Omarosa said Black would kneel before Trump. Where did it get her? Photo: Gage Skidmore-Flickr
What does Trump know, or care, about American Blacks’ needs or political priorities?
What’s the level of communications between Trump and Blacks? In 2016, candidate Donald Trump declared that if he became president, “at the end of four years, I guarantee you that I will get over 95 percent of the African American vote.”
He was elected with just 8% of the Black vote. Trump recently tweed that his “approval ratings with Blacks has doubled.” In his mind perhaps. President Trump has a 4% approval rating among Black voters. Gallup indicates he’s crashed from 15% approval among Black voters to 6% from a year ago.
How has the U.S. economy performed in 12 months of the Trump era? Before the recent wild gyrations, Trump had reason to boast regarding the economy and rising stock market valuations – S&P 500 index was up around 22% that equated to an increase of around $4 trillion. Trump also justly claimed to have boosted U.S. employment through his exhortations for manufacturers to repatriate off-shored jobs to American soil. Since he won the vote, the U.S. economy has added an average of 167,000 new jobs each month and the unemployment rate has dipped to just 4.1% (it remains 6.7% for Blacks).
So, who’s talking favorably to Blacks about Trump? Trump has a perfectly respectable job-creation record, but who’s telling Blacks that?
Cleveland pastor Rev. Darrell Scott was at Donald Trump’s White House meeting to sign legislation re-designating the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site to the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Park. Pastor Scott is the “head man” in the circle of Blacks supporting Trump and his agenda as CEO of the National Diversity Coalition for Trump.
He is a co-founder, along with Trump’s campaign spokesperson Michael Dean Cohen and board member of the National Diversity Coalition for Trump. The National Diversity Coalition was formed to provide specific minority groups’ support for candidate Donald Trump. Bruce LeVell, also a co-founder, was a contender for appointment to head the Small Business Administration.
The person that created the group is a Jewish lawyer, Cohen. He was in Trump’s business operations as a Executive Vice-President, co-president of Trump Entertainment and member of the board of the Eric Trump Foundation. Cohen set the bar for tolerating Trump’s idiosyncrasies in his defenses of Trump against charges of anti-Semitism.
Pastor Scott met Donald Trump in 2011 after being invited to a meeting at Trump Tower, when Trump was considering the run. After Trump announced his candidacy, Scott was one of the first African-American pastors to support him and was instrumental in getting other African-American pastors to attend meetings. Minister Alveda Celeste King, a member of the King Family, is on the Coalition’s board. The diversity group contains American-Muslims for Trump, African-American Pastors for Trump, and Korean-Americans for Trump.
The infamous Omarosa Manigault was once a member of the group and will go down in history as being ineffective enough in her outreach to Blacks to drive their support to zero. With Omarosa gone from microphones, we ask LeVell: What have you got to lose ceasing defense of bigoted Trump acts?
During the campaign LeVell etched out a profile and position proclaiming that “Donald Trump is not a racist.” As the Coalition’s Executive Director LeVell has elected to spend his time declaring Trump is not racist instead of showing him strategies that can help Blacks and convert their business and political thinking.
William Reed is publisher of “Who’s Who in Black Corporate America” and available for projects via [email protected]
