President Trump's approval rating is 21 percent among African Americans, according to a new poll released by the NAACP. The poll was conducted by the African American Research Collaborative and Latino Decisions.
There was also much talk about a recent Rasmussen poll that put the President's support among African Americans even higher–at 29 percent. It was 15 percent a year ago.
These numbers are just the merest crack in the solid support for Democrats among African Americans.
But they come at a time when the U.S. economy has improved enormously and when black unemployment is a an all-time record low.
Trump's improving approval ratings could be happening because most Americans would prefer to be employed rather than receiving assistance from the government.
Self-reliance and a paycheck are important to human dignity and a flourishing economy puts more people to work.
This doesn't mean that the President's opponents will stop calling him a racist.
Quite the contrary. Such attacks are likely to become louder. Democrats have become dependent on almost monolithic support from black voters.
Their pitch to black Americans has always been more and more government assistance. Trump's pitch: lower black unemployment and opportunity.
These approval numbers represent a crack in the Democratic Party's electoral armor and, if it is the beginning of a trend, this news is potentially threatening to Democrats.
So it is not entirely a surprise that the results are embedded in a lot of nasty verbiage. This is the headline:
Nation's Most Competitive Races May Hinge on Trump's Racism
This is a particularly telling paragraph:
Trump’s strategy of trotting out black people to support him is not working, if it is intended to inspire African American support for him or his policies. Black celebrities like Kanye West or Dennis Rodman who support Trump do not help Trump’s support among African American voters. To the contrary, more than three times as many black voters say that black celebrities speaking on Trump’s behalf makes them less interested in listening to or supporting Trump’s ideas than black voters who say it would make them more open to listening to or supporting Trump’s ideas. A majority of black voters say these celebrities have no impact.
First, if I were Kanye West or Dennis Rodman, I'd write a polite letter saying that I wasn't "trotted out" by Mr. Trump. Doesn't that language suggest that blacks don't act on their own agency? Hmm, I detect some . . . racism . . . in this "trotted out" language.
But the other thing about the paragraph is that it is wrong. It isn't true that blacks who are willing to break rank have no effect. Endorsements by black celebrities seem to have had a striking effect on Trump's approval rating.
The President's approval among black males doubled in the week after Kanye West. It was 11 percent before and 22 percent a week later, according to a Reuters poll.
Among black people overall, according to Reuters, approval rose from 8.9 to 16.5 from April 22 to April 29.
So perhaps there was a reason behind the belittling of West and Rodman.
I also found this interesting:
Jamal R. Watkins, NAACP Vice President of Civic Engagement, said, “Black voters and voters of color will play a key role in the midterm elections. There is a huge opportunity for us to address the voter’s feelings of disenchantment and disrespect by the president and the political establishment as a means to motivate them to take action at the polls. Since the conclusion of the 2016 Presidential cycle we have been traumatized by those in Washington who continue to try and divide us by race and class. Our response has to be to replace these bad actors come this November. When we vote we win!”
I ask you: Who is really trying to divide Americans by race?
And for electoral gains?
Finder's Fee: Hot Air