African Americans prosper under President Trump’s policies

of Republican House and Senate members voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 after a 74-day filibuster by southern Democrats, including civil rights opponent Tennessee Sen. Al Gore Sr., as just 63% of Democratic members of Congress did.

Regardless of this historical record, what exactly has the black community gotten in return for its loyalty to the Democratic Party?

Not much.

In fact, the places where Democratic politicians hold the greatest power — blue cities in blue states — are also the places with the highest crime rates, worst schools, greatest poverty and highest infant mortality rates. Think Chicago, Los Angeles and Baltimore. President Donald Trump’s recent scrum with Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings over the horrible condition of his district in Baltimore received enormous media coverage and more claims that President Donald Trump is a racist, but Trump’s statements about Baltimore were true. Even Bernie Sanders and the former African American mayor of Baltimore said similar things about the conditions in Baltimore.

Too many Republicans have been afraid to call out Democratic politicians for their abject failure to improve the very communities they represent. Generations of African Americans have grown up in communities ravaged by violence, drugs, poverty and grossly underperforming public schools.

The Democratic Party’s solutions focus on throwing money at the problems, creating greater dependency on government and blaming police officers who put their lives on the line on a daily basis to make the streets as safe as possible. Despite trillions spent on the war on poverty in the past 50 years, little has improved and much has gotten worse.

Though partisans will dismiss this claim out of hand, Trump may be the best president for the African American community in decades. Under his policies, African American unemployment is at record lows, their wages are going up and they’re keeping more of their wages thanks to tax cuts. Trump even managed to do what President Barack Obama failed to do when he signed historic criminal justice reform that will help thousands of African Americans escape the prison system and start on the path to prosperity. Left-wing social justice commentator Van Jones praised President Trump’s efforts to pass criminal justice reform stating: “This is history.”

The left knows President Trump is making inroads into the African American community, which is why it screams even louder that he is a racist. After all, if Trump can move his share of votes from African Americans from 8% to 15% — he currently has a 13% approval rating from African Americans — it would be hard for the Democratic presidential nominee to make up those lost votes from other demographic groups in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The reality is that the president’s blunt sledgehammer approach may be just the thing needed to shatter the death grip the left has on African American voters. With his calls for accountability by those Democratic politicians who represent some of America’s most dysfunctional places, as well as his strong economic and criminal justice record that is improving their lives, he might force African Americans to reconsider their long-time support of the left.

The right doesn’t need to split the African American vote to fundamentally alter the electoral chances of the left. It just needs to drive African American support closer to how other minority groups vote. It is possible the left’s constant use of the race card against President Trump and other Republicans might continue to work, but it is increasingly likely that a small, but meaningful segment of the African American community will ignore those efforts and quietly pull the lever for Trump in 2020.

After all, African Americans vote with their pocketbooks just like everybody else and their pocketbooks and lives are getting richer thanks to President Trump and Republicans.