The problem with Trump’s assumption that his conviction will help him with Black voters
By Michael Jones
Donald Trump made history last August when he became the first president in US history to have his mugshot taken after a Georgia grand jury indicted him on conspiracy to change the outcome of the 2020 election unlawfully.
The experience, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee would later go on to tell a group of Black conservatives at a black-tie gala in South Carolina the following February, endeared him to the Black community because it has faced the same discrimination in the American criminal justice system as he has.
“My mug shot—we’ve all seen the mug shot, and you know who embraced it more than anybody else? The Black population,” he said. “You see Black people walking around with my mug shot, you know, they do shirts and they sell them for $19 apiece. It’s pretty amazing—millions by the way.”
But while Trump turned himself in and was booked, given an inmate number, processed, and released on bond within hours, young Black men are about 50 percent more likely to be detained pretrial than white defendants. Black and brown defendants receive bail amounts that are twice as high as bail set for white defendants, sums of money they’re less likely to be able to afford—especially if they don’t have presidential campaigns and national parties to send the bills to. And even in states that have implemented reforms, racial disparities persist in pretrial detention.
And as appalling and improbable as his comments were then, they weren’t confined to the mug-shot moment.
Following the twice-impeached, four-times-indicted former president’s felony conviction late last month on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush-money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to influence the 2016 election, his campaign whitewashed the verdict to create a bond between Black men—a demographic long disproportionately affected by the war on drugs and tough-on-crime policies.
To add insult to injury, Eric Trump, the former president’s second son, claimed Black voters were turning to his father “in spades,” a term used to insult and denigrate Black people.
“It’s an offensive statement. We know what Donald Trump said to Black America: What do you have to lose?” Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, told me last week. “And then he appointed the most extreme, ideologically driven Supreme Court justices—not once, not twice, but three times. That Supreme Court has now eroded freedoms, rights, and opportunities for Black America, for women, for those in the LGBTQ+ community. Donald Trump only cares about one thing and that’s himself.”
Rep. Troy Carter (D-La.), another senior member of the Black Caucus, also told me he was offended by the belief in Trump world that the conviction somehow associates the former president with Black people.
“It’s disrespectful. It’s patently wrong. It’s reckless for a former president to suggest such,” Carter said. “And it demonstrates just how out of touch years with America and certainly with African Americans.“
Horsford added that Trump and his defense team asked for and received his day in court in the hush-money case.
“They had the opportunity to present their defense,” he said. “He asked for a fair and impartial jury. He got it. There were even apparently jurors who were favorable to Donald Trump. So in the end, 12 jurors made the decision to convict him based on the evidence they were provided.”
I spoke to Byron Donalds, a prominent Black Republican who’s on Trump’s short list of vice presidential nominees before he ignited a national firestorm with comments that expressed nostalgia for the Jim Crow era when anti-Black laws ruled the Southern US. The Florida congressman told me he’s spoken to Black men who sympathize with Trump following the conviction.
“I think what it is, is people are looking at it and saying, ‘Well, I remember when they did something like that to my cousin. I remember when somebody did something like that to me. But wow, they did it to Trump too.’ And I think that’s kind of where we’re coming from.”
But Horsford told me he led a two-hour barbershop talk a few weekends ago of 60 Black men from his district discussing various issues—not one of those issues was Donald Trump.
“They’re focused on how to create opportunities for themselves, their families, how to make a larger impact in our communities,” Horsford said. “Black men specifically have a point of view. We are very engaged and we’re going to turn out and vote for our interests—not for party, but for the policies that actually uplift Black America.”
Donalds said he’d spoken with Trump since the verdict and told him he had the former president’s back. He predicted the conviction would have little impact on the outcome of the November election.
“I think a lot of people kind of bake this thing into the cake. Like, if you hate Donald Trump, you’re probably you’re probably happy. If you love Donald Trump, you are upset,” Donalds said. “And I think the real question is, if you’re just looking at the country, what is your mindset on this whole thing?”
Despite Trump’s public appeals in rally speeches and interviews, the Associated Press reported in late April last month that Republicans have sounded the alarm about the Trump campaign’s virtually nonexistent strategy to reach Black and Latino voters. It fired the director responsible for outreach to these coalitions and hasn’t had a replacement for months. And Republican National Committee minority outreach centers have been replaced with a sex shop in Georgia, an ice cream parlor in Wisconsin, and a check-cashing business in Pennsylvania.
“Donald Trump does not care about Black and brown people beyond demonizing, attacking and insulting them,” Ammar Moussa, a Biden campaign spokesperson, said this past spring. “His ‘outreach’ plan makes that clear.”
The Biden campaign argues that Trump’s recent appeals are little more than a self-serving attempt to cash in on some Black people’s discontent with President Biden and secure a second term, which would insulate him from legal troubles and empower him to implement an extreme conservative agenda.
Meanwhile, the campaign has put Black people at the center of its messaging and events.
In an acknowledgment of the influence of Black voters in Democratic politics, the Biden campaign worked with the Democratic National Committee to schedule South Carolina’s primary ahead of New Hampshire and Nevada. (An endorsement from Jim Clyburn, the dean of the state’s congressional delegation, ahead of the primary election gave Biden his first win of the cycle and set him on the course to victory in 2020.)
It launched a national organizing program late last month to bolster its outreach to Black voters—which the campaign described as the backbone of Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s coalition, instrumental in electing Biden and Harris in 2020 and critical to defeating Trump in November—with a rare joint appearance in Philadelphia and a weekend of action across key battleground states.
And Vice President Kamala Harris is in the thick of an economic empowerment tour that will take her to two Black burgeoning Black enclaves—Charlotte, North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia—this week in her official capacity.
The campaign is on radio and TV with ads they say challenge Trump’s claims about his accomplishments for the Black community and highlight what it describes as a long record of failures and broken promises, from leading the birtherism movement against former President Barack Obama, standing with white nationalists in Charlottesville and calling for the execution of the Central Park Five.
“Throughout my wrongful conviction, the one thing I would not allow to be taken away from me was my voice. I urge Black and brown communities across the country: Do not sit this election out,” Yusef Salaam, a New York City councilperson member of the Central Park Five, said in a statement last month. “Our voices are powerful, our votes are crucial. We must come together to ensure that a man like Donald Trump never steps foot in the White House again.”
Black lawmakers I spoke to acknowledge the Biden campaign has some work to shore up the president’s support within the community. But they point to the Biden administration’s accomplishments for Black Americans, including record low unemployment, a 60 percent surge in Black wealth, fewer uninsured Black people than ever, and billions forgiven in student loan debt that disproportionately impacts Black borrowers. On the flip side, the Biden campaign says Trump will go to enormous lengths to undermine and hurt Black communities by repealing Obamacare, emboldening white supremacists, and supporting policies that widen the racial wealth gap.
“Now the mission is to go around the country and have a listening tour to see how we can build on that to do even more. That was not done in a vacuum,” Carter said. “That was done because this president understands the significance of the African-American vote and the significance of leveling the playing field that has historically been tilted in the other direction. So when you look at value-added and you look at action, President Biden has clearly demonstrated that it’s not just talking, but it’s action.”
Michael Jones is an independent Capitol Hill correspondent and contributor for COURIER. He is the author of Once Upon a Hill, a newsletter about Congressional politics.
