Trump Makes Clear What Black Voters Had to Lose
by David A. Graham
In late summer 2016, the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump embarked on what he claimed was an appeal to African American voters. In August, Trump traveled to Michigan for an event that was part of the push, though reporters noted that his speech was actually given in a predominantly white suburb of Lansing.
“What the hell do you have to lose?” Trump said, addressing his question to black voters. The point, he said, was that African American communities were already a shambles, and their condition could only improve. The remarks drew shocked reactions at the time.
Three years later, as the president attacks Representative Elijah Cummings, a Baltimore Democrat, the answer to his question is clear. Trump has sabotaged a law that guaranteed health insurance for many African Americans. He has undermined protections for voting rights. His Justice Department has stopped going after police departments that discriminated against African Americans. He has rolled back environmental protections. Beyond policy, he has used rhetoric that suggests the citizenship of African Americans and other minorities is conditional and less than that of white Americans.
Whenever he is accused of racism, which is frequently, Trump is quick to cite black unemployment rates, which are at historic lows. The president invokes this as if it’s a special favor he has bestowed on African Americans, rather than a self-evident policy goal of the government. Insofar as African American employment has improved, it’s simply as part of a generally growing economy, not targeted policies. Moreover, as Peter Nicholas reports, black unemployment remains twice as high as white rates, and the gap in wages between races is growing. Trump has at other times cited the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal-justice reform law he signed in late 2018. Advocates have widely hailed the law as a positive move.
But in other areas, Trump’s policy record for African Americans is dismal. Begin with policing, a subject of intimate relevance in Baltimore. The city was shaken by protests in April 2015, after the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody. It was one in a long string of deaths of people under arrest, and the city convulsed in violence. In the aftermath, the Obama Justice Department probed the Baltimore Police Department and found a horrifying record of racial discrimination and disparate enforcement. Baltimore was one of several cities where DOJ investigated abuses and used consent decrees to force departments to reform amid evidence of widespread abuses of African Americans at the hands of police officers.
But shortly after the Trump administration took over, then–Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Justice Department would no longer pursue such arrangements. “It is not the responsibility of the federal government to manage non-federal law enforcement agencies,” he said. “The misdeeds of individual bad actors should not impugn or undermine the legitimate and honorable work that law enforcement officers and agencies perform in keeping American communities safe.” DOJ attempted to undo the already agreed-upon Baltimore consent decree. In a speech on Long Island in 2017, Trump even celebrated roughing up suspects.
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