J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo
President Trump delivering the State of the Union address on Tuesday
President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday was composed of his usual blend of half-truths, misleading statements, and flat-out lies, surprising no one who has heard Trump speak before. But where Trump slightly differed from his usual brand of self-aggrandizement was in his direct attempt to court black voters with an economic message, festooned with statistics about unemployment, poverty levels, and wage growth.
“The unemployment rates for African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Asian-Americans have reached the lowest levels in history. African-American youth unemployment has reached an all-time low,” Trump said. “African-American poverty has declined to the lowest rate ever recorded.”
From the moment Trump entered the chamber, the evening’s tone was less sober address and more MAGA rally, with Republicans chanting, “Four more years!” At times, the chamber was more like a reality TV show, when Trump went beyond the usual highlighting of guests in the gallery to score political points. On one occasion, he singled out a single black mother and her daughter from Philadelphia to demonize the public-school system. Trump then awarded fourth grader Janiyah an “Opportunity Scholarship” to attend any school she wants—assuming it’s a private or charter school. Trump tied this scholarship to the “Be Best” initiative from first lady Melania Trump, and all three women were showered in applause. (Knowing how Trump and his organizations hand out scholarships, it’ll be important to double-check the follow-through.)
The Trump team must know they’ll never win the support of African American voters. Eight in ten black Americans said Trump is racist, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos Poll from January of this year. But an economic argument may be Trump’s greatest strength in his re-election campaign. Following Steve Bannon’s 2016 recipe for populist economic rhetoric and demonizing foreigners, Trump doesn’t have to convince black voters to turn out for him, but instead try to convince them they can afford to stay home because things are OK.
Most minorities in the United States vote for Democrats, but since Obama’s 2008 campaign engaged minority voters, and black voters in particular, to turn out in record numbers, those numbers have slacked off. Such a lack of enthusiasm works to Trump’s benefit and, of course, is augmented by the Republicans’ systematic implementation of obstacles to voting in black communities: enacting voter suppression laws, purging people from voter rolls, closing down voting sites, and making it harder to restore voting rights for the formerly incarcerated.
By focusing broadly on low unemployment rates, particularly if the Democrats select a nominee who doesn’t engage minority communities, Trump could convince some people to stay away from the polls and avoid the hoops that many black and brown people in this country have to jump through to vote. Nor does it bode well for Democrats that the Iowa debacle confirmed skeptics (not just minorities) in their doubts about the value of voting.
As of Wednesday morning, it seems that the winner of Iowa’s caucuses may be Pete Buttigieg, who has only recently climbed to 2 percent support with black voters in the polls. So far, he’s proven that he does not know how to connect with this most reliably Democratic-leaning constituency. Nor does Michael Bloomberg’s track record with blacks and Latinos when he was mayor of New York bode well for minority voter participation.
In 2020, Team Trump knows his base is secure. His State of the Union address laid out another element of his strategy: to show minority voters a bare minimum of attention and diminish the perception of differences between him and his eventual opponent. Not since Kanye West visited the Oval Office has Trump waged such an effort—but it still could work.
