For a period of time, there was not a day that went by without the president bragging about “the lowest black unemployment in history”. It became a running joke among those in the Dissident Right disappointed with the Trump Administration. But that was before COVID-19 hit our shores.
As I argued more than a year ago, it was clear that the president re-election campaign strategy was to shed the Dissident Right, the immigration hawks or, as Anthony Scaramucci described as, “away from that sort of Bannonbart nonsense….” I wrote:
The electoral strategy of moving away from the “Bannonbart nonsense” is not new. Republican strategists have long dreamed of creating a new and more diverse political coalition of white college educated voters with a larger share of minority voters – be it Latino, black or Jewish. They argue that, if the GOP wants to survive as a national party, it must adjust to the demographic changes the country is undergoing. That may be true but in 2016 Trump showed that the White House can be won with a populist agenda. He won states that had eluded Republican presidential candidates since 1988. I suspect that the desire for a new coalition has less to do with demographics and more to do with the GOP establishment being ashamed and resentful of having to rely on white working class voters whom they see as “bitter clingers” or “deplorables” just like, respectively, Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton do.
I deemed the strategy a loser and I still stand by my assessment. Now that unemployment has hit record highs for all demographic groups, one of Trump’s two main talking points to win black voters is gone – he can still brag about criminal justice reform.
Ever since the revelations regarding the unmasking of General Flynn, the president has taken to Twitter declaring “OBAMAGATE!” in much the same way he tweeted “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!” for three years. Does this mean that Trump has given up on black voters? I mean Diamond and Silk have been banned from Fox News. Hmmm…
OBAMAGATE!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2020
But wait there is more! NBC News reports that Trump won’t unveil Obama’s official portrait:
It’s been a White House tradition for decades: a first-term president hosts his immediate predecessor in the East Room for a ceremony to unveil the portrait of the former president that will hang in the halls of the White House for posterity.
Republican presidents have done it for Democratic presidents, and vice versa — even when one of them ascended to the White House by defeating or sharply criticizing the other.
“We may have our differences politically,” President Barack Obama said when he hosted former President George W. Bush for his portrait unveiling in 2012, “but the presidency transcends those differences.”
Yet this modern ritual won’t be taking place between Obama and President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter. And if Trump wins a second term in November, it could be 2025 before Obama returns to the White House to see his portrait displayed among every U.S. president from George Washington to Bush.
Trump is unconcerned about shunning yet another presidential custom, and he has attacked Obama to an extent no other president has done to a predecessor. Most recently he’s made unfounded accusations that Obama committed an unspecified crime.”
Given Trump’s unpredictability, in a couple of weeks he could be back trying to win black voters. We may see Diamond and Silk back on Lou Dobbs Tonight dispensing their insightful political analysis. However, the better bet is that Trump and the GOP will, once again, return to the Bannonbart nonsense as Election Day 2020 approaches.
