Donald Trump has appealed to black people in the USA to vote for him on the basis they have nothing to lose. He told an election rally that black voters live in poverty, with poor public services – claiming black children have to go to schools that are “no good”. Trump argued that black people have brought this poor standard of living on themselves, by voting Democrat in the past. As voting Democrat has not improved their living standards, they might as well try voting Republican because the outcome cannot be worse.
Trump was speaking to a public meeting in Michigan – one with a predominantly white audience. It was not clear whether his comments on voting Trump came because he genuinely hasn’t noticed that not all black people live in poverty in the US (and that some white people do live in poverty), or whether he was just trying to stop criticism for earlier racist comments (in which case he has failed). However, he does believe his is a winning strategy: he has claimed he can win over 95% of black voters in the course of his first term in office.
Trump then went on to insult his political opponent – Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton. He told the Michigan rally that she would rather provide a job to a refugee than create jobs for unemployed black youth in the USA. As a result of attitudes like this, he claimed, black youths have become refugees in their own country.
Trump’s comments came a couple of days after his second Campaign Manager resigned from the job amid speculation that he was now sticking to a script when speaking in public, rather than coming up with whatever gibberish occurred to him as he got to his feet.
For her part, Hillary Clinton dismissed Trump’s latest comment as “so ignorant it’s staggering.”
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