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When it comes to demonstrations and the former president of the United States, it matters greatly just who is doing them. Recently, Donald Trump attacked campus demonstrations against genocide in Gaza this way: "These are radical-left lunatics, and they've got to be stopped now." He also called the police action on Columbia University's campus in response to peaceful demonstrations there "a beautiful thing to watch."
Back in 2017, however, he had somewhat different feelings about the nature of demonstrations. In fact, only recently he compared the ongoing campus protests of the present moment to the unforgettable 2017 "Unite the Right" white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. You remember that one, don't you? White nationalists, Ku Klux Klan members, and neo-Nazis, many celebrating Trump's presidency, protested the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee by chanting, among other things, "Jews will not replace us." And speaking of peaceful protests, one of those white nationalists (later convicted of murder) ran his car into a 32-year-old counter-protester, killing her. At the time, asked about the demonstration, President Trump all too infamously claimed that there "were very fine people on both sides," and later, he would insist that, in saying so, he had "answered perfectly."
Oh, and recently, just in case you missed it, he also insisted that the 2017 horror in Charlottesville was just "a peanut" compared to what's now underway on college campuses nationwide. With all of that in mind, let TomDispatch regular Clarence Lusane, author of Twenty Dollars and Change: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy, explore Trump's true feelings when it comes to his Black MAGA supporters whose numbers, if you believe recent polls, are rising. Tom
Black MAGA Is Still MAGA
Trump's Racism and Authoritarianism Should Be Disqualifying
Consider Donald Trump to be in a racial bind when it comes to election 2024. After all, he needs Black voters to at least defect from Joe Biden in swing states, if not actually vote for him. Yet, more than ever, he also needs his white nationalist base to believe that a second Trump term will be even more racist than the first and he's been openly claiming that he'll address the ghost of anti-white racism. Not surprisingly, his evolving strategy for the Black vote has been high on empty symbolism and viral moments, but distinctly low on specific promised policy benefits for the Black community.
Milkshakes and far-right policies are all the presumptive Republican presidential candidate has recently offered Blacks. Take his orchestrated photo op at a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta a preview of things to come. The event was organized by Black MAGA supporter and Republican operative Michaelah Montgomery, who recruited some young African Americans, probably students from nearby historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), to cheer for Trump when he entered the place. He proceeded to buy milkshakes for everyone. Montgomery herself gave Trump a picture-perfect hug and, to the glee of MAGAworld, stated, "I don't care what the media tells you, Mr. Trump. We support you."
Naturally, while there he made false claims about what he had done for Black folks while president. It wasn't quite a speech, but he more or less mumbled that he had great support in the area because "I have done more for the people of Atlanta than any other president by far. I have done more for the black community than any other president since Abraham Lincoln and maybe including Abraham Lincoln, but since Abraham Lincoln. And it looks like our polling is very good in the state of Georgia overall. We are very happy about it. We have had -- you see the support. It's been really something."
Note to Trump: You had such great support in Georgia in 2021 that the GOP lost two Senate seats in run-off elections there (while you were trying to overthrow the government). And that was primarily because of the turnout of Black voters who, the previous November, had voted for President Biden and returned to vote Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock into office.
Without actually engaging the students at Chick-fil-A, and speaking in his usual broken fashion, Trump boasted: "That's really nice. We took care of the -- black colleges, university. They are taken care of. Biden did nothing for them. I did everything."
Note to Trump: The Fostering Undergraduate Talent by Unlocking Resources for Education Act (or FUTURE Act) you signed ensured that permanent funding for HBCUs would remain at essentially the same level as during the Obama administration (about $85 million). The Biden administration, on the other hand, has invested over $7 billion in HBCUs. That includes "$3.6 billion for HBCUs through the American Rescue Plan and other COVID relief," "$1.6 billion in capital finance debt relief for 45 public and private HBCUs," and "$1.7 billion in grant funding to expand academic capacity and provide support for low-income students."
MAGA and HBCUs
Michaelah Montgomery is steeped in contemporary MAGA politics. She has ties to the Blexit Foundation, a group started by far-right provocateur and conspiracy theorist Candace Owens to sway African Americans from the Democratic Party. Montgomery states on her LinkedIn page that she was Blexit's city director for the Atlanta metro region. She is also the founder of Conserve the Culture, a group apparently devoted to converting young African American students to conservative, that is, Trumpublican, politics.
In interviews with the right-wing media, she made it appear that Trump had encountered a group of everyday young Black people at that Chick-fil-A who spontaneously expressed their love for him. In fact, it was a handpicked group that did not represent most HBCU students or the Black community more generally.
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