African-Americans have been a solid vote-bank for Democrats all along, but Republican Donald Trump is now making an all-out, possibly futile, bid to pluck them from Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s column, telling the community to try him out.
“What the hell do you have to loseIJ” Trump said in a challenging tone at a rally in Michigan on Friday, asserting that the Democrats, including the Obama dispensation, has done nothing for the African-American community.
“You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 per cent of your youth is unemployed — what the hell do you have to loseIJ” Trump asked the audience as he deviated momentarily from his scripted speech.
He went on to claim that if given a chance now, the African-Americans would be so happy with his performance that he would win 95 per cent of the black vote at the end of his first White House term.
But right now, it’s a case of lock, stock and barrel support for Clinton as far as the African-American community is concerned. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed that Trump has a mere 1 per cent support among African-Americans as opposed to Clinton’s 91 per cent.
Trump went on to accuse Clinton of wanting to give jobs to refugees pouring into the country than unemployed African-Americans, commenting that members of the black community may have “become refugees in their own country”.
Curiously enough, Trump, for the second time this week, chose to make his outreach to the community while in fact addressing a predominantly white audience – just as he had done in Milwaukee, Wisconsin a couple of days ago.
The Clinton campaign promptly hit back at Trump, recalling how he endlessly questioned the citizenship of Barack Obama, the country’s first African-American President.
It also dubbed him as someone who “courts white supremacists and has been sued for housing discrimination against communities of colour”.