CHICAGO (AP) – President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed – and without a trace of irony – to have done more for black Americans than anyone else in the closing months of his presidency, with the “possible exception” of Abraham Lincoln.
He boasted African American unemployment dropped to an all-time low under his watch before the coronavirus pandemic ravaged the economy. Trump ushered in his administration’s criminal law reform to shorten mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses and led to the release of thousands of detained people, mostly black Americans. Trump also enjoyed increasing funding for historically black colleges and universities.
Ultimately, though, historians say Trump’s legacy – and his electoral demise – will be largely shaped by rhetoric aimed at stirring up significant parts of his white base that tugged at the long-fringed lines of race relations in America.
His strategy of divisiveness was on display last week when he urged supporters, mostly white men, to come to the Capitol in the name of his baseless allegations of electoral fraud.
After the pro-Trump crowd stormed the hallowed halls of Congress, Trump did not immediately condemn the violence. He did not denounce the rioters as “THUGS” or warn that he was willing to greet them with “vile dogs” and “ominous weapons,” as he had largely threatened peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters after the police murder of George Floyd. year.
Instead, his first response was a series of lukewarm tweets and video messages asking his violent loyalists to “go home in peace,” let them know that he felt their “pain” and told them he loved them.
Trump was often explicit about the use of race as a bat.
He claimed without evidence that Barack Obama, the country’s first black president, was not born in the United States, said Mexican immigrants ‘brought crime’ and were ‘rapists’ and argued that there were ‘very fine people on both sides’ After violence at a white racist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, a counter-protester was killed.
He personally wondered why the United States would accept more immigrants from Haiti and ‘shithole countries’ in Africa instead of places like Norway. Trump even wrote in a tweet that appeared to be for a group of then lawmakers – progressive Democrats and women of color – to “go back and help mend the totally broken and crime-ridden places they came from.”
“Since the black civil rights movement of the mid-20th century, there has been such a tacit understanding in the American political conversation that one could appeal to racial animus, but you had to do it a certain way,” said Eddie Glaude, Jr. ., president of Princeton University’s African American curriculum. “Trump has made all that explicit again. He brought it up. He mainstreamed certain assumptions about race that defined our politics anyway. “
Human rights activists say the siege of the Capitol was the macabre end to a presidency that embraced white supremacist groups and extremists and fueled flames of chaos and violence.
“This is a moment of settlement for the United States,” said Bob Goodfellow, interim director of Amnesty International USA. President Trump has repeatedly encouraged violence and disorder by his supporters. These are not the actions of a leader, but an instigator. “
The New York real estate mogul rose to the presidency despite his complicated past with the black and Latino communities in his hometown. There was his refusal to apologize for harsh comments in 1989 about five black and Latino men falsely convicted as teenagers for the brutal rape of a jogger in New York City’s Central Park. At the time, Trump paid for newspaper ads calling for the state of New York to introduce the death penalty after the attack.
Early in his real estate career, Trump and his father were charged by the Justice Department for violating fair housing laws by discriminating against black candidates. The Trumps eventually passed a consent decision, but admitted no 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 loss to President-elect Joe Biden in November, he has made unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud in major urban centers such as Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia – all areas with large African American voters – that proved crucial to Trump’s defeat.
There is no evidence of the massive fraud or gross error that Trump and his team allege in dozens of lawsuits that judges, whether appointed by Republicans, Democrats or Trump himself, had systematically dismissed.
Yet, in the wake of Trump’s loss, the Republican National Committee has sought to portray the Trump era as one in which the GOP loosened its democratic hold on black voters.
“Because of his leadership, we have changed the political map forever and the Republicans have a roadmap to be competitive and victorious 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 in the polls brought a moment of relief.
But Hatch said his joy was soon overshadowed by the acknowledgment that about 74 million Americans were OK to vote for Trump, though he has repeatedly downplayed white supremacy, vilified women of color, and tried to address the issue of racial injustice in US police. to decrease.
Hatch heads the New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago’s West Garfield Park neighborhood, which still bears scars from the riots that followed the murder of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. more than 50 years ago. The predominantly black neighborhood has been disproportionately affected by the toll of the coronavirus pandemic.
The areas around the church are among 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 this were a disproportionate number of white people who died, it’s hard to see Trump or the nation responding as it has done 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 away on Chicago’s West Side, Hatch’s friend and fellow activist, Reverend Ira Acree, said he fell into a depression early in the summer as the mood darkened in black neighborhoods like his after the Memorial Day murder. law enforcement. George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Acree, who was recovering at home after being diagnosed with COVID-19, recalled how televised law enforcement officers used tear gas and riot control tactics to clear protesters away from the White House just before Trump strode across Lafayette Square for a photo in front of the church that had been damaged by unrest the night before.
Acree’s concern grew months later after Trump refused to condemn the far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys, in a presidential debate.
Acree said he tried to remain optimistic that Trump’s defeat marked a turning point for race relations, but the uprising in the Capitol destroyed much of that hope.
“I’m afraid this is just the beginning,” Acree said. “It will explode if our better selves don’t get up and say enough is enough.”