Best president for Black America since Lincoln? C’mon, man!
Let us nowcelebrate the calming, sedative qualities of a mute button.
Yes, the mere addition of a mute button in the second and final presidential debate between President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden appears to have been all it took to squelch the constant interruptions, mostly from the president, that plagued the first debate.
Instead, the second debate offered something approaching a serious exchange of ideas and a good contrast between howthese two men see the world, aswell as the big gap between theworlds in which they live.
That gapwas particularly obvious when they tackled one of the hottest of this nation’s hot buttons, “Race in America.”
Both gentlemen agreed on one thing: They had entered the race because they didn’t like howthe other handled issues like hate groups, unemployment, criminal justice and systemic racism.
“You guys did nothing,” Trump said as Biden disagreed. “Joe, I ran because of you. I ran because of Barack Obama. Because you did a poor job. If I thought you did a good job, Iwould have never run.”
Same here, says Biden on the stump — or, famously, by video conferencing from his basement.
Trump lambasted Biden and Obama for failing to do enough to address these critical Black community issues during their eight years in office.
Biden similarly cites racial divisions as his reason for running, particularly Trump’s startling suggestion after the 2017 violence between white supremacists and anti-racist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, that “both sides” were equally at fault.
Trump has denied strongly that he had that message in mind and, as he has declared in numerous speeches this year, “Nobody has done more for the Black community than I have, with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln.”
Yes, hewent there. Again. Trump has been comparing himself to Lincoln in that fashion for months. At the debate, he also called himself the “least racist person in this room.”
Here’s a tip, Mr. President. If you have to make such an unprovable claim, maybe that’s the problem.
At least Trump should be giving props to another fellowRepublican, Ulysses S. Grant, whowent after the risingKu Klux Klan during Reconstruction.
Or Democrats such asHarry Truman, who desegregated the military, ormy own favorite choice, Lyndon Johnson. He signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 FairHousing Act, all of which opened up new opportunities formy baby boomer generation.
And the nation’s first African American president, Obama, deserves applause, particularly for the Affordable CareAct, also called Obamacare, which has reduced racial disparities in health care. Trump despises the program, which has gained too much popularity for him to attack without promising a replacement— one he has yet to produce and on which congressionalRepublicans have been unable to agree.
But Trump does have a story to tell. For example, he boasts of howhis administration has funded historically Black colleges and universities, although he also likes to brag that, “They couldn’t get funded. Nobody was funding them for years and years and decades, nobodywas funding them,” Trump said.
Actually, no. Under Obama, the federal government invested more than $4 billion inHBCUs over a sevenyear period.
And Trump’s opportunity zones, proposed by South Carolina’s Tim Scott, the Senate’s only Black Republican, to encourage investment in underdeveloped communities, are a great concept but have tended to benefit communities that aren’t the most distressed, according to aNew York Times report last year. Their investors also have included billionaires and Trump family members for “high-end apartment buildings, hotels and other low-workforce facilities,” the Times said.
Mixed reviews also have gone to a more recent Trump effort towoo Black voters: his “Platinum Plan” for Black Americans, famously endorsed by rap and movie star Ice Cube. The plan includes a potpourri of proposals as varied as designating theKu Klux Klan and antifa as terrorist organizations; making lynching a hate crime; recognizing Juneteenth as a federal holiday; and boosting homeownership, small businesses and job creation.
The plan is admirably ambitious yet unfortunately vague about howitwill meet its lofty goals. The Democratdominated Congressional Black Caucus also complains about its similarity to a CBC-proposed plan that the president had declined to discuss. So much for racial outreach.
As Biden repeated incredulously during the debate, c’mon, man.
Four years ago the president offered Black Americans the odd sales pitch, “What do you have to lose?” A better question for both sides these days is, “What do you have to gain?”