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Trump's Support Among Blacks Doubled in Only 1 Year, Obama's Dropped 2% in 1st Term

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If you listen to the mainstream media, there’s one truth about President Trump that anyone can take to bank: He is the most racist person in the racist history of the super-racist Republican Party.

The latest example of this alleged bigotry is the purported “s***hole countries” comment. Given how much space we’ve already dedicated to that particular tempest in a Washington teapot, the less said about it here the better.

The point is, however, that anything that could possibly be used to paint Trump as an unregenerate bigot gets days, if not weeks, of play in every possible outlet.

With all of that in mind, you would figure that Trump’s poll numbers with black voters are tanking pretty hardcore. A funny thing happened on the way to narrative-fulfillment, though — it seems his support among African-Americans has actually doubled in his first year in office.

That revelation came from a Jan. 11 piece in The Atlantic, which was generally grim about the president’s polling prospects, at least when gleaned from from data collected by nonpartisan online-polling firm SurveyMonkey.

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This is nothing particularly new for The Atlantic, whose pages once conclusively declaimed, “Donald Trump will not be the 45th president of the United States. Nor the 46th, nor any other number you might name. The chance of his winning nomination and election is exactly zero.” Poll numbers and accurate prognostication, it seems, do not necessarily go hand in hand, especially when you consider the demonization Trump has undergone and how the Bradley Effect works.

However, buried in yet another predictable “administration in chaos/freefall” narrative piece was an interesting nugget about Trump’s popularity with the African-American community — even if it wasn’t spun that way.

“Among African Americans and Hispanics, reactions to Trump depend more on gender than age or education,” the piece reads.

“In every age group, and at every level of education, about twice as many African American men as women gave Trump positive marks. In all, 23 percent of black men approved of Trump’s performance versus 11 percent of black women … Still, black men are one of the few groups for which Trump’s 2017 average approval rating significantly exceeds his 2016 vote share.”

Do you think Donald Trump will get more support from the black community?

Actually, given that exit polls in 2016 gave Trump 8 percent of the African-American vote, according to Breitbart, both likely show significant gains for the president. If you average the two numbers out, Trump’s approval rating among African-Americans is 17 percent, meaning that’s more than doubled from the 2016 exit polls.

And the SurveyMonkey poll wasn’t just an aberration, either. A CBS poll conducted between Jan. 10-12 found 14 percent support among African-Americans — not quite double, but close.

Meanwhile, what happened to Obama’s exit poll numbers among African-Americans over his first term in office? They fell 2 percent from 95 percent to 93 percent, according to the Roper Center at Cornell University.

Now, granted, Obama’s numbers likely had nowhere to go but down, given that the whole bloom on the messiah thing was off the electoral rose by 2012. However, given how often the racist label is slapped on the Trump White House by the media, you would also think his numbers would be down among African-Americans. So what gives?

One key factor could be jobs. As CNBC reported earlier this month, the black unemployment rate fell to 6.8 percent in December, the lowest number in the 45 years the statistic has been recorded. The fall is part of a general reduction in the unemployment rate, but it appears the African-American community is seeing some of the biggest gains in that department.

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And that was part of the president’s pitch to the African-American community during the 2016 election cycle. In a January 2016 appearance on Fox News, Trump said that “African-American people in their prime – 30s and 40s and 50s — look at their unemployment rate. They want jobs. They are going to like me better than they like Obama. The truth is Obama has done nothing for them.”

Perhaps they might not like him better than Obama, at least by the numbers.

However, one thing is clear: African-American voters aren’t buying the racism narrative the way the media might have hoped, no matter how hard it’s pushed. Dare we say that Trump might be creating a nascent movement of new black conservatives? Only time will tell. One thing’s for sure, though: This is one of the biggest slaps to Obama’s face since the events of Nov. 8, 2016.

Please like and share on Facebook and Twitter with your thoughts on these poll numbers.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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