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Donald Trump’s con-man hustle for the African American vote is cringeworthy, cynical, infuriating, insulting, racist, super-racist — take your pick. Just don’t call it sincere. And don’t expect it to work.

On Friday night, speaking to an audience mostly of Black conservatives in Columbia, S.C., Trump likened his indictment on 91 felony charges to historic discrimination against African Americans. “A lot of people said that’s why the Black people liked me, because they had been hurt so badly and discriminated against. And they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/24/trump-black-voters-indicted-mug-shot/" target=_blank>Trump said.</a>

<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-claims-black-americans-relate-criminal-prosecutions/story?id=107509919" target=_blank>He added</a> that “the Black people” are “on my side now because they see what’s happening to me happens to them.” Presenting himself as some sort of martyr for civil rights, he claimed that “I am being indicted for you, the Black population.”

And there’s more: Trump claimed that African Americans are especially <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/25/ann-telnaes-cartoon-donald-trump-booking-georgia-fulton-county/" target="_blank">drawn to him by the mug shot</a> that was taken when he surrendered to custody on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/14/georgia-indictment-trump-willis/" target="_blank">felony charges in Fulton County, Ga. </a>“The mug shot, we’ve all seen the mug shot, and you know who embraced it more than anybody else? The Black population. It’s incredible. You see Black people walking around with my mug shot, you know, they do shirts,” <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/23/politics/trump-biden-racist/index.html" target="_blank">Trump said</a>.

For the record, none of the Black right-wing luminaries who joined Trump at the campaign event — a group that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/13/tim-scott-republican-presidential-campaign/" target=_blank>included Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.),</a> Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and former housing secretary Ben Carson — stormed off the stage. Donalds later went so far as to defend Trump’s remarks. I guess hearing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/14/black-voters-republican-party-failure-support/" target=_blank>African Americans stereotyped</a> as ignorant, gullible and criminally inclined doesn’t bother some folks.

In honor of Black History Month, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/24/trump-georgia-surrender-republican-impact/" target="_blank">let’s review a bit of Trump’s history</a> with Black people. In 1973, his real estate company was sued by the Justice Department <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-again-uses-housing-as-a-racial-wedge/2020/07/30/c7d7b942-d282-11ea-8c55-61e7fa5e82ab_story.html" target="_blank">for discrimination against</a> African American renters; the company entered a consent decree promising to end the practice. In 1989, Trump took out <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/01/why-im-leaving-new-york-by-donald-trump/" target="_blank">full-page ads</a> in four New York newspapers urging the state to “bring back the death penalty” in reference to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-central-park-five-tells-of-a-gross-miscarriage-of-justice/2013/04/12/982d024c-a2d3-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_story.html" target="_blank">the Central Park Five</a>, a <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awashingtonpost.com%2Fopinions+central+park+fuve&amp;sca_esv=5bdde8b43c3acd18&amp;biw=1422&amp;bih=754&amp;sxsrf=ACQVn090R9rGYB4V52nV_YzLfIs6HT261g%3A1708972988907&amp;ei=vNvcZaXbNsGv5NoPmduI4A0&amp;ved=0ahUKEwilqby_1MmEAxXBF1kFHZktAtwQ4dUDCBA&amp;uact=5&amp;oq=site%3Awashingtonpost.com%2Fopinions+central+park+fuve&amp;gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiMnNpdGU6d2FzaGluZ3RvbnBvc3QuY29tL29waW5pb25zIGNlbnRyYWwgcGFyayBmdXZlSJ0lUABYvyJwAHgAkAEAmAFjoAHhBaoBAjE3uAEDyAEA-AEBmAIAoAIAmAMAkgcA&amp;sclient=gws-wiz-serp#:~:text=Opinion%3A%20Five%20teenagers,2022/03/31" target="_blank">group of Black and Latino men</a> wrongly convicted of a brutal rape; even after the men were exonerated, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/09/trump-loves-blame-black-guy/" target="_blank">Trump refused to apologize</a>.

Trump launched his career in politics by making himself the most prominent advocate of the racist <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/birtherism-is-donald-trumps-big-lie/2016/09/19/8817cb12-7e99-11e6-9070-5c4905bf40dc_story.html" target="_blank">“birther” conspiracy theory </a>falsely alleging that Barack Obama was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/13/birthers-are-back/" target="_blank">not born</a> in the United States. During Trump’s first year in the White House — after a rally by white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville led to the death of a counterprotester — <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-a-presidential-president-would-have-said-about-charlottesville/2017/08/12/9f1ffec6-7fa4-11e7-9d08-b79f191668ed_story.html" target="_blank">Trump said there were</a> “some very fine people on both sides.” In 2018, referring to immigration figures, Trump referred to Central American, Caribbean and African <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-has-revealed-who-he-is-now-its-our-turn/2018/01/15/158ca2a2-fa35-11e7-8f66-2df0b94bb98a_story.html" target="_blank">countries as “shitholes”</a> that “send us the people they don’t want.” And that’s in addition to Trump’s opposition to views held by majorities of African Americans on issues such as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/29/supreme-court-affirmative-action-harvard-unc-race/" target="_blank">affirmative action</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/18/trump-judges-neutering-voting-rights-act/" target="_blank">voting rights</a>.

Trump won 12 percent of the Black vote in 2020. That was more than GOP <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/presidential-candidates-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">presidential candidates</a> usually get — but still, just 12 percent. Republicans have been salivating over recent polls <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/03/people-of-color-voting-republican-2024/" target="_blank">showing more African American support</a> for Trump this time around, along with relatively tepid approval of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">President Biden</a>.

But on the one occasion so far when <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/24/trump-2024-election-black-support/" target=_blank>substantial numbers of Black voters</a> have had the opportunity to cast ballots — the admittedly not-very-competitive <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/05/biden-south-carolina-nominee-trump/" target=_blank>Democratic primary in South Carolina</a> earlier this month — they <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/05/biden-south-carolina-nominee-trump/" target=_blank>showed greater enthusiasm</a> for Biden’s reelection than other Democrats did.

In election after election, the African American vote has been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/01/09/black-conservative-gop-numbers/" target=_blank>fool’s gold for the Republican Party</a>. The problem is not that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/21/black-asian-latino-voters-shift/" target=_blank>there are no Black conservatives</a>; in fact, there are many. It is that the GOP, broadly, has faced African Americans with cluelessness or outright hostility. When Republican officials such as Florida Gov. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/ron-desantis-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Ron DeSantis</a> try to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/23/florida-new-school-curriculum-slavery/" target=_blank>censor African American history</a> so that no one feels uncomfortable, or when GOP candidate <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/15/haley-scott-republicans-race/" target=_blank>Nikki Haley insists</a> that “America has never been a racist country,” the party’s credibility among Black voters tends to evaporate.

Trump’s crude rhetorical pandering is certainly a different approach. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/01/09/lloyd-austin-fed-independence-black-voters/" target=_blank>But not in a good way</a>.

In his speech Friday, Trump boasted of getting a better deal on the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-boasted-about-making-air-force-one-cheaper-he-didnt/2019/08/07/75316ad6-b946-11e9-a091-6a96e67d9cce_story.html" target="_blank">cost of a new Air Force One</a> than the Obama administration had negotiated — <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/air-force-one-pentagon-52-billion-2019-8" target="_blank">a claim</a> that turns out to be <a href="https://www.defenseone.com/business/2018/02/trump-said-he-cut-1b-air-force-ones-price-his-new-budget-says-he-hasnt/145973/" target="_blank">utterly false</a>. <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/trump-criminal-indictments-boosted-appeal-black-voters-107510194" target="_blank">He asked,</a> “Would you rather have the Black president or the White president who got $1.7 billion off the price?” The crowd of African American conservatives applauded, and Trump boasted, “I think they want the White guy.”

Obviously, I <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/14/democrats-must-intensify-support-black-voters-pew-poll/" target="_blank">can’t speak for all</a> African Americans. But <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-trying-to-disenfranchise-black-voters-the-gop-isnt-stopping-him/2020/11/19/44194a2e-2a9f-11eb-92b7-6ef17b3fe3b4_story.html" target="_blank">my prediction is no</a>, not really. No, we don’t.

2009 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary

Coal to Cream: A Black Man’s Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race (Free Press, 1999)

Last Dance in Havana: The Final Days of Fidel and the Start of the New Cuban Revolution (Free Press, 2004)

Eugene Robinson writes a column on politics and culture and hosts a weekly online chat with readers. In a three-decade career at The Washington Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper’s Style section.

Eugene Robinson

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Trump’s pitch to Black voters is cringeworthy at best

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