Clinton weaves his magic but Trump’s support from black men ‘boggles the mind’

Phoenix, Arizona: There is still something magical about being in the presence of Bill Clinton, the boy from Arkansas whose famous charisma propelled him to become America’s first Baby Boomer president in 1992.

That charm was on display again on Thursday (AEDT) as he addressed black supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris in Phoenix, Arizona – a state he won in 1996, becoming the first Democrat running for president to do so in 50 years.

Former president Bill Clinton at an event for black voters in Phoenix, Arizona.Credit: AP

President Joe Biden did it again in 2020, picking up the 11 electoral college votes from a state Clinton said he had watched “with joy” as it became more diverse and its people more empowered.

Clinton had the small crowd cackling as he lampooned the supposedly “tough” Donald Trump and J.D. Vance for avoiding a second TV debate against Harris. “The one thing they decided not to do, for all their macho talk, those boys didn’t want to get anywhere near another debate,” he said.

Clinton’s appearance at the Black Voters for Harris-Walz event came as another poll spoke to Harris’ voting struggles with some black men. A GenForward survey of 2135 voters under 40 found 26 per cent of black men said they would vote for Trump, compared to 12 per cent of black women.

The majority of black men still support Harris, and have reliably supported Democratic candidates by significant margins in previous elections. Some analysts argue the narrative about Harris under-performing with black men is exaggerated.

Former Arizona state senator Sandra Kennedy at the Black Voters for Harris-Walz event on Wednesday.Credit: Michael Koziol

But several polls have indicated softer support than usual, and Harris recently released a manifesto, Opportunity Agenda for Black Men, detailing policies aimed at the demographic, which include items on cryptocurrency and the recreational marijuana industry.

“It boggles my mind a little bit,” said Sandra Kennedy, a former state senator and member of the Arizona Corporation Commission, of the support for Trump among black men. “But I do hope that between now and election day we can bring them into the column of Harris.”

Clinton had a notable affinity with black voters and was even dubbed “the first black president” by the late black writer Toni Morrison, though she later said the moniker had been misunderstood.

He did not discuss matters of race at the event, instead opting to take three major concerns for all voters – price gouging, housing and energy policy – and compare the candidates’ policy positions, or what he portrayed as a lack thereof from Trump.

That is the approach Democrats are taking to convince undecided voters in the latter days of this campaign: that, as Harris said, Trump has an “enemies list”, while she has a “to-do list”. He will assign blame for problems, she will fix them.

But Clinton warned Harris was “extremely vulnerable, more vulnerable than she deserves to be, to crazy attacks”, and that for most undecided voters or people who didn’t follow politics, “what they think of her largely depends on what they think of President Biden”.

The 78-year-old Clinton was a little slow and strained early on, fumbling some words, but hit his stride at the end of his half hour on stage as he touched upon the Democrats’ theme of the day: Trump’s dictatorial approach to governing.

“He’s really good at some things. He was a very good golfer. Genuinely good,” Clinton said. “But when it comes to politics, he believes good politics is total domination. That’s what he thinks is good … he thought he was just supposed to tell people what to do, and they’d say, ‘Yes’.”

Channell Powe, a local Democratic community organiser in Phoenix, said racism and sexism were to blame for the election going down to the wire.Credit: Michael Koziol

Harris and the Democrats seized on comments from Trump’s longest-serving chief-of-staff John Kelly, a retired four-star general, who claimed the Republican wanted generals who were as obedient as Adolf Hitler’s, and on multiple occasions had said Hitler “did some good things too”. Trump responded by calling Kelly a “lowlife” and “total degenerate”.

Kelly’s comments, reported in multiple interviews, led Harris to agree Trump was a fascist at a CNN town hall-style event – the first time she has publicly described him thus.

Many Australians looking at the US election from afar might wonder: Given Trump’s extreme rhetoric over a long period, his disregard for the country’s institutions and his penchant for authoritarianism, why is the race still so close?

Channell Powe, a Democratic community organiser and ex-school board member at the Clinton event, offered one answer. “A lot of it is racism, unfortunately, and sexism. You have a clear distinction between two candidates. One is on a path forward to uniting Americans, and the other is on a divisive path to dictatorship,” she said.

But some people were vulnerable to a deluge of misinformation, disinformation and “flat out lies”, she said, to the point of voting against their own interests.

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