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Trump's black and Latino voter outreach has always had the fantastical sound of something fit for a vision board.
Polls continue to show that Trump's alternating declarations that he can win the black vote or the Hispanic vote have never had a basis in reality. But on Thursday, things got real.
Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles President Alfonso Aguilar decided he'd had enough. So did Texas Hispanic Republican Federation Chair Artemio "Temo" Muniz and Trump National Hispanic Advisory Council member Jacob Monty.
All three, and an apparently growing list of prominent conservative Latino operatives, announced that they are done with Trump, withdrawing their support or resigning positions inside his campaign. The reason: the uncompromising hard-line immigration speech Trump gave Wednesday. It was as if Trump was speaking from a script with stage instructions that included the words "avoid any hints of a softer position, discard all nuance." Instead Trump yelled most of his 10-point immigration plan into a microphone and sounded more like he did the day he announced his White House bid than he has in weeks.
[Hispanic supporters flee Donald Trump’s campaign after fiery immigration speech]
And as much of Trump's support from well-known Hispanic politicos began to recede Wednesday, his campaign also clarified the terms of an at-least-partial surrender in its pursuit of black votes. Its weekend plans went from limited contact with an audience of black voters to assured contact with just one. Trump won't speak to a Detroit black congregation, just sit for a televised interview with a black pastor. This would be only mildly unusual if it weren't for the fact that Trump has not shown up and talked to a large group of black voters anywhere. Instead, unlike many other Republicans, he's declined those invitations.
[Fact Checker: Trump campaign’s claim that Republicans ‘usually aren’t bold enough’ to do black community outreach]
Trump's comments aimed at black and Latino voters have always consisted largely of sweeping statements, photo opportunities and private meetings at Trump Tower. On Wednesday, when Trump gave that immigration speech, the clock simply ran out on Trump's ability to pretend that he can trick or somehow cut a slick deal with voters of color. Trump won't be allowed to use a subset of well-known conservative Latino political operatives or a large number of black pastors to give the appearance of broad-based support.
Now, there have also been occasional campaign announcements to make sure that the media is aware of the boldface names in minority politics and, well, others involved with the Trump campaign. There's Omarosa Manigault, the infamously villainous reality TV star and onetime Clinton administration staffer; Lynne Patton, vice president of the Eric Trump Foundation and the Rev. Marc Burns, an evangelical black pastor affiliated with a mostly white South Carolina church. They and others have all been willing to say publicly they support Trump and will try to convince others to do the same. But never has Trump come out of one of those Trump Tower meetings and said, on this specific thing, I have changed my mind. He's only said the equivalent of: We talked, I listened.
So there are people, many of them Democrats, who will take in Thursday's Trump news cyclone without even a moment of surprise. Trump, these people will almost certainly say, was never serious, never interested in the political concerns of people of color.
Trump simply wanted to make it seem so to white voters who do not appreciate the divisive, often bigotry-enhanced content of his campaign. Getting well-known Latino political operatives and semi-well-known black pastors and others to back him was always about optics, about appearing less offensive to a bigger set of white voters. That's all Trump was really after when he added those lines describing an incredibly dire version of black life in the United States to his stump speech.
It's worth noting that several of those who resigned from Trump's campaign or support operations Thursday described themselves as repulsed by Trump's description of illegal immigrants as a source of criminal and economic peril in the United States. But, it his casual mention of the fewer than 1 million young adults who have gained temporary immigration reprieves and the legal right to work in the United States under Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program that really went to far. These young people would have to go. Program over. Nothing more to be said. That, to some of those who stepped away from the Trump campaign, was utterly unacceptable.
Here's why. In reality, those included in the program are mostly young adults still in high school or college. Many are serving in, or have served in, the military. They have lived in the United States for all but a few years of their lives. They do not know their home countries or, in some cases, have anywhere to live if forcibly returned.
Consider what Monty said on CNN on Thursday afternoon:
When he called for the deportation of DACA recipients that is completely unrealistic, cruel and ... not to mention not good for the U.S. economy. ... When I saw that I had to resign because I'm not going to be a prop for his image like the president of Mexico was yesterday. I'm unwilling to be part of his propaganda machine.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, center, joins a group of African American religious leaders to speak to reporters in New York on Nov. 30, 2015. (Seth Wenig/Associated Press)
Thursday did not mark the first time one of Trump's minorities as props moments fell apart. Trump already endured a November debacle of a get-together with black pastors at Trump Tower. Several of the pastors whose names had been shared with reporters refused to attend after news of the meeting got out. Most of those who did refused to endorse Trump.
But this month, a far smaller group of well-known black Republicans such as Dr. Ben Carson, one time Republican presidential candidate, and black pastors showed up for another meeting. This group of pastors included a number who televangelists and believers in a theology that insists that the faithful are rewarded with riches, health and material blessings on earth. Trump, these pastors said, is their candidate.
Pastor Mark Burns, co-founder and chief executive of Christian Television Network, arrives at Trump Tower for a meeting with Republican nominee Donald Trump in New York (Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)
Some have large black congregations — they just may not be large enough, or those pastors influential enough, to move Trump's black voter support numbers in most polls above 4 percent. This is where Trump's weekend visit to Detroit was supposed to come in.
News that Trump will not offer a speech to Bishop Wayne T. Jackson's Detroit congregation, nor make himself available for voter questions, did little to shake Jackson's excitement about his planned sit-down with Trump during his own Thursday afternoon CNN interview. Jackson seemed perfectly content, or at least confident, that he can ask a sufficient number of questions to address the concerns of 13 million black Americans.
Trump's plans to "reach out" to black voters through him seem about as likely to work as his efforts to pretend that he had adopted a softer stance on immigration. That's especially true if Trump plans to say more about job competition between the people Trump has been known to call "the blacks" --some of whom are immigrants -- and the people Trump often calls "the illegals." That has not worked for other candidates in the past. It would require large numbers of black voters to believe that Trump is genuinely concerned about them and committed to respecting their rights.
Here is what that immigration speech made clear. Trump remains unwilling or unable to pivot on policy in a way that might help him win a bigger slice of Hispanic votes. Instead, he affirmed some of the very reasons that so many black and Latino voters regard him as suspect or worse.
There isn't a really effective way to campaign and disguise that.
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