About

PELOSI AND THE CBC   Different polls have shown an unmistakable trend.  Black voters are beginning to show signs of leaving the Democrat Party. During the 2016 campaign, the Quinnipiac Poll showed Trump with just 1% of black voters supporting him.  It was well within the margin of error, so according to Quinnipiac, Trump's support could actually have been zero. Since becoming President, however, Trump's approval among blacks has steadily increased across several different polling organizations.  Recently, the NAACP funded a poll and found 29% of blacks approving of Trump's job performance.  Other polls since then have shown Trump's approval among blacks at 36-38%.  It's been a very long time since a Republican had approval numbers like that among blacks. What could account for this turnaround?  Especially since the media and Democrats have spared Trump little and have accused him of being a racist over and over.  These are tangible reasons why Trump's approval is going up among black voters. THE DECLINE OF BLACK UNEMPLOYMENT When Barack Obama entered office in January 2009, black unemployment stood at 12.7%.  By the time he left office in January 2017, it had fallen to 7.8%.  A 63% decline over 8 years. By October 2018, Trump further reduced black unemployment to 6.2%, an historic low.  Under Obama, the black unemployment rate increased until it peaked in 2011 at 16.5%.  The decline did not get into single digits until 2015, falling to a 7 year low.  Over Trump's first 22 months in office, the black unemployment rate fell 20% from 7.8% to 6.2%. Trump managed to accelerate the reduction in the unemployment rate.  How was this possible?  There are several possible answers, but the most likely one is that Trump's election slowed the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States. Illegal immigrants are generally low on skills and education.  When they enter the US looking for employment, they compete with Americans who are also low on skills and education.  The population of unemployed in the US is disproportionately low skilled and low education.  Furthermore, that population is also disproportionately black.  In other words, fewer illegal immigrants competing for jobs meant more opportunities for employment for the unemployed American citizens who were disproportionately black.  Among other factors, this could account for Trump's popularity increase in the black community. While Democrats strenuously deny Trump has any foothold in the black community, their actions reveal how they really think. The Democrats have been playing the race card and a racial agenda very hard under Trump.  It is possibly an indication that they suspect a deterioration in black support and are resorting to their old playbook: playing on fears of the re-emergence of openly hostile white racists.  Democrats do this while pretending two full generations of Americans never grew up in the post Civil Rights era.  They dismiss the impact of their own monumental achievements as having had a negligible impact on the disposition of white people all across America regarding race.  They pretend that left to their own devices, white people in America would reinstate the same racist preferences that were overturned more than half a century ago.  Preferences overturned by the grandparents and great grandparents of those Americans who grew up after the Civil Rights Act was passed into law and only know an America marked by integration and racial reconciliation.  Resorting to the race card in our current day is intended to terrorize black voters away from Republicans as if they are Klansmen without the hoods. When the Democrats play the race card as they are with Trump despite the fact that blacks are doing better under his policies, it is a hint that they believe those polls showing blacks warming up to his presidency. If the Democrat Party were to lose 20-30% of the black vote to Republicans, it would spell catastrophe on a national scale for them at the ballot box.  It would open up districts with heavy black populations all over the country to races that are competitive between Republicans and Democrats, where they aren't today. This is a doomsday scenario for Democrats and it can explain, at least in part, why they are so bullish about illegal immigration:  they realize it will become increasingly difficult to hold on to the black vote and want to import a new underclass that will vote for them. But improving job approval numbers for Trump among blacks doesn't mean it will translate into votes for Trump or other Republicans.  A transformation of the black vote from a solid Democrat block into something more diversified may be underway, but a lot more needs to happen in order for that transformation to be confirmed. It can all be summed up this way: "Something's happening here.  What it is, ain't exactly clear." Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.