Trump Loves Black People So Much He Wants To Spare Them Burden Of Ever Voting Against Him

'Deterrence' is what they actually called it.

Donald Trump does not like it when Black people vote. The whiter and dumber his electorate , the better off Trump and all Republicans are. The president even bragged to Black leaders about the relatively low Black turnout in the 2016 election.

"Many Blacks didn't go out to vote for Hillary 'cause they liked me. That was almost as good as getting the vote, you know, and it was great," the president-elect said, according to an audio recording of the meeting shared with POLITICO.

It turns out that Trump's campaign might've actively “persuaded" Black voters to show their love for President Klan Robe by staying home. Britain's Channel 4 News released a report detailing how corrupt data firm Cambridge Analytica prepared profiles that specifically targeted Black people as ripe for “Deterrence," which sounds like a racist, voter suppression perfume.

🚨🚨Tonight at 7pm: 🚨🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Channel 4 News investigation reveals a huge Trump campaign data leak, exposing how… https://t.co/zWkf6o37ha

— Channel 4 News (@Channel 4 News) 1601302773.0 

This is all perfectly legal, if grotesque. There was reportedly a database of almost 200 million US voters that sorted likely Hillary Clinton voters into such categories as “Likely Clinton," “Disengaged Clinton," and a third category, “Deterrence," which included 3.5 million Black voters who were singled out for anti-Hillary messages designed to keep them from voting at all. They didn't bother trying to turn them into Trump voters, because it takes years of concentrated brainwashing to produce even half a Diamond and Silk. This was a volume business.

From the Washington Post:  

The file spanned 16 states, according to the news channel. In crucial battlegrounds, Black voters made up a disproportionate share of those marked for "Deterrence" — 17 percent in Wisconsin despite making up just 5.4 percent of voters, and 33 percent in Michigan while accounting for 15 percent of the voting population.

The margin in these states, which Trump won in 2016, was exceptionally narrow . Trump bested Clinton in Michigan by 11,000 votes. Meanwhile, Black turnout fell in Michigan and Wisconsin by more than 12 points, estimates suggest .

The anti-Clinton talking points aimed at Black voters were insidious and effective. Hillary saying “super predator" in 1996 had as much traction, if not more, as Trump calling Mexican immigrants “rapists" in 2016.Michael Harriot at The Root refused to vote for Clinton because she supported the 1994 crime bill and was mean to Barack Obama during the 2008 primary, neither of which are compelling justifications for Attorney Generals Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, who could star in Racist and Racister .

Harriott, Briahna Joy Gray, and Eddie S. Glaude are prominent Black figures who didn't vote for Clinton, which is their right, but I wish they wouldn't defend that choice by claiming they lived in a safely “blue or red" state, so writing in Jill Stein's cat didn't matter. The Cambridge Analytica database focused not just on Florida but rust belt states that hadn't voted for a Republican presidential candidate in decades. There are no states safe enough to piss away your vote. Besides, it's not like Black folks with national platforms, who repeated these talking points on cable TV, weren't reaching voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Trump has attacked Joe Biden for his support of the 1994 crime bill, and his stooge Tim Scott blamed the former vice president for mass incarceration during his speech at the Republican National Convention. This is absurd coming from the GOP and a president running on a “Law and Order" platform that's overtly anti-Black. However, it's not an entirely losing proposition, either. Recent polls show Trump slightly improving upon his 2016 performance among Black voters. Biden's current commanding lead is a result of pulling away white voters, especially college-educated ones, from Trump.

Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for Trump's failing reelection campaign, denied everything, of course, and claimed it's all “fake news."

"President Trump has built a relationship of trust with African American voters because of the First Step Act's criminal justice reform, creating Opportunity Zones and his recently announced Platinum Plan to invest $500 billion in the Black community," Murtaugh said.

"Democrats deterred voters in 2016 by nominating Hillary Clinton, who called Black men 'Super Predators,' and they did it again this year by nominating Joe Biden, who has advocated forracist policies such as the 1994 Crime Billandeven spoke at the funeral of a Klan member."

This is nonsense, but it's out there on Facebook. So we should make the effort to dispute the lies: For one, Republicans voted for the crime bill, as well. Biden spoke at the funeral of Robert Byrd who wasn't in the Klan when they knew each other. The GOP keeps wanting to cancel Byrd, who atoned for his past mistakes, while actively defending memorials to unrepentant white supremacists.

The Trump campaign desperately wants a repeat of 2016, but we're not going to let that happen. We won't be deterred this time.

[ Washington Post ]

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