So much for that false narrative about Trump gaining support from Black voters
Over the past several months, the media (on both sides) has been hyping the claim that Donald Trump is suddenly more popular with Black voters, and that President Biden and the Democratic Party are supposedly hemorrhaging the support of Black voters.
This claim has been based on nothing at all, beyond a few ludicrously unrealistic polls that also inexplicably show Trump winning the youth vote. Yet we keep hearing over and over again: Trump is supposedly excelling with Black voters this time around. Of course that notion is easily disproven on an intuitive level. Trump did extraordinarily poorly with Black voters in 2016 and 2020, and nothing has occurred since then that would suddenly endear him to Black voters.
But even as recently as the other day, a major news outlet ran a headline suggesting that Trump’s criminal conviction would somehow make him more popular with Black voters. The media just doesn’t want to let go of the false claim that Trump is now popular with Black voters, because it’s a scary enough sounding prospect that it scares average Americans into staring helplessly at their screens all day every day.
Meanwhile back in the real world, new data says that Trump’s criminal conviction actually makes him even less popular with Black voters than ever. And if you don’t want to trust the numbers, all you have to do is look at the rally that Trump held last week in the Bronx. It’s a mostly nonwhite borough, and the rally was clearly aimed at Black voters, yet nearly all of the attendees were white.
Yet Trump is going to continue to try to push the false narrative that he’s gaining support from Black voters, because he’s hoping to turn it into a self fulfilling prophecy. And the media (on both sides) is going to keep helping Trump to push this false narrative, because it’s a lie that’s good for ratings. Our job is to keep factually reminding the general public that it’s simply not true.
