Earl Ofari Hutchinson
[00:00:01.00] – Speaker 1
This is Earl Ofari Hutchinson with another edition of the Hutchinson Report, The Trump Challenge to Black America. Intriguing. Intriguing. Donald Trump, with his landslide win, presidential Wyn, said something that was very interesting. He said, “I built the biggest coalition. You know, Trump, always going to use the greatest everything, superlatives, to describe himself. I built the greatest coalition in American political history. I have Asian Americans. I had Asian Americans. I had Native Americans. I had Hispanic. I had women. And then he said, I had African Americans.
So, what Trump was saying is that the black vote actually, in many cases, went for him. All right, we saw a great debate about African Americans and Trump and the GOP, would they back him or not? We heard a lot of talk about black men, that black men essentially were tracking, at least many black men, particularly younger African American men, were tracking towards for Trump. How true is that? Polls were back and forth on that. They showed that anywhere from 12 to 20% of African Americans overall back Trump, both male and female. So whatever figure you take, the high one or the low one, it was significant. It was extremely significant, particularly in the battleground states, with the cities like Pittsburgh, like Philadelphia, like Milwaukee, like Detroit, where African Americans essentially make up a significant percentage of the voting demographic.
[00:01:49.06] – Speaker 1
So even if you had 12 % lowball, 20 %, that helped Trump. All right, that brings now the other question, the real question that’s on on the table, going forward, not backward, or what happened. What does that mean for African Americans? If now African Americans, a small but growing percentage, are part of the Trump coalition. In other words, they believe in Trump. They believe in his values. They believe in his policies, his program, and the things that he’s laid out time and time again. Nothing very specific about African Americans, but essentially make a miracle great again. Prosperity, economic development, lower taxes, a favorable business climate, a favorable economic climate, and essentially no regulations. A lot of young African Americans that have an entrepreneurial spirit did not come up during the civil rights background or phase or history, essentially could be and are susceptible to that.
So all of these things taken together actually don’t give lie to what Trump said. He is, in a sense, in this election show that, he is essentially building a tiny but significant percentage of African Americans as part of his coalition. I don’t know what that means for the GOP in general, but because remember, the African Americans that did support him were drawn to him like so many others.
[00:03:22.02] – Speaker 1
So, this is a challenge for African-American leadership, tracking liberal, moderate, but definitely democratic. A challenge for democratic, African American democratic, a policyholders and makers and elected officials, and essentially, the old civil rights leadership. If they’re losing a percentage of African Americans, then this marks a radical departure for American politics. All right, something to think about. The Trump challenge to black America. How significant is it? How important is it? How big is it? And what impact will it make for the future? I’m Earl Ofari Hutchinson. Another edition of what you’ve been watching and viewing, The Hutchinson Report.