President-elect Trump’s choice of Sen. Jeff Sessions as Attorney General would put a longstanding opponent of civil rights for African-Americans in charge of the Justice Department, reports Dennis J Bernstein.
By Dennis J Bernstein
While much media attention has focused on President-elect Donald Trump’s fringe supporters in the “alt-right” and white-nationalist movements, there’s been less press alarm about his appointment of Sen. Jeff Sessions to lead the U.S. Justice Department despite the senator’s long record of hostility toward civil rights.
Yet the Sessions appointment may have much more ominous implications. As a legal official in Alabama last century, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III conducted phony voter fraud investigations aimed at African-Americans and denounced leading organizations in the fight against racial segregation, telling aides that he considered the NAACP and the ACLU to be “un-American” and “Communist-inspired.” Sessions also is anti-LGBT rights, pro-capital punishment and hostile to abortion rights.
Responding to Trump’s nomination of Sessions to be Attorney General, the ACLU said, “as the nation’s highest-ranking law enforcement official, the attorney general is charged with protecting the rights of all Americans, yet Sessions has a reported history of making racist comments.”
Jeff Sessions supports Donald Trump at a rally. (Wikipedia)
But Sessions’s record goes far beyond racially insensitive remarks. In 1996, I traveled through Alabama and Mississippi with fellow journalist Ron Nixon as we investigated a wave of arson against black churches.
President Bill Clinton had said, “It is clear that racial hostility is the driving force behind a number of these incidents.” said Clinton. Then-U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Deval Patrick, launched what he called “the largest federal civil rights investigation that we have had in sometime. This is not a lightly taken investigation.”
However, Alabama’s Attorney General at the time was Sessions, who was in a close race for the U.S. Senate. Sessions’s approach to the burning of some 40 black churches over 18 months from late 1994 into 1996 was to turn the investigation into a joint probe linking the church burnings to an investigation of black voter fraud through alleged misuse of absentee ballots. The connection supposedly was that black voting-rights activists tried to cover up the fraud by burning down their own churches.
In hearings held at the time by the House Judiciary Committee, one minister told Congress that he had been asked to take a lie-detector test regarding voter fraud. Another testified that the financial records from his church were subpoenaed.
“Why are they harassing members of the church instead of these redneck terrorists who are burning down black churches,” asked the Reverend Joseph Lowery, then President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). “It’s hard for me to believe we can find terrorist all over the world with our sophisticated equipment, but we can’t find a bunch of amateur terrorists here in America.”
Despite the long history of white racists burning down black churches as a means of political intimidation, state and federal investigators found nothing to suggest a racial motivation to the dozens of church burnings. Thomas Figures, a black former Assistant U.S. Attorney who had worked under Sessions before quitting and accusing Sessions of calling him “boy,” said it was highly unusual to combine two investigations, the church burnings with the voter-fraud suspicions.
Figures blamed the lack of any positive breakthrough in the church fires on “the recalcitrance and the reluctance and the outright hostility of some Southern law enforcement agencies and officials, like Sessions, toward enforcing civil rights.”
But the Clinton administration also appeared hesitant to move too aggressively on such a politically sensitive topic. Barrown Lankster, Alabama’s first elected black district attorney, unsuccessfully petitioned the Justice Department to conduct an investigation into the vandalism of three churches in Sumter County and a shooting into the house of a Circuit judge who had ruled against two white youths in a church arson case.
“I even wrote to Attorney General Janet Reno personally asking that these actions be pursued as civil rights violations,” Lankster said in a 1996 interview. “The criminal division in Washington told me they were going to make a determination. But after a long wait I was told that they were not inclined to view this as a civil rights violation for prosecutorial purposes.”
Sessions for U.S. Senate
At the same time of the church burnings, Sessions was in a close race to become the next U.S. Senator from Alabama to replace retiring Democrat Howell Heflin, who had cast a deciding vote to block Sessions’s appointment in the 1980s to be a federal judge.
A runoff was scheduled and many in the black community felt that Sessions was using the joint voter-fraud-church-burning investigation to get an edge.
“This is simply outrageous,” said then local Southern Christian Leadership Conference head Spiver Gordon in a 1996 interview. Gordon, who had been a target of an earlier Sessions’s probe of supposed black voter fraud, had just received a subpoena to appear before a grand jury.
“This is totally political,” said Gordon, “and it’s just plain wrong to have [Sessions] running for the Senate and then pushing this voter-fraud investigation against the people he knows will oppose him. It’s these kinds of actions that have created the atmosphere for all the attacks on the churches. People feel that they can do anything to us and nothing will be done to them.”
Sessions had employed similar tactics before. In the early 1980s, as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama and a protégé of right-wing ideologue, Sen. Jeremiah Denton, Sessions went after Albert Turner, a former aide to Martin Luther King Jr.
Sessions wide-ranging probe against Turner and other voting rights activists came to naught but it hampered what was then a burgeoning voter-rights movement seeking to empower Alabama’s blacks.
Some of the past racial controversies around Sessions – particularly accounts of his racist remarks – have been referenced in mainstream media articles about his nomination to be Attorney General but his comments are generally being treated as old news that has limited relevance today.
But there has been little attention paid to Sessions’s use of his prosecutorial powers to go after black voting rights by alleging voting fraud, which remains a popular issue on the Right and is cited as
justification for voter ID laws and other restrictions that have sought to depress the votes of blacks and other minorities who tend to favor Democrats.
Some of Sessions’s actions recall the worst days of Jim Crow when white Southerners maintained their political dominance by preventing blacks from voting — and when white law enforcement officials looked the other way when their political allies terrorized black leaders.
The Tale of a Black Sheriff
These attitudes emerged in an interview that I did in 1996 with five-time elected Sheriff Prince Arnold, the first African-American sheriff in Wilcox County, Alabama. Wilcox is a majority black county where Sessions grew up and where the two had tangled over a number of issues, including Arnold’s efforts to present evidence of white voter fraud while Sessions was going after black voter fraud.
Prior to the church-burning investigation, Arnold also had provided information to the FBI and to then-U.S. Attorney Sessions that people whom Sessions knew were engaged in a plot to kill Arnold, who said he had obtained a tape of the plotters. Yet, Sessions refused to act.
In my interview with Arnold, he talked about the church burning investigation and the death threat.
Sheriff Prince Arnold: When you destroy the churches, you’re destroying the politics in the
A sign outside Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, expresses sympathy for the victims of the mass church shooting there on June 17, 2015 by a white supremacist. (Photo by Chelsea Gilmour)
black community. You’re destroying the soul of the black community. You’re doing so much to them when you destroy their churches. That’s the only building where all of them have gathered together to build, you know. And, people know that, there are folks who know our history better than we do, much better than we do. Because, a lot of us, when we leave, we forget about our history. But it’s a form of intimidation, whoever is doing this, whoever is burning and bombing the black churches needs to be culled and prosecuted. Because it’s affecting a whole race of people, that’s what it’s doing.
Dennis Bernstein: Say a little bit more about your background here in Wilcox county?
SPA: My name is Prince Arnold. I’m the Sheriff of Wilcox County. I’m serving my 5th term as sheriff, going on 18 years. I was… my family, my father and my grandfather was born and raised here in Wilcox County. I received my elementary and high school education here. I graduated from Alabama State University, and I’m just back home. I came back home and ran as sheriff and I’ve been… I’ve won five consecutive times. I consider myself a community worker, not just a sheriff. Our communities need so much help and I just go out and do all I can to help in the community.
Selective prosecution was one of the main reasons why I ran for sheriff in 1978. There has always been a double standard here in Wilcox County, in the South, and probably all across this country. People have prioritized what… who they want to prosecute. And when it comes to voter fraud and anything else, it’s the same thing. People have always been… if certain folks got killed or murdered there was very little investigation done … as far as prosecution, it was done on a very lukewarm manner. When it comes to all law enforcement, it’s always been a double standard.
So we try to just have one standard. That’s what we’ve been trying for the last 18 years. Every time we have people like Mr. Sessions and other folks who come in basically because of that same group, who had that double standard years ago… Mr. Sessions was summoned here by that group. Saying that we need to just go back to the old practice, as they would say.
And that’s what he did. He came in and selected a couple of people saying, “I’m going to put you all in jail, and show you all how it’s supposed to be done.” But we’re here. I’m the sheriff and I’m not going to let it be done.
Mr. Jeff Sessions, like I did, went to school here. He went to high school here, and he continues to come back here. This is his home. His family is from here. I’m sure he, like I do, I own a couple of acres here. I’m sure he owns property here too. People who he finished high school with are the ones who summoned him back here, people who we see on a daily basis, that hold positions in, I’m sure, in banks, and stores… Jeff Sessions’s classmates.
See, and they have continued to communicate with him over the last, like I said, 18 years since he was down there in the southern district of Alabama. And they have tried down through the years, to get him to come back and do these type of things. Sure, it’s simple, it’s not complicated. That man has personal interest down here. To get it back the way it was, before I got to be sheriff.
DB: And, you say, he has friends, and back to the way it was. The way it was as in pre-civil rights? As in when Klan-types and white supremacists were around. Is that what we’re talking about?
SPA: You know your history well. Yeah, you know your history well. No doubt about it. Wilcox County, the 1990 census, I think, we were 69 point something, black, about seventy percent black. They said black folks run during the census time so it might be more than that.
But, until I ran as sheriff, until I ran for the position, blacks didn’t hold a single elected position, not a single one. And people bragged about being able to rule the county… it was something like South Africa. And certain people are not going to be satisfied until it gets back to that, to that position, back in that condition.
So, yes sir, we’re talking about pre-civil right days. We’re talking about where people are afraid to go and vote. We’re talking about where people [are] intimidated to the point where they’re just afraid to do anything, besides domestic work.
Alabama has always led the country when it came to being backwards, [on] every civil rights thing. And then we’re getting ready to send a man to the Senate, that leads the world in being backwards. But we [are] like that. You know, we’re normally lagging about 50 years behind here in Alabama. That’s what we’re doing. Yes, sir.
DB: In regards to intimidation, I understand that you revealed, by virtue of receiving information in the form of a tape and other related documentary evidence, that there was a plot to kill you. Could you describe, give us some information about that?
SPA: I received a tape from another law enforcement agency, a sheriff’s office, they called me and says, “Sheriff, we received information there’s a death threat on your life.” And I’ve been threatened many times, over the last 18 years. But this particular time I called in the FBI. I called them in, gave them the tape, sitting right where you’re sitting now, two agents. And I told them what had happened, it was during the time that Mr. Sessions was the … prosecutor of that southern district of Alabama, down in Mobile. And I haven’t heard anything from those agents as of today.
DB: Over two years?
SPA: Oh, it’s been longer than that. Been longer than that. He was down there… it was before President Clinton was elected. …. But I haven’t heard anything from these people.
I know, during the time he was down there when the agents moved they moved when he said, “Go and investigate”… whatever. If you understand what I’m saying? Because I’ve talked to too many of the young people he went to school with then… when I say young… they’re my age. And I couldn’t get in touch with Mr. Sessions to get him up here. But they could. You understand what I’m saying?
DB: Describe what was on the tape, please.
SPA: Oh basically, it detailed… it talked about…and I know the people who was plotting it. I know the people. Mr. Sessions knows them too, he went to school with them. … If he heard the tape, if he had any conversations with the agents [he would have known the perpetrators], I’m not saying that he did. I’m just saying that the information was turned over to them while he was down there. That’s what I’m saying. They described in detail where I lived, what type of weapon would be used to kill me, where the shooter would be standing, and the type of money it would cost to get it done.
DB: And you provided that tape to the FBI, who investigated for Mr. Sessions, as U.S. Attorney at the time?
SPA: Well, Wilcox County is in the southern district of the state of Alabama. I’m sure any major crime being investigated at some point in time, at some point in time, they give that information to the prosecutor.
Dennis J Bernstein is a host of “Flashpoints” on the Pacifica radio network and the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom. You can access the audio archives at www.flashpoints.net.
What’s that old saying about keeping your friends close, and your enemies closer? Look at how Lincoln constituted his first cabinet, with men who thought themselves his betters. He weeded out the useless ones and kept the elements he could shape to his will. Trump is enough of a fighter to do just what he promised he would do, but he has to first neutralize the dissenting factions in his own party to solidify his base. This is hardball politics, how the big boys play the game. It’s not for faint-hearted liberals who think it is more important to play fair with the enemies of the American people than to eliminate them.
Everyone who support affirmative action is a racist, and the government supports it. No American living today owned slaves, so why are kids going to school paying for the sins of old RICH elites from the past.
Legalized racism, but when someone supports the rights of the white middle class, they are branded racists!
If you want to stop racism, start with the government…which is rife with anti white male racism.
There are many people alive today who suffered under segregation, Jim Crow laws, redlining, and other unequal starting points. There are many people alive today who were born rich due to their grandparents exploiting slaves (as well as slaughtering Native Americans to take their land.) Also, it takes 3 generations of higher education for someone to be able to be encultured into “polite society”, i.e. knowing how to talk and act around people with large amounts of money and not be despised by them.
There are far more white males in every sector of power in the US than the actual size of their demographic would give them, if racism did not exist. Thus, to claim that white males are somehow “victims of racism” is blatantly counterfactual.
Once again, the idiocy of white supremacists serves as the best argument against white supremacy.
this is my view
Trump
Trump has received daily warnings
We knew that whatever the outcome of the election, some bad things were going to happen. Mr. Bernstein makes a good case that Jeff Sessions as Attorney General is one of the unpleasant outcomes of a Donald Trump Presidency.
I’m not going to jump to any conclusions, but Trump is appointing two telecom consultants to head up the FCC. The big question, the one to keep your eye on, is will these two telecom executives destroy ‘net neutrality’? Of course we will need to wait and see, but among the many names being thrown around for appointments by Trump things aren’t looking too good for the swamp drainers indeed. If patience is a virtue, then over speculation is a flaw…let’s all hope that virtue wins out.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-just-put-net-neutrality-on-death-row/5558826
Experts at OpenMedia certainly think that it’s time for people to get very vocal about net neutrality. The proud, open fascists will use tactics like this to hopefully keep from losing their grasp on power. They risk losing it by playing fair, just as powerful, unprincipled corporations risk losing dominance and profits if they play fair, for which reason they don’t. They instead buy politicians and then help with writing laws (free trade agreements and other laws) that protect them, no matter what. You don’t have a free marketplace and you don’t have a free electoral market. And it’s getting darker with so many alt media orgs also working to bring the people around to neoconservative way of looking at things. Everyone, abusers and the abused, is trying to win in the godless game of ‘riches for the strongest’.
https://openmedia.org/
The article represents many of the warnings to our president elect about how he should behave in office.
The issue of civil rights is one that shall ever remain contentious. From the floor debates in Congress in the 60’s when the major civil rights legislation was passed there was never agreement on what was intended by the legislation and that situation continues today.
And then let’s consider the last two Attorneys-General: Lynch and Holder. Both black,
And a couple of losers as far as justice was concerned.
And then let’s consider the last two Attorneys-General: Lynch and Holder. Both black, and they both sucked. Holder did not jail one rotten banker! In fact, he’s now back at his cushy little law office, where he worked before he was appointed Attorney-General. And he wouldn’t have gotten the job is he didn’t promise beforehand to be hands-off with the bankers and other white collar criminals. And Lynch, well, she meets with Clinton on the tarmac. She should have turned around, told him in no uncertain terms that she was not going to talk to him. She could have done that, but she didn’t. Why? The moment she decided to talk to him, she should have resigned right after, but she didn’t. Why?
Bill – give Trump a chance. I don’t see him as the type to sell blacks or whites down the river. I think he wants to help the country, but he has to go slowly. If he is serious, then he’s about to embark on a very dangerous journey – going after the Oligarchy. Would you want that job? He’s liable to be assassinated. Perhaps he agrees with Sessions in a few key areas, like being against globalization or wanting to stop the constant wars, but maybe they disagree in other areas. So Trump gives him some slack, but then hopefully reins him in when he needs to.
Paul Craig Roberts has said several times that Trump will find out that it’s hard to fill positions WITHOUT using existing people who know their way around. He must be careful. He’s doing the best he can, not being a professional politician. I have no doubt that after he gets his wings, he won’t be afraid to say “You’re fired” if people start doing stupid stuff.
I think he meant everything he said to Americans. It’s just a matter of whether he can pull it off. He is a strong and willful person. He is not shy. Who else can you think of that could go after the Oligarchy?
Sessions has been a vocal critic of illegal immigration. A country with no borders? Undercutting everybody else’s wages? That doesn’t work. You either get a handle on your borders or you don’t. That’s why he put Sessions where he put him. He’s going to uphold the law in that area.
backwards: I disagree with something in each of your four paragraphs, but let’s just take one point that to one degree or another relates to all:
Who else can you think of that could go after the Oligarchy?
The oligarchs of both major parties since their establishment have determined whatever political activity concerns them and the special interests with which they are accomplices. I can’t think of anyone who could go after your Oligarchy and have some success. There is no one out of the trenches that I can think of having a chance. For starters, a prime requirement for anyone trying would be great oratorical skills sufficient to gain the confidence and support of a sizable majority of the American people. Obama was a good orator, but he didn’t have the substance to achieve anything of note. By now, most people probably regard most of what he says with the skepticism it deserves. He was also owned by the Israel Lobby and his other major campaign donors, both of which are in league with the oligarchs. Trump has an appealing speaking style that has attracted many, but what he says is almost always divisive and not enough to gain ascendancy over the oligarchy. Besides, he will probably be more inclined to make deals with the senate and house leaders who are the fronts for the oligarchy. The Israel Lobby through Sheldon Adelson, his son-in-law, and probably others also has a stake in Trump.
For the most part throughout American history the ruling powers have regarded the people with disdain. I don’t see Trump being any different but hope I’m eventually proved wrong.
But the Clinton administration also appeared hesitant to move too aggressively on such a politically sensitive topic. Barrown Lankster, Alabama’s first elected black district attorney, unsuccessfully petitioned the Justice Department to conduct an investigation into the vandalism of three churches in Sumter County and a shooting into the house of a Circuit judge who had ruled against two white youths in a church arson case.
and
I’m not surprised by the previous comment by Todd Kroger. Barack Obama was President for 8 years … what did he do to help African-Americans? … just about nothing. What did Eric Holder do about the incredible incarceration rate of African Americans … ditto.
This is how the system has always worked and still works. Preservation of power for the oligarchs and protection for the members of national, regional and local Establishments. Only when ordinary citizens rise in sufficient numbers and create sufficient pressure do they get some relief. Otherwise, they are lucky if crumbs trickle down their way.
Clinton: America’s first black president? You have to be kidding.
Obama: Almost all talk making people who aren’t paying attention feel good.
Holder: A corporate lawyer who apparently knows the law but is less familiar with justice.
Trump’s choices for his administration say a lot about him and what we can expect in the next four years. Sessions is one of several causes for concern, if not alarm.
“The connection supposedly was that black voting-rights activists tried to cover up the fraud by burning down their own churches.”
I certainly hope the irony here is not lost on anyone. It amounts to elements of the U.S. Government excusing themselves from adequately investigating heinous crimes by proposing a “conspiracy theory”. And, it’s based on what could only be called domestic “false flag” terrorism. The crimes outlined in this article were obviously investigated with the same lack of dedication to truth and justice as were the murders of both Kennedy brothers and Martin King. It is impossible to impart to individuals without any forensic medical knowledge – and even to some with actual medical training – that the Kennedy assassination as described by the Warren Commission is a risible fraud. After reading some of the moronic responses to Gary Aguilar’s article, I felt as though I had to get even with the idiots who find Vincent Bugliosi’s account compelling. There aren’t too many realistic options. I haven’t read Jim DiEugenio’s book, but more or less, I already know what it says. And, I probably won’t read it. But I bought a copy after reading those comments. Just to support the cause. It’s about time Americans stopped allowing themselves to be hoodwinked. You can’t have it both ways. There can’t be “conspiracy” when it’s convenient, but none when it’s politically expedient. It’s like tossing a coin and claiming, “Heads I win, tails you lose!”
It’s about time Americans stopped allowing themselves to be hoodwinked.
The time for Americans to stop allowing themselves to be hoodwinked began with the Declaration of Independence written and signed by some of the colonies’ elites who intended a government of and for the propertied classes. Some Americans set future generations an example when they demanded the first ten amendments – the Bill of Rights – to the original Constitution. Since then examples of Americans taking off their blinders and seeking justice have, at best, been sporadic.
Hillary knows all about coin tossing, just ask Bernie. Also isn’t it funny how when Trump hesitated to his being open to concede to the election if he were to lose, as he was then lambasted mercifully by the media as being unpatriotic towards our system. Likewise isn’t it hilarious that now Hillary (Jill Stein) is within her patriotic rights to contest the election results in three states where she loss. Hypocritical jag-offs make their own realities, and we tinfoiled hat people get to sit in the back of the bus, while the jag-offs take us all of a cliff. Wow, that is even now starting to sound American, for that’s how bad it has become. If the truth were told no one would ever believe it.
Equating Hitlery and Jill Stein is indicative of ignorance.
Jill has her own motivations for this, as there is a good bit of circumstantial evidence that the count of Green votes has been vastly underreported for years.
As Election Integrity is a big issue for Greens, and has been for a long time, (which is why the Greens have an outsized presence on the Brad Blog, and have for over a decade), it is only natural that, given the opportunity to get mainstream help to widen a crack in our easily corrupted electoral machinery, as well as get cocerage of it, Jill would have jumped on this.
SteveK9 — “Barack Obama was President for 8 years …
what did he do to help African-Americans? … just about nothing.
::
What could he do, as a Minority president (half-white)
under a White Power Structure who declared him (skin)
Obsolete and unanimously Opposed him
directly after his majority vote election?
Could it be ‘staged’ as a Ford’s Theater
assassination hatched by proslavery bigots?
This bigotry is blatant in their agreement
to obstruct policies adored by The People
Who unanimously voted him president
just as they, overwhelmingly, choose Hillary
::
“Somethin’s hap’nin here
what it is just ain’t clear”
but it resembles a type of
government overthrow
or the New South revolt
against equal “rights”
means the return of
Power vs.proletariat.
Trump claims to be a president for the proletariat – but he is anything but that.
The idea of Romney for sec. of state is nothing but an expansion of globalist dogma.
Deportation policy extends the Corporate Prison / Wall Construction $$$ gain
and serves as diversion from the crisis of Drug Co. death by opiate addition.
when will we stop lying to ourselves???
All true, but when you don’t try … that’s a disgrace. Didn’t try to do anything about the banks. Did not even open his mouth on healthcare … Obamacare is joke, he had nothing to do with it. Perhaps he would not have succeeded (maybe even likely), but when you don’t try, either you are coward, or you don’t really care.
Obamacare is joke
Not to the insurance corporations. The day Obamacare was approved their stocks rose to very high levels.
I have no idea why Trump selected Jeff Sessions to be Attorney General, other than that he supported Trump early. Trump is hardly a ‘good ole boy’ from the South. I’m not surprised by the previous comment by Todd Kroger. Barack Obama was President for 8 years … what did he do to help African-Americans? … just about nothing. What did Eric Holder do about the incredible incarceration rate of African Americans … ditto.
I agree, and found Todd Kruger’s post informative as well.
Jill Stein recount initiative + republican shenanigans and the Real Voter Fraud.
The obdurate ambition of the tea-party has grown thru the militant
“alt-right” movement and the success of Senate Obstructionism.
The Black Panthers sought to gain “equality” through 2nd amendments rights
but were murdered and imprisoned under auspices of FBI “law and order”.
What follows rewards the fallacy of faith in a Politically Placed Deceiver.
“Thrust in thy Sickle and Reap the Harvest” from Sessions’s secessionists
Michigan 300,000 votes less than Obama in 2012 (75,00 Black voters accepted the boycott challenge); North Carolina 2 million votes decided to stay home; Wisconsin 230,000 fewer votes; and Pennsylvania 130,000 blacks said no this year to the Democratic Party. This is how black America (Todd Elliott Koger) helped make Donald Trump our 45th President.
The Democrats had always thrown shade in our direction. Black Lives Matter’s founders put in writing their “rejection” of us because their stated agenda “LGBTQ” issues. In June 2016, Donald Trump was the only one willing to listen to us. We explained to Mr. Trump that we had been voting almost 50 years “straight” Democrat and our situation remained the same or worst.
First, Mr. Trump issued an online video that addressed our plight. Next he went to Michigan and then took the message to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Thereafter, we packaged the visual optics and shared his fight against the “status quo” with black America. And, in late August 2016, we outlined the grassroots plan that defined demographics, targeted groups, and the available tools to grow an arsenal of black Trump supporters. We had to work night and day to control the message and Mr. Trump’s “Plan for Black America” as a campaign strategy to change the conversation when Mr. Trump slumped in the polls.
When “sh*t hit the fan” in October 2016 and everyone started to run from Mr. Trump we suggested a “writing,” a “NEW DEAL” proposal for black America to put things back on track. Donald Trump owes his victory to “predominately black Democratic strongholds of Pennsylvania” who were convinced to give Mr. Trump 31 percent more votes than the previous Republican Party presidential candidate. African Americans like Todd Elliott Koger convinced hundreds of thousands blacks in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and various other states to boycott the traditional “straight” Democratic Party vote in 2016.
Mr. Trump’s “margin of victory” is realized when you combine this with an increase of “Obama white voters” in Wisconsin and Michigan voting Trump in 2016. Trump won Pennsylvania by 1.1 percentage points (68,236 votes), Wisconsin by 0.9 points (27,257 votes), and Michigan by 0.2 points (11,837 votes). If Clinton had won all three states, she would have won the Electoral College 278 to 260. She fell short in all three.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dieNd5h_qpw