CHICAGO (AP) – President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated in the last months of his presidency – and without a trace of irony – that he has done more for black Americans than anyone with the “possible exception” of Abraham Lincoln.
He boasted that the African American unemployment rate it fell to record lows under its watch before the coronavirus pandemic hit the economy. Trump announced his administration’s criminal justice review to shorten mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug crimes and lead to the release of thousands of jailed people, mostly black Americans. Trump also enjoyed increasing funding for historically black colleges and universities.
But in the end, historians say Trump’s legacy – and his electoral defeat – will be largely shaped by rhetoric that aims to provoke significant strips of his white base that pulled from the long strips of relations racial in the United States.
His division strategy showed up this past week as he urged supporters, mostly white men, to come down to the U.S. Capitol in the name of his baseless allegations of electoral fraud.
After the pro-Trump crowd stormed the consecrated halls of Congress, Trump did not immediately condemn the violence. He did not denigrate the riot police as “THUGS” nor did he warn that he was willing to greet them with “vicious dogs” and “nefarious weapons,” as he had threatened largely peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters after the murder. George Floyd police this year.
Instead, his initial response was a series of warm tweets and video messages in which he asked his violent loyalists to “return home in peace,” let them know he felt his “pain,” and told them who loved them.
Trump was frequently explicit when it came to using race as a cudgel.
He stated without evidence that Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, was not born in the United States, said Mexican immigrants “carried crimes” and were “rapists,” and argued that there were “very good people in the two parts “after violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, left a counter-protester dead.
He wondered privately why the United States would accept more immigrants from Haiti and “shit countries.” in Africa more than from places like Norway. Trump even wrote in a tweet that appeared to be intended for a group of then-first-term lawmakers – progressive Democrats and women of color – to “go back and help fix totally broken and crime-infested places.” where they came from “.
“Since the black civil rights movement of the mid-20th century, there have been such tacit agreements in American political conversation that one could appeal to racial animus, but it had to be done in a way. particular, ”he said. Eddie Glaude, Jr., president of the African American Studies Program at Princeton University. “Trump made it explicit again. He put it in the foreground. He integrated certain assumptions about race that drove our politics anyway. “
Human rights activists say the siege of the Capitol was the macabre end of a presidency that embraced white supremacist and extremist groups and rekindled the flames of chaos and violence.
“This is a moment of reckoning for the United States,” said Bob Goodfellow, interim executive director of Amnesty International USA. “President Trump has repeatedly encouraged violence and disorder on the part of his supporters. They are not the actions of a leader, but of an instigator ”.
The New York real estate mogul came to the presidency despite his complicated past with the Latino and black communities in his hometown. There was his refusal to apologize for his harsh comments in 1989 about five black and Latino men who as teenagers were wrongly convicted of the brutal rape of a runner in New York’s Central Park. Trump paid for the ads in the newspapers at the time and called on New York State to adopt the death penalty after the attack.
Early in his real estate career, Trump and his father were sued by the Justice Department for violating fair housing laws to discriminate against black applicants. The Trumps eventually passed a consent decree but did not admit guilt.
Trump’s 2016 White House victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton was helped by the first decline in black voter turnout in 20 years. Since his November loss to President-elect Joe Biden, he has filed unfounded allegations of election fraud in major urban centers such as Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia (all areas with large African-American electorates) that proved critical to the defeat of Trump.
There has been no evidence of the massive fraud or gross error that Trump and his team alleged in a series of lawsuits that judges, whether appointed by Republicans, Democrats or Trump himself, systematically fired.
Still, the Republican National Committee, after the loss of Trump, has tried to consider the Trump era as one in which the Republican Party loosened democratic control of black voters.
“Because of their leadership, we have changed the political map forever and Republicans have a roadmap on how to be competitive and winners in non-traditional communities,” RNC spokesman Paris Dennard said in a statement.
Rev. Marshall Hatch, a civil rights activist in Chicago, said Trump’s defeat at the polls was a moment of relief.
But Hatch said his joy was quickly overshadowed by the recognition that some 74 million Americans were voting well for Trump, though he has repeatedly downplayed white supremacy, denigrated women of color, and tried to downplay the issue of racial injustice in the American police.
Hatch leads the New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago’s West Garfield Park neighborhood, which still has scars from the riots that followed the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. more than 50 years ago. The predominantly black neighborhood has been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic toll.
The areas surrounding the church have one of the highest infection rates in the state. Hatch’s church community has lost several congregants, including his older sister, Rhoda Jean Hatch, to the virus.
“If it was white people dying disproportionately, it’s hard to see Trump or the nation reacting like he did in the political context,” Hatch said. “It’s hard to reconcile that there are about 74 million Americans (and a majority of whites) who thought Donald Trump still deserved a second term.”
A few miles down the road, on the west side of Chicago, Hatch’s friend and activist partner, the Rev. Ira Acree, said he fell into a depression in early summer when his mood waned. darkening black neighborhoods like his after the murder of George Floyd Memorial Day police in Minneapolis.
Acree, who was recovering at home after being diagnosed with COVID-19, recalled seeing on television how police officers used tear gas and riot control tactics to clean up protesters near the White House. before Trump crossed Lafayette Square to take a photo in front of the church that had been damaged during the riots the night before.
Acree’s concerns grew months after Trump refused to condemn the far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys, during a presidential debate.
Acree said he was trying to stay optimistic that Trump’s defeat marked a turning point for racial relations, but then the riot at the Capitol destroyed much of that hope.
“I’m worried this is just the beginning,” Acree said. “It’s going to explode if our best self doesn’t get up and says it’s enough.”