Trump’s pitch to minority voters

“This is so ignorant it’s staggering” was Hillary Clinton’s response to Donald Trump’s “What have you got to lose?” appeal to minority voters.

Coincidentally, Forbes issued its list of the 10 most dangerous cities in the country for 2015. They are Detroit, Memphis, Oakland, St. Louis, Birmingham, Alabama; Milwaukee; Baltimore; Cleveland; Stockton, California; and Indianapolis. They have a number of things in common besides dead bodies. The high crime areas of the cities are poor, some desperately so. Many of these cities have large minority populations, schools with low graduation rates, and few opportunities, particularly for young men. If you follow the news, you know that charges of racism against their police departments are common. Many of these cities are Democratic Party controlled and have been for the entire lifetimes of many residents.

While one’s perception of the competence of any political administration largely depends on one’s party affiliation, it’s tough to debate the numbers, easily available by a Google search of the cities’ profiles.

We’ve heard the expression: “If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got.” If the life you are living now is what you want for your children, more of the same is exactly what you need and you should keep voting as you always have.

What is it that minority communities need? It starts and ends with jobs. Not make-work programs that pass out other people’s tax money, real jobs. They need jobs where they are whom the boss calls because the wheels have fallen off the project that is going to make or break the company and they are the one who can fix it. They need to be paid for their knowledge, effort and skill. They need to know that with smart choices one day, they’ll be the boss.

They need to see that a house in the suburbs, date night with the wife, cheering at children’s commencement, mom shopping for a wedding dress with the daughter and dad walking her down the aisle are not only possible, they’re all up to them. They need to be the beaming mothers and fathers of a generation of children that will do better than their parents.

The second generation of social workers charged with implementing President Johnson’s Great Society are now eligible for retirement. These well-meaning armies and the trillions upon trillions of dollars spent to eradicate poverty have barely budged the needle on the numbers of Americans who would starve without government assistance. We keep doing the same thing expecting different results. Just what is there to lose but poverty and despair? Victor J. LaBonte Willoughby Hills