Black Community News News and Commentary for Christians
Former President Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, a flawed female candidate, in 2016, in part because he fought for every battleground state, ignoring the conventional wisdom of where to get the best return on his political expenditure of capital. To that end, he campaigned in Wisconsin; he breached the Blue Wall (the barrier beyond which no Republican candidate can cross-they said) by winning Wisconsin, a reliable Democrat state no Republican had won since Reagan in 1984, and became the 45th President of the United States. He didn’t overlook the possibility of what could be, and, as it is said in Poker, he bet the farm, went all-in and won.
His 2016 win was Trump’s biggest political victory and the biggest upset in U.S. political history. Trump applied his instincts and refused to let the conventional belief about the Blue Wall define his path to 270 Electoral College votes. (Trump’s 2020 run was historic for other reasons.)
In 2024, the stakes for the presidency and the nation are higher than ever. After Vice President Kamala Harris’ economic policy roll-out last week, if it wasn’t clear before, it is clear now that she has bonafide socialist policy views that won’t play well in key battleground states in what was widely believed to be an assured re-election against an objectively feeble President Joe Biden.
Harris’ policies already caused staggering inflation, making daily life for a majority of Americans unaffordable, and she intentionally flooded our country with more than $20+ million in illegal aliens to whom House Democrats voted to extend voting rights. If this measure ever passes, it will reshape the congressional map with more polarized districts in states like Minnesota and Michigan. When she talks about high inflation and kitchen table issues impacting families right now, it is an indictment of her own administration’s policies that have not worked.
Since the elite Democrat ruling class pushed President Biden off the stage and un-democratically gave Harris the runway to oppose Trump, his 2016 battleground strategy of busting the Blue Wall and vanquishing Clinton is simply not enough for 2024. He needs Black voters in higher numbers than ever before.
Blacks, who comprise 18.2% of the federal bureaucracy run by Democrats, are not known for voting against the bureaucracy that feeds them. The fight to garner greater Black support cannot be left to influencers and rappers. An army of Black messengers must take the fight to the streets.
Black voters are likely to elect the next president of the United States, so there must be a specific strategy and plan to get their votes. I fear no one has told Trump.
So what is Trump’s plan to beat a biracial woman when the surge Harris has experienced was caused by Blacks? I can assure you while Trump calling Harris stupid may be personally gratifying for him, it will likely add to her surge with Black women. What is more impactful is having a specific Black empowerment plan like Trump’s $500B Platinum Plan offered in 2020. Black men care more about actions, facts, and policies that will empower them and help them thrive.
Trump must now redefine the other historic wall in the GOP, the Black Wall. The little secret is that it seems as if the GOP has no robust field operation in the battleground states to penetrate Likely Black Voters for 2024 against another historic Democrat nominee – as horrible and un-American a candidate as she is. They have their hands full. Remember, in 2020, Harris failed to get the Black vote and dropped out before California and South Carolina.
Rather, the work on the ground falls to community-based nonprofit organizations that understand how to talk to and attract voters within their own communities.
The Black Wall is this: the RNC and Republican donors refuse to engage Black voters any longer as a high-dollar priority. The Black Wall is a billionaire telling me it’s tapped out this cycle while openly hosting mega-donor fundraisers. The Black Wall accepts a culture that witnesses donors writing six-figure checks to White-run nonprofits who haven’t asked for any funds while demanding Black-run nonprofits beg for pennies only to get a fast no. This should stain our conscience, but sadly, it is not; norms are hard to break.
Failing to knock down this Black Wall in this cycle, starting today, may spell the end of the GOP after Democrats expand the Supreme Court, add D.C. and Puerto Rico as states with senators, and add 20+ million illegal aliens to the federal voting rolls. This will all happen under a Harris presidency. It will be a wrap.
If the Black Wall is to be destroyed, Black conservative nonprofits must be funded by donors at levels that match or exceed our counterparts immediately. Whoever wrote the memo (perhaps at the RNC) that said we don’t matter ought to rescind it forthwith.
I was privileged to lay hands and pray over then-President Trump in the Cabinet Room in 2020 alongside national Black leaders. I am a pastor, lawyer, and political commentator. I operate for-profit and nonprofit businesses concurrently. As an active participant in a historic coalition of conservatives, I, and so many others, match the competence and commitment of anyone who supports the cause for freedom in our nation using conservative principles to Make America Great Again. But as a figure in this movement, I can say from personal experience that we are not All-in. Is it too late?
Campaigning against this shape-shifting biracial woman will require messengers of all stripes, with credible organizations. and know-how. Trump should not and cannot be the only one to plow this field. We have our educational 501(c)(3)s, political 501(c)(4)s, and SuperPACs wholly underfunded and in the margins of the fight as if this presidential race should be treated as politics as usual. It is not. The attempted assassination of Trump should require no further proof. This is for all the marbles.
The old playbook of donors doling out just enough rope (funding) to Black-run nonprofits to hang ourselves is the old norm that we must tear down together today. Ironically, if this pattern of neglect does not change immediately, we may all hang together on the gallows of where the GOP was once a beacon of hope for a declining nation.
Photo credit: Johnny Silvercloud (Creative Commons) – Some rights reserved
Marc Little, president of CURE America Action, based in Washington, DC, is an author, pastor, and political commentator.
