If a lie is repeated often enough, the truth may never catch up. Donald Trump understands this better than anyone, as he showers Americans with lies--often the same ones repeated over and over--knowing that more voters will hear him than the fact-checkers.
One of his favorite howlers is his oft-repeated claim that "I've done more for African Americans than anybody, except for the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln."
No one should fall for the con.
For example, Trump doesn't come close to Harry Truman who desegregated the U.S. military, an act of simple justice that took immense courage. He's done nothing as important as Dwight Eisenhower who dispatched troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to overcome resistance to school integration. He can't hold a candle to Lyndon Johnson, who, working with Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, passed the Civil Rights Bill ending segregation in public facilities, the Voting Rights Act enforcing the right to vote, and the War on Poverty that reduced poverty to levels still not matched.
But comparing Trump to presidents who actually made things better is to fall into his trap, for Trump hasn't done things for African Americans, he has done things to them.
He's embraced the Republican strategy of race-bait politics, only he's replaced their dog whistles with a bullhorn. He celebrated the neo-Nazis and other extremists marching against civil rights protesters in Charlottesville. He's scorned African countries and Haiti as "s...-holes," suggesting the only immigrants he wanted were whites from countries like Norway.
He sowed racial fears, painting the largely nonviolent Black Lives Matter demonstrators as "thugs," and the demonstrations as "riots." He's tried to rouse support from suburbanites by charging that Biden's support for affordable housing would "destroy your neighborhood and your American Dream." He's labeled cities with large minority populations like New York City as "anarchist jurisdictions" that should be stripped of federal support.
He boasts about the historically low unemployment rate that was reached before the pandemic from the growing economy he inherited from Barack Obama. He says nothing about the catastrophic depression in the pandemic that left Blacks and Hispanics suffering the lowest employment rate ever by the end of April.
African Americans and Hispanics lost the most jobs and have recovered the fewest. While white Americans recovered about half the jobs that were lost by August, African Americans recovered barely over one-third. White women recovered over 60% of the jobs they lost; Black women barely 34, one in about three. Low-income workers -- disproportionately African Americans and Hispanics -- suffered eight times the loss of jobs as higher wage workers in the past months.
Trump's Small Business Administration stiffed African Americans in dispensing loans through the Pay Protection Plan. More than 9 of 10 Black-owned small businesses that applied for loans were denied. That led directly to over 40% of Black-owned businesses shutting down in the pandemic.
Trump measures the economy's success not by the health of the people, but by the health of the stock market, but while 61% of whites participate in the stock market (although for most the holdings are meager), only one-third of blacks own stocks. Nearly one-half of Black women report that they are unable to pay for necessities like food and housing, even though most work. Over half have less than $200 in savings. Trump doesn't help. He did nothing to raise the minimum wage and has been actively hostile to unions that help workers bargain a fair wage.
Essential workers are disproportionately African American. Blacks are disproportionately in low-wage jobs, often without employer-based health care. The pandemic has killed Black people at double the rate of Whites. African Americans have suffered the most from Trump's mismanagement. Blacks have been more likely to be denied health care, and less likely to have paid sick days.
And Trump has basically been AWOL as the Republican Senate blocked action on a relief plan as unemployment insurance was running out, and states and cities were facing massive cuts in services and jobs -- disproportionately held by people of color -- in the wake of the pandemic-caused fiscal crisis.
Trump touts the modest criminal justice reforms that he signed off on that will help reduce mass incarceration a bit, but he has actively undermined equal justice under the law. He encouraged police to rough up those that they arrest. He defended vigilantes shooting at those protesting the murder of George Floyd. He terminated the Obama Justice Department's police department investigations and consent decrees that were reforming police practices. He boasts of arming police forces with military weaponry. He even terminated racial-sensitivity training in the federal government, mostly as a grandstand appeal to his base of angry White men. He's appointed the most federal Appeals Court judges since Jimmy Carter; not one of them is Black.
Trump not only has done nothing to revive the Voting Right Act, gutted by the right-wing gang of five on the Supreme Court, he and his party have actively worked to suppress Black voting -- passing ID requirements, shutting down polling places, purging voter lists, making registration harder, limiting early voting, undermining vote by mail, gerrymandering districts and more -- all designed with laser focus to reduce the Black vote.
In short, Trump has left African Americans in the deepest hole with the shortest rope. Not surprisingly, most won't fall for Trump's big con. African Americans -- and particularly African-American women -- will vote overwhelmingly for Joe Biden. The base for Trump and Republicans will continue to be those not repelled by his racially divisive rhetoric and policies.
Periodically, however, it is useful to remind people that night is not day, that hate is not love. When Lincoln freed the slaves, they joined the Union armies in large numbers and helped save the Republic. Trump can't be mentioned in the same breath as Lincoln, and African Americans aren't about to save him.
