Article:Inside Donald Trump’s new strategy to counter the view of many that he is ‘racist’...
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-donald-trumps-new-strategy-to-shed-the-view-of-him-as-racist/2016/08/23/eedc4fd0-6945-11e6-99bf-f0cf3a6449a6_story.html
Donald Trump is rapidly trying to turn around his presidential campaign with a vigorous and at times strained effort to shed a label applied to him by a substantial portion of the electorate: racist.
Guided by his new campaign leadership, the Republican nominee has ordered a full-fledged strategy to court black and Latino voters and is mobilizing scores of minority figures to advocate publicly for his candidacy.
Trump is planning trips to urban areas — with stops at churches, charter schools and small businesses in black and Latino communities — and is developing an empowerment agenda based on the economy and education, aides said. Under consideration is an early September visit to Detroit, where retired neurosurgeon and former Republican primary rival Ben Carson would guide him on a tour of the impoverished neighborhoods where he grew up.
Trump’s team also hopes to exploit what the campaign’s internal poll of black voters nationally shows to be a potential vulnerability for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton once voters are informed of the crime policy record of former president Bill Clinton, according to two Trump associates.
At his rallies, meanwhile, Trump has been spotlighting black supporters and making a blunt pitch to minorities. He has described blacks in sweeping and categorical language, suggesting that they are mired in poverty, living in dangerous neighborhoods and have nothing to lose by giving him a chance. He also has changed his tone on immigration by saying he would swiftly deport “the bad ones” living in the country illegally but would use the existing legal process for others — after vowing for more than a year that he would deport them all.
Asked Tuesday whether he might change his hard-line deportation policy to accommodate immigrants who contribute positively to society, Trump told Fox News Channel anchor Sean Hannity, “There certainly can be a softening because we’re not looking to hurt people.”
For Trump, the objective is twofold, according to his aides and allies. He wants to make inroads with minority voters, who polls show overwhelmingly support Clinton. He also believes that a more measured approach on race can convince white voters now shunning him — especially women — that he is not the racist that his inflammatory rhetoric might indicate.
“What you’re seeing here is the real Donald Trump: Somebody who wants to make sure that his record of inclusion, his views on keeping all Americans safe, on improving the economy of all Americans comes across,” said Jason Miller, Trump’s senior communications adviser. “It’s very much something that he believes in personally and he wants to make sure that folks realize that he will be an inclusive president for all Americans.”
The challenge for Trump is daunting. Sixty-five percent of all American adults believe the word “racist” applies to Trump at least slightly well, and 35 percent say it applies very well, according to an Associated Press-GfK Knowledge Networks poll in July. A Washington Post-ABC News poll this month found that 56 percent of registered voters believe Trump is biased against women and minorities.
Clinton led Trump by 91 percent to 3 percent among blacks and 70 percent to 25 percent among Hispanics in an average of July and August Post-ABC polls.
“After 15 months of denigrating every nonwhite minority in sight, it’s hard to believe that he can actually do significantly better among nonwhites,” Republican pollster Whit Ayres said. “But he may be able to soften his image a bit with some Republican and maybe a few independent whites who have been put off by his harshness thus far.”
Trump made an overture to black voters early last week in Wisconsin and repeated it at subsequent rallies in North Carolina, Michigan, Virginia and Ohio. The crowds at each event were overwhelmingly white.
On Monday night at a rally in Akron, Ohio, Trump described the minority experience as: “Poverty. Rejection. Horrible education. No housing, no homes, no ownership. Crime at levels that nobody has seen. You can go to war zones in countries that we are fighting and it’s safer than living in some of our inner cities that are run by the Democrats.”
“Look,” he added, “it is a disaster the way African Americans are living, in many cases, and, in many cases the way Hispanics are living, and I say it with such a deep-felt feeling. What do you have to lose?”
Clinton’s campaign released a video on Tuesday that accused Trump of having “built his candidacy on demonizing immigrants” and that featured more than a dozen of Trump’s most incendiary comments. The campaign also organized a conference call with reporters featuring black and Hispanic politicians.
Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, said that after a career spent “insulting and ignoring our community, he has decided now to finally reach out . . . . But he is not talking to us, he is talking at us.”
Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.) said Trump is stereotyping: “To him, we are all poor, we are all uneducated, we are all unemployed. . . . Donald Trump has repeatedly proved himself to be a bigot.”
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Trump’s advisers said his message should be seen as an opening play in a robust push.
“It’s wise before you start going into these places to put things out there for people to cogitate about, and not just walk into an environment where people might be so hostile they won’t listen to you,” Carson said. “That’s what he has been doing: prepping the ground for what’s to come.”
So far, Trump has declined appearances before minority audiences that many past Republican nominees have made, such as the NAACP convention. Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said on CNN on Monday that Trump stopped trying to address such large gatherings after he canceled a March rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago because so many protesters showed up.
“You know what happened?” Lewandowski said. “The campus was overrun, and it was not a safe environment.”
Carson said he has had several conversations with Trump about his upbringing in a poor, mostly black section of Detroit, which led to discussions about Trump visiting there. Carson said Trump intends to develop and promote policies on school choice and vouchers, public aid programs that can help keep families together, and potentially prison reform.
“He recognizes that what’s been going on for the last 50 years in major cities has not uplifted anybody,” Carson said. “He’s going to talk about a different way, about empowering people through education in the inner cities, where failing schools have been protected by politicians.”
Last Thursday, the Republican National Committee hosted a conference call with nearly 100 black leaders, RNC chief strategist Sean Spicer said. On the call, Trump’s director of African American outreach, Omarosa Manigault — a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” the NBC reality television show that starred Trump — outlined a plan to boost the GOP nominee.
“The Democrats continue to take the African-American community for granted,” Manigault said in a statement provided by the campaign. “It is disconcerting that they would rather pander than formulate substantive policy plans that would actually improve conditions as opposed to continue down the current path of the last eight years.”
In 2012, Republican Mitt Romney won just 6 percent of the black vote, according to exit polls.
“We have to do better,” said Spicer, who now spends a few days a week in New York working in concert with Trump’s senior staff. “Luckily this is something the campaign is on board with, and you’re going to see a lot more engagement down the stretch.”
One variable is how Trump’s mostly white base of fervent supporters, who were drawn to his candidacy in the primaries because of his politically incorrect rhetoric, might react to his latest positioning.
Michael Steele, a former RNC chairman who has advised Trump and his team to visit historically black colleges or hold town-hall meetings in cities like Baltimore, said public and private polls this summer showing Trump’s low support among nonwhite voters served as stark warning signs.
“Those numbers will force you to get smart,” Steele said. “They said to each other, ‘We’re going to be active in getting that vote.’ ”
Trump’s new posture is being influenced by his new campaign captains, chief executive Steve Bannon and campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who were brought in last week amid a staff shake-up.
He also has been motivated by a private poll of black voters conducted by campaign adviser Tony Fabrizio. The survey found that blacks have a lesser affinity for Hillary Clinton than they did for her husband and that their support dips once they learn about her advocacy for a 1994 crime bill signed by Bill Clinton, according to two people briefed on the poll’s findings.
Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant, has urged Trump to exploit Bill Clinton’s crime record, arguing that “an entire generation of young black men are incarcerated” because of the law, which imposed tougher prison sentences for a range of drug-related crimes.
“Black voters have no affinity for Hillary Clinton,” Stone said. “She’s done nothing for them. . . . Bill Clinton has an affinity to black voters, and it’s stylistic: He slips on the shades, plays the saxophone, how cool. But most black voters don’t know about the 1994 crime bill, and they need to be educated.”
Both Clintons have since said they regretted the crime bill.
When Trump began his campaign, he was confident he would do better with black voters than Romney — mostly because African Americans form part of his commercial base for “The Apprentice” and his casinos. People who have helped manage the Trump Organization’s brand said the company’s private research over the past decades showed that many black people admired Trump’s ostentatious lifestyle.
But that image changed once Trump became a political figure in 2011 by making himself the face of the “birther” movement, which sought to delegitimize President Obama by questioning his birth in Hawaii.
Now, Trump is turning to a cast of black surrogates for rehabilitation. At a rally last Thursday in Charlotte, Clarence Henderson, a civil rights activist who participated in the 1960 Woolworth’s sit-in in Greensboro, N.C., led the crowd in prayer. Then sisters Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson — YouTube stars who go by the names Diamond and Silk — gave an enthusiastic endorsement.
Hardaway exhorted, “I want to say to all of my black brothers and sisters: It is time for you to make a change and join the Trump train, baby.” -
He's gonna come around black communities and do the nay nay and the schmoney dance while not providing any real plan for what he's gonna do for black people. I hope black people don't fall for this.
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Trump is racist. PERIOD
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Didn't he say he wasn't gonna change?
Why the 180?
What happened?
Seriously, what kinda idiot would vote for this clown? -
5th Letter wrote: »He's gonna come around black communities and do the nay nay and the schmoney dance while not providing any real plan for what he's gonna do for black people. I hope black people don't fall for this.
these events be orchestrated controlled environments...the so called black liason hosts of these needs to be checked, at the least , for allowing them to come around us and say nothing about nothing -
Does he even need the support of those who're convinced he's racist to win the election?
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All he has to do is let a ? ? his wife. If you been on the IC a person or country cant be racist if they allow you to ? their women.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-black-church-visit-great-faith-ministries-detroitTrump To Visit Black Church After Year Without A Single Black Community Event
After going more than a year without holding a single campaign event in a black community, Donald Trump is slated to visit a predominantly black church, the New York Times reported on Monday
Trump will campaign at Great Faith Ministries in Detroit on Saturday, where Bishop Wayne T. Jackson will interview him, the campaign confirmed to the Times.
Pastor Mark Burns, a Trump campaign surrogate, told the newspaper the GOP nominee would talk about crime, educational opportunities and unemployment during the event.
In his efforts to improve dismal poll numbers among black voters, the New York real estate mogul has continued to campaign in largely white communities, while telling black citizens they live in neighborhoods ravaged by crime and unemployment.
"What the hell do you have to lose?" Trump has asked black voters. -
Allah_U_Akbar wrote: »Didn't he say he wasn't gonna change?
Why the 180?
What happened?
Seriously, what kinda idiot would vote for this clown?
he also legit said, "I could shoot a guy in broad daylight in the middle of downtown Manhatten and people would still vote for me"
something like that.. legit
"we'll bomb the ? outta em!!"
they love his ? .. they don't like poetically correct ? , they like uncensored ? .. because it doesn't feel like ? ..
well, I say ? ! -
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-wont-address-black-voters-detroitTrump Won't Actually Be Speaking To Congregation At Black Church In Detroit
Donald Trump may be making his very first campaign visit to a black community this week, but he won’t actually be speaking to black voters there.
The Republican nominee will attend a Saturday service at the predominantly black Great Faith Ministries in Detroit, but he will not speak to the congregation there, the Detroit Free Press reported Wednesday. He also will be interviewed by Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, but that interview will be closed to both the public and the media and won’t air on the church’s network for at least a week after the event, according to the report.
Jackson told the newspaper that he was okay with Trump’s decision not to directly address his congregants, saying they trust their bishop's “judgment” on who he invites to visit the church.
"He will be talking to voters just like when he sits down with any news agency, like CNN,” Jackson said about the upcoming interview. “Every time he’s on Fox or MSNBC, he’s talking to voters."
Jackson, who said he has voted for Democrats his entire life, clarified that the visit was "not a Trump rally" but an "opportunity for a dialogue."
He told the Free Press he will ask Trump if he considers himself a Christian, and if he is a racist "because so many people think that’s what you are."
Trump has in recent weeks made overtures to black voters, telling them Democratic leaders have left them to live in crime-ravaged inner cities. Yet he has faced criticism for delivering those overtures in predominantly white communities.
Trump’s team has painted his visit to Great Faith Ministries as an example of the direct “outreach” he’s doing with minorities.
“Republican presidential nominees usually are not bold enough to go into communities of color and take the case to them and compete for all ears and compete for all votes,” campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said last week. “They’ve been afraid to do that."
“Mr. Trump deserves credit,” she added.
Trump has visited Detroit before but has not met with black voters there.
The city’s Democratic mayor, Mike Duggan, told the Free Press that he believes Trump “marginalizes huge groups in this country who aren’t rich and who don’t look like him." -
Don't care to hear anybody ask Trump if he's racist.
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Toooooooooooooooo late for that
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One shouldn't trust any of these politicians, that's why everyone should be Independent. But......no one was calling Trump a racist until he entered the election. At the end of the day we have two 70 year old white candidates. I still favor the deal-maker over corrupt neocon ? . And of course we got Stein & Johnson.
On a side note, has Jesse ever explained this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U6Pp5iflTs -
Trump>Clinton
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Trump is the lesser of 2 evils. That's sad to say.
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5th Letter wrote: »He's gonna come around black communities and do the nay nay and the schmoney dance while not providing any real plan for what he's gonna do for black people. I hope black people don't fall for this.
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ThaNubianGod wrote: »One shouldn't trust any of these politicians, that's why everyone should be Independent. But......no one was calling Trump a racist until he entered the election. At the end of the day we have two 70 year old white candidates. I still favor the deal-maker over corrupt neocon ? . And of course we got Stein & Johnson.
Are you sure about this?
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Does he even need the support of those who're convinced he's racist to win the election?
Nope and that is what's truly frightening about the upcoming election. -
ThaNubianGod wrote: »I still favor the deal-maker over corrupt neocon ? .Trump>ClintonTurfaholic wrote: »Trump is the lesser of 2 evils. That's sad to say.
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Turfaholic wrote: »Trump is the lesser of 2 evils. That's sad to say.
Cosign.
Everybody acts like Trump is a racist, white supremacist so they should vote for Hillary instead.
But Hillary is a blonde haired, blue eyed white chick herself.
Its like voting for a wolf vs a fox. The Wolf is bigger and looks meaner while the fox looks cute and cuddly. But they'll both eat you. the Wolf will straight up attack you and eat you while the fox waits until your not paying attention, then he attacks. -
It's political theater, but.....
Trump talks the racist talk but has not had the political power to enact his talk. He has done his part in funding racism and propaganda and surrounds himself with the worst of the worst in terms of media reach with money to back it up....all he needs is the political power.
Hillary puts racist policies and American imperialism into action and has demonstrated through political powers that she has no problem ? over masses of black people for her own gain.
I wouldn't vote for either of them.
Wolf vs wolf in sheeps clothing. -
Allah_U_Akbar wrote: »Didn't he say he wasn't gonna change?
Why the 180?
What happened?
Seriously, what kinda idiot would vote for this clown?
These posts can answer your last question...........ThaNubianGod wrote: »I still favor the deal-maker over corrupt neocon ? .Trump>ClintonTurfaholic wrote: »Trump is the lesser of 2 evils. That's sad to say.Everybody acts like Trump is a racist, white supremacist so they should vote for Hillary instead.
But Hillary is a blonde haired, blue eyed white chick herself.
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Turfaholic wrote: »Trump is the lesser of 2 evils. That's sad to say.
Cosign.
Everybody acts like Trump is a racist, white supremacist so they should vote for Hillary instead.
But Hillary is a blonde haired, blue eyed white chick herself.
Its like voting for a wolf vs a fox. The Wolf is bigger and looks meaner while the fox looks cute and cuddly. But they'll both eat you. the Wolf will straight up attack you and eat you while the fox waits until your not paying attention, then he attacks.
Foxes don't eat people -
Does he even need the support of those who're convinced he's racist to win the election?
Trump is not reaching out to Blacks and Hispanics for their vote..................He's making it appear that he's reaching out to Blacks and Hispanics for the votes of those decent white people out there that won't allow themselves to vote for a racist white person. -
Does he even need the support of those who're convinced he's racist to win the election?
Trump is not reaching out to Blacks and Hispanics for their vote..................He's making it appear that he's reaching out to Blacks and Hispanics for the votes of those decent white people out there that won't allow themselves to vote for a racist white person.
Pretty much......
"He made an effort...."
"He didn't have to...."
"They're just being ungrateful......"
"I'm comfortable with him in office....."
Sways opinions of more white people to the side of the government if he takes office.
