‘This Is 100% About Race’: Trump Supporters Targeting Black Voters, Strategist Says
Americans should expect something amped up from the violence of 2021, Stevens says
Donald Trump’s supporters are willing to resort to violence trying to drive down votes among Black Americans, according to a prominent former Republican strategist who opposes Trump.
These Trump supporters are willing to cause violence as a pretext to challenge the validity of the presidential election should the Republican lose in November, said Stuart Stevens, an author and political consultant who was a top strategist on Republican Mitt Romney’s 2012 run for the White House.
Trump’s backers are willing to resort to brutal violence to quell Black votes, he said.
Trump has denigrated opponent Kamala Harris’ Black heritage while claiming that he is going to lengths to court a larger share of the Black vote.
But his supporters plan to challenge votes in cities with high Black populations, Stevens said.
“Look, this is 100 percent about race. Let’s don’t pretend it’s anything else,” he said. “It has been from the beginning. Where are all these ‘suspect votes’? Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta. What do they have in common? High percentage of African American voters. Those that voted not to certify those elections were basically trying to disenfranchise millions and millions of black voters. It’s that simple.
“You know, they can’t stop blacks from voting anymore the way they did in the ’60s with the same kind of success, though with these voter challenges they’re going to try,” Stevens added, referring to lawsuits by Republicans trying to purge states’ voter rolls. “And I think what is really to fear here is put yourself in the mindset that the Trump campaign really doesn’t think it can win, either the popular vote or Electoral College.
“You look at this campaign, it makes no sense. He’s not trying to add voters. What they want to do is they want to win the election night until the inauguration,” Stevens said. “And if they can go in and they can violently disrupt these counting centers, how will states be able to certify elections? You burn down a county center in Arizona, how does the governor certify those elections? What world are we in then?”
This is a threat all Americans should be taking seriously, given the actions of Trump and his supporters to subvert the results of the presidential election in 2020, Stevens said.
“And I think that we really have to anticipate that, think about it. One of the great ridiculousness about this Big Lie campaign is there was not one secretary of state in America — the majority of whom were Republicans — who said that the election in their state was anything short of by the standard rules and fair and free. But that didn’t stop Trump,” he said.
Please support our work…
Please subscribe…