.  Whereas the left shamelessly and dishonestly blames so-called white privilege and fictitious institutional racism for the disproportionately high poverty and unemployment rates among blacks, Donald Trump is instead arguing that left-wing policies are at the root of the socioeconomic disparities.

As difficult as it is to establish a cause-and-effect relationship in the public policy realm – the number of dynamic variables affecting socioeconomic conditions reminds us that political “science” is actually more of an art – it happens to be a hard, inescapable fact that left-wing policies governing majority-minority communities have failed spectacularly to achieve their desired ends.  No one disputes this – not even Ta-Nehisi Coates.  And this is a fact unwittingly confirmed by liberals, who, when they’re not ridiculing Donald Trump for his condescending rhetoric, bemoan the high poverty and unemployment rates among black Americans.  In doing so, are they not in fact indirectly acknowledging the failure of their own agenda?

Given the undeniable track record of failure, is it not reasonable to think that a certain percentage of black voters will be open to changing course?  Even if black voters harbor doubts about a Republican Party viciously maligned by its political foes, is it not reasonable to think some will tune out the demagoguery and be open to a new way?  This is the nightmare that keeps Democrats up at night.

There is another fascinating storyline in Trump’s black outreach: the so-called racial dog whistle that Republicans and conservatives allegedly emit in every election cycle has been effectively silenced.

You know the perverse charge: a perfectly innocuous comment made by a Republican that has nothing to do with race is deemed a covert message to racists.  For example, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews in all seriousness claimed that presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s use of the word “Chicago” is racist code.

The examples of leftists hearing dog whistles are infinite, and the absurdity of the charge is belied by the implausible notion that the “racist” vote is an all-important bloc that can swing an election in a Republican’s favor.  More likely, liberals are lying when they claim that Republicans are using racist dog whistles that ironically only liberals can hear.  But what makes Donald Trump’s pitch to black Americans so perfectly devastating to the dog-whistle conspiracy theory is that asking black Americans for their vote and promising a better life for the black community are irreconcilable with the alleged goal of coveting the racist voting bloc by means of racist dog whistles.

Donald Trump is the first presidential candidate to do what conservatives have been exhorting Republicans to do for years: he is making the woeful track record of left-wing policies in majority-minority neighborhoods a major national issue.  He is forcefully presenting the case that every predominately black neighborhood is run at every level of government – local, state, and federal – by liberal Democrats.  He is pointing to the Democrats’ fanatical opposition to school choice and other public school reform initiatives, shared by one of their most vital allies, the teachers unions, as evidence that the left’s agenda is hurting black Americans.

Given the volumes of evidence, Democrats are understandably terrified that a statistically significant number of black American voters will reconsider their allegiance to Democrats and give Republicans a chance.  And given the long-term implications of this possible demographic electoral shift – including the collapse of the Democrats’ race-based coalition – is it any wonder that Democrats and their media allies are counterattacking Trump in unhinged ways that redefine negative political campaigning?

 

Categories: 2016 elections, Black voters, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Media and Hillary Clinton, Racism
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Last Night Was the Turning Point in Trump’s Campaign

August 20, 2016

Last Night Was the Turning Point in Trump’s Campaign, PJ Media, Roger Kimball, August 19, 2016

trump in ncDonald Trump in Charlotte, N.C. Thursday, Aug. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Donald Trump cleared up one thing in his speech in Charlotte, North Carolina, last night: he is running to win.

Throughout this very odd election cycle, some pundits have periodically suggested that Trump wasn’t serious in his run for the presidency. First, it was said that he got into the race simply to garner publicity, to burnish his “brand.” He himself, it was said, was surprised that he did so well in the primaries.

When it became clear that he was poised to win the nomination, the story changed slightly. Now, he was said to be playing the buffoon because he didn’t really want the job. The same line was repeated and amplified post-convention whenever Trump went off-message or waved The National Enquirer about. Anything having to do with Ted Cruz really seemed to set him off. And off he went, as his plummeting poll numbers showed.

But these last couple of weeks have shown the world a new, more disciplined Donald Trump.

His speeches on the economy, on foreign policy, on policing and race relations, and — just last night — his brilliant speech that touched on everything from national security to race relations, free trade, immigration, and Obamacare, have shown that he is deadly earnest about winning this election.

To employ a phrase that Trump himself favors: Believe me, he’s in it to win.

Last night’s speech was significant for  several reasons. Substantively, it hammered home a truth that is as uncomfortable as it necessary to acknowledge: the dreadful plight of black Americans is largely the creation of Democrats.

Aside: in a rare obeisance to political correctness, Trump consistently referred to “African-Americans.”  Perhaps that is politically expedient — but I believe it is patronizing.

As Teddy Roosevelt observed, “hyphenated-Americans” are a threat to the integrity of the country. We are not Irish-Americans or German-American or African-Americans (a term that is especially bizarre because it is applied indiscriminately to certain dark-skinned people: Jamaica, for example, is not part of Africa). We are simply Americans whose ancestors happen to be from Ireland, Germany, Kenya, or wherever.

But back to that perhaps startling claim — to the media and Democrats, anyway — about Democrats being largely responsible for the plight of black Americans. Donald Trump is quite correct:

Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party have taken African-American votes totally for granted.

Until now, anyway, the black vote has run according to the Democratic script. What is that script? Lyndon Johnson articulated it in its purest — as well as its crassest — form when in 1964 he remarked to two like-minded Democratic governors that, with his Great Society programs:

I’ll have those n*****s voting Democratic for the next 200 years.

It hasn’t been 200 years yet. But for the last 50? As patronizing Democratic programs stifled freedom and individual initiative, and erected an increasingly burdensome (and expensive) governmental cocoon around their minority charges?

The black vote has been largely in the pocket of its new plantation owners.

The “Great Society” did not abolish poverty. That was never the intention. It institutionalized poverty.

Along the way, it created an engorging bureaucracy that was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party.

As Trump pointed out in his speech in Milwaukee earlier this week, all of the nation’s failed cities — Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, Oakland, Memphis, Milwaukee itself — have been under Democratic control for decades.

Milwaukee, for example, has been Democratic since 1908. Do you suppose that there is a connection between the disasters — the poverty, the crime, the corruption — that have engulfed these cities, and the political complexion of their leadership? Or is it merely fortuitous?

To ask the question is to answer it.

Regular readers know that I have found find a lot to criticize about Donald Trump. I stand by those criticisms. But I also acknowledge a new note in Trump’s campaign.

His speeches of the last two weeks have outlined with clarity and conviction that he is serious about bringing about significant change. Not just the word “change”: the country has staggered under that ruse for nearly eight years now. No, Trump is promising to bring real change to all Americans, but especially to American cities and the materially disenfranchised denizens who have spent the last several decades suffering from the hypocritical benevolence of the corrupt Democratic bureaucracy.

Some polls crow that Trump has “zero percent” support among blacks. After his speech in Milwaukee, that changed, with at least one poll reporting a 10-point jump.

I suspect that after his speech in North Carolina, we’ll see much more movement in the polls —and not just among minorities.

Last night’s speech was notable for its focus, its discipline, and its hard-hitting criticism of Hillary Clinton. It was also notable for its humanity. There are some who say that the “J.” in Donald Trump’s name is for “Jester.” Certainly, crass braggadocio has shadowed him throughout his public career.

In a few brief sentences last night, Trump acknowledged … and apologized(!) for that:

Sometimes, in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that, and I regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain. Too much is at stake for us to be consumed with these issues.

I suspect that a future historian, commenting on the surprising Trump victory in the election of 2016, will settle on the quartet of speeches Trump delivered in the middle of August 2016 as the turning point in a campaign the media had already written off as moribund.

And if pressed, I suspect that a future historian will point to last night’s speech, to Trump’s candid appeal for black votes and to black self-interest, as the pivotal moment.

Beyond that, I’ll wager that our future scribe will put his finger on Trump’s admission of error and expression of regret as the humanizing moment when people said:

Well, all right then, let’s give him another look.

Doubtless, Hillary Clinton and her surrogates are even now plotting to bait him, to lure him off target and to trick him into flailing against some irrelevant charge. If he is canny, he will ignore all these distractions and concentrate like a laser beam on his main issues: the economy, immigration, national security, and social comity.

His target is not a Constitution-waving Democratic shill, but Hillary Clinton. Her ostentatious corruption and incompetence, and the failed policies she has inherited and which she has pledged to continue and exacerbate.

Trump said early on in his speech:

Our campaign is about representing the great majority of Americans — Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Conservatives and Liberals — who read the newspaper, or turn on the TV, and don’t hear anyone speaking for them. All they hear are insiders fighting for insiders.

That’s what the mainstream media hears, too, but since they are themselves on the inside, it is a song whose melody they like. If Trump continues on the tack he has taken these last couple of weeks, there is a good chance he will win.

He needs to do two things. On the positive side, he needs to stay on message, repeating his ideas for tax reform, economic revitalization, control of our borders, defeating Islamic terrorism, replacing Obamacare, and enhancing America’s position in the world.

On the polemical side, he needs to be relentless in calling attention to the prosperity-killing and freedom-blighting program that is the Democratic platform (read it: it makes the Port Huron Statement seem sane).

He also needs to call attention to Hillary’s decades-long career of pay-to-play corruption and her callous incompetence as secretary of State.

Two weeks ago, it looked as if Donald Trump’s campaign was on life support. At the moment it looks as if the patient has made a miraculous recovery.

 

Categories: 2016 elections, Black voters, Democrat Party, Donald Trump
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The Trump Speech that will Win Him the Presidency*

August 18, 2016

The Trump Speech that will Win Him the Presidency*, Power Line, John Hinderaker, August 17, 2016

Yesterday in West Bend, Wisconsin, Donald Trump delivered a speech that was described as being on law and order. True enough, but it was much more than that. Trump powerfully wove together his campaign’s themes in a direct appeal for African-American votes. You can read the speech here. Of course, Trump didn’t deliver it exactly as written, but it was close, with no notable deviations that I noticed. Excerpts are below. This is the video of the speech in its entirety:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8AKmX6QtuA

This is from the law and order portion of the speech:

The violence, riots and destruction that have taken place in Milwaukee is an assault on the right of all citizens to live in security and peace.

Law and order must be restored. It must be restored for the sake of all, but most especially the sake of those living in the affected communities.

The main victims of these riots are law-abiding African-American citizens living in these neighborhoods. It is their jobs, their homes, their schools and communities which will suffer as a result.

There is no compassion in tolerating lawless conduct. Crime and violence is an attack on the poor, and will never be accepted in a Trump Administration.

The narrative that has been pushed aggressively for years now by our current Administration, and pushed by my opponent Hillary Clinton, is a false one. The problem in our poorest communities is not that there are too many police, the problem is that there are not enough police.

More law enforcement, more community engagement, more effective policing is what our country needs.

Just like Hillary Clinton is against the miners, she is against the police. You know it, and I know it. Those peddling the narrative of cops as a racist force in our society – a narrative supported with a nod by my opponent – share directly in the responsibility for the unrest in Milwaukee, and many other places within our country.

They have fostered the dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America.

Every time we rush to judgment with false facts and narratives – whether in Ferguson or in Baltimore – and foment further unrest, we do a direct disservice to poor African-American residents who are hurt by the high crime in their communities.

Those words are true, and they will be welcomed by something like 85% of voters. The Democrats’ association with Black Lives Matter, with rioters and with anti-police elements generally is deeply unpopular.

Trump appealed directly to African-American voters. These excerpts are drawn from different portions of his speech:

The war on our police is a war on all peaceful citizens who want to be able to work and live and send their kids to school in safety.

Our job is not to make life more comfortable for the rioter, the looter, the violent disruptor. Our job is to make life more comfortable for the African-American parent who wants their kids to be able to safely walk the streets. Or the senior citizen waiting for a bus. Or the young child walking home from school.
***
The Hillary Clinton agenda hurts poor people the most.

There is no compassion in allowing drug dealers, gang members, and felons to prey on innocent people. It is the first duty of government to keep the innocent safe, and when I am President I will fight for the safety of every American – and especially those Americans who have not known safety for a very, very long time.

I am asking for the vote of every African-American citizen struggling in our country today who wants a different future.

It is time for our society to address some honest and very difficult truths.

The Democratic Party has failed and betrayed the African-American community. Democratic crime policies, education policies, and economic policies have produced only more crime, more broken homes, and more poverty.

Let us look at the situation right here in Milwaukee, a city run by Democrats for decade after decade. Last year, killings in this city increased by 69 percent, plus another 634 victims of non-fatal shootings. 18-29-year-olds accounted for nearly half of the homicide victims. The poverty rate here is nearly double the national average. Almost 4 in 10 African-American men in Milwaukee between the ages of 25-54 do not have a job. Nearly four in 10 single mother households are living in poverty. 55 public schools in this city have been rated as failing to meet expectations, despite ten thousand dollars in funding per-pupil. There is only a 60% graduation rate, and it’s one of the worst public school systems in the country.

To every voter in Milwaukee, to every voter living in every inner city, or every forgotten stretch of our society, I am running to offer you a better future.

The Democratic Party has taken the votes of African-Americans for granted. They’ve just assumed they’ll get your support and done nothing in return for it. It’s time to give the Democrats some competition for these votes, and it’s time to rebuild the inner cities of America – and to reject the failed leadership of a rigged political system.
***
We reject the bigotry of Hillary Clinton which panders to and talks down to communities of color and sees them only as votes, not as individual human beings worthy of a better future. She doesn’t care at all about the hurting people of this country, or the suffering she has caused them.

The African-American community has been taken for granted for decades by the Democratic Party. It’s time to break with the failures of the past – I want to offer Americans a new future.

It is time for rule by the people, not rule by special interests.

Every insider, getting rich off of our broken system, is throwing money at Hillary Clinton. The hedge fund managers, the Wall Street investors, the professional political class.

It’s the powerful protecting the powerful. Insiders fighting for insiders. I am fighting for you.
***
The Democratic Party has run nearly every inner city in this country for 50 years, and run them into financial ruin.

They’ve ruined the schools.

They’ve driven out the jobs.

They’ve tolerated a level of crime no American should consider acceptable.

Violent crime has risen 17% in America’s 50 largest cities last year. Killings of police officers this year is up nearly 50 percent. Homicides are up more than 60% in Baltimore. They are up more than 50% in Washington, D.C.

This is the future offered by Hillary Clinton. More poverty, more crime, and more of the same. The future she offers is the most pessimistic thing I can possibly imagine.

It is time for a different future.

That is powerful stuff. The Democrats can only hope that the press doesn’t let their urban voters hear Trump’s message.

Trump wove his trademark immigration issue into the narrative:

First, on immigration. No community in this country has been hurt worse by Hillary Clinton’s immigration policies than the African-American community. Now she is proposing to print instant work permits for millions of illegal immigrants, taking jobs directly from low-income Americans. I will secure our border, protect our workers, and improve jobs and wages in your community. We will only invite people to join our country who share our tolerant values, who support our Constitution, and who love all of our people.

Trump is right on the facts, and polls indicate that his policies are extremely popular with African-American voters. Trump also came out for school choice and merit pay for teachers:

Hillary Clinton would rather deny opportunities to millions of young African-American children, just so she can curry favor with the education bureaucracy.

That’s true. And it isn’t just Hillary, it is the entire Democratic Party, at every level.

There was much more, especially on corruption. But the bottom line is that Donald Trump did exactly what conservatives have been saying for years that Republican politicians should do. He asked for African-American votes, explicitly and aggressively. He called out the Democrats for their failed policies. Urban American has been voting Democrat for a century, and how has that worked out? Badly. Democrats count on African-American votes, but their policies on public safety, immigration, education and trade (here I think Trump is mostly wrong), among others, consistently screw black Americans. Why not try something different?

If Trump keeps giving this speech, and variants on it, for the next 90 days he will win the election. He needs, above all, to maintain message discipline. Yesterday, he riffed a bit here and there, but not substantively. He stuck to his script and delivered his message powerfully. He needs to keep that up until Election Day.

One more thing about Trump’s Wisconsin speech is notable: He was introduced by Scott Walker, and Reince Preibus and Rudy Giuliani were prominently in attendance. Trump is inherently more powerful when he speaks in the context of approval by luminaries like those who showed up to support him in West Bend. It is time, I think, with all due respect to those who have resisted Trump as the Republican standard bearer, for the party to unite behind its nominee.

Finally: the title of this post ends with an asterisk. Speeches like the one Trump gave in Wisconsin will win him the presidency, but only if voters hear them or otherwise learn about them. The Democratic Party media will do everything possible to prevent that from happening.

So, for example, the liberal media led this morning not with stories about Trump’s speech, which would have damaged their preferred candidate, but rather with stories about his campaign staff shakeup. Trump needs to circumvent the liberal media in a manner that was not necessary when they largely cheered him on during the primary season. In that respect the debates, when voters will see Trump unfiltered by his enemies, likely will be critical.

Categories: 2016 elections, Black Lives Matter, Black voters, Democrats, Donald Trump, Immigration, Law enforcement, Lawlessness
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