Last week, Donald Trump launched his big pitch to African-American voters: “What do you have to lose?” Seductive, ain’t it? And not at all insulting that it was delivered in heavily white communities by a candidate who has—if you’re paying attention—made pretty clear that black people would have a lot to lose under him.
New campaign manager Kellyanne Conway has been out explaining to the media how everything Trump says is really much nicer than it sounded when he said it, but this one was almost worse in Conway’s nicey-nice framing to George Stephanopoulos on Sunday:
CONWAY: Those comments are for all Americans. And I live in a white community. I'm white. I was very moved by his comment. In other words, he is trying to tell Americans that we can do better. And the thing that he said that I think got a great deal of resonance is that maybe Hillary Clinton looks at you as voters as your -- takes you for granted. I look at you as people.
It’s like “all lives matter” for Trump rhetoric! Trump addresses “what do you have to lose” to black voters, and Conway insists it was “for all Americans.” And because it was for all Americans, Kellyanne Conway, white Republican pollster who lives in a white community (shocking!) is equipped to say it was very moving because, wow, Donald Trump “looks at you as people.”
Just ignore the fact that for many of the white supremacists whose support Trump has so carefully cultivated, the idea that Trump looks at African Americans as people would be an ugly surprise. And that when Conway says “you can’t do any worse,” she’s lying—do you want to guess how a Donald Trump Supreme Court appointee would rule on voting rights or affirmative action cases? What kind of policing and incarceration laws Trump would be happy to sign?
But really, a perfect encapsulation of what’s going on here might just be that Trump goes in front of a white audience to tell black people they have nothing to lose, and a blonde lady goes on the Sunday shows to say it’s okay, because she found it moving.