Are the Trump indictments helping him with Hispanic and black voters?
While five GOP candidates for president debated in Miami this week, Donald Trump held a rally in nearby Hialeah. This heavily-Hispanic city has become fertile ground for Republicans in recent elections.
At his rally, Trump pitched the idea that the lawfare being waged against him — 91 criminal charges to be tried in four different cases — are similar to the oppressive practices of the Castro government that helped drive some audience members or their ancestors out of Cuba.
He ranted
Just like the Cuban regime, the Biden regime is trying to put their political opponents in jail, shutting down free speech, taking bribes and kickbacks to enrich themselves.
If you don't want to let the communists destroy America like they destroyed Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and so many other countries, you need to send a message by voting crooked Joe Biden and all of his friends, the people that are actually really running our country, and every last Democrat, get them the hell out of office.
According to reports, this message was greeted with loud approval from the crowd.
It’s easy to see why. Put aside the over-the-top rhetoric for a moment and ask yourself this: To an audience brought up seeing (or hearing about from their elders) the way dictatorships go after their political enemies, might the four prosecutions and 91 charges against Trump seem to be brought in the same spirit?
I was not brought up in that environment and I don’t like Trump. Yet, I think his treatment by Democratic politicians in New York and Atlanta and by Jack Smith at the Justice Department bears some resemblance to the way political winners treat political losers in communist dictatorships.
The only Trump prosecution I can fully defend on its merits is the one in Florida. And because the prosecutor bringing it is responsible for the less defensible one in D.C., I wonder whether even the Florida case is brought in good faith.
In any event, Trump — political genius that he is — seems to have found a message that will resonate with at least one segment of the Hispanic vote. Perhaps it will also help him with other segments. Rampant corruption and the persecution of political enemies in Latin America are not confined to Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
I also wonder whether a variation on Trump’s message to Hispanics might be helping him in an odd way with black voters. The recent high-profile polls from six swing states suggest that Biden is in trouble with that bloc. 22 percent of blacks in those states said they will vote for Trump (with Biden getting 71 percent of that vote). In 2020, Trump won only 8 percent of it nationally.
There good reasons for Trump’s gain and Biden’s slippage among blacks. The economy is one. Blacks can reasonably believe they were making out better under Trump — both pre-covid and maybe even during the pandemic when many were being paid without working — than they are under Biden.
Immigration is another. Blacks in cities like New York can’t be pleased to see funds for programs to assist them become unavailable due to the cost of providing services to illegal immigrants.
But here’s another possibility, suggested to me, though not necessarily endorsed by, a friend. It’s possible that the prosecutions of Trump — looking, as they do, like persecution — enable him to relate to blacks in a visceral way.
American blacks haven’t experienced Cuban-style political persecution. However, many believe the criminal justice system is rigged against them. Now, here comes Trump saying, plausibly, that the justice system is rigged against him — that he too is a victim of “The Man.”
Some blacks are also aware that Trump helped push through leniency-for-felons legislation. For some, this too puts him on the side of those who feel oppressed by the system.
Is this a plausible explanation of Trump’s spike in black support? I don’t know. Maybe issues like the economy and immigration can fully explain the near-tripling of that support. Maybe the 22 percent figure doesn’t reflect how blacks will actually vote on Election Day.
But I think it’s generally accepted that the prosecutions of Trump have helped him gain support among Republican voters. And they seem to be helping him with at least some portions of Hispanic voters.
Is it so implausible to think this might be happening with black voters, too?
I think the most plausible explanation for the increase in support among black voters can be explained by a growing realization that the chaos from rising crime to rempant inflation to obsession with trans and other cultural issues is not in their interest. I think its a growing disenchantment with the Democrats rather than an approval of Trump or Republicans. I think a good and normal Republican candidate would have a golden opportunity to really change the paradigm. But until then any substantial drift from the Democrats will likely be a protest vote.
"But here’s another possibility, suggested to me, though not necessarily endorsed by, a friend. It’s possible that the prosecutions of Trump — looking, as they do, like persecution — enable him to relate to blacks in a VISCERAL [emphasis added] way.
BINGO.