It has never been easy to discern what the Black Lives Matter organization is all about. The group – which has now been around for ten years – has been plagued by infighting, allegations of embezzlement, and, of course, its encouragement of what some lawmakers have described as acts of domestic terrorism. What no one saw coming, though, was an endorsement of former President Donald Trump’s 2024 White House run. That’s not to say the whole organization is now backing Trump, but the co-founder of the Rhode Island chapter of BLM has thrown his support behind the 45th president, accusing the Democratic Party of racism.
Mark Fisher spoke with Fox News’ Lawrence Jones on Nov. 28 and did not mince words on why he has turned away from the Democrats and believes Trump is the man for the top job in 2024. Fisher told Jones he sees the Democratic Party as duplicitous and hypocritical. “We’re not stupid,” he said. “The brothers are not stupid. We understand when someone is for us and when someone is not – and it’s obvious that the Democratic Party is not for us.” He continued, “Their policies actually strike at the heart of the black family and the nuclear family.”
Black Lives Matter for Trump?
Donald Trump (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
When asked what it would take for Trump to gain the support of the black community, the RI Black Lives Matter co-founder said he believed it would happen organically once black people educate themselves about “Donald Trump as a person and his history.”
Fisher went on, “Personally, I love the man. How could you not? Like, a real man – how could you not relate to someone like that?”
This isn’t the first time Fisher has expressed his disapproval of Democrats. Earlier in November, he told another interviewer that he believes Democrats are racists. In conversation with Kim Iversen, a veteran broadcaster who may be one of the few real liberals (in the classical sense) left, Fisher explained:
“We’ve been used and abused for so long by that party, they don’t value our vote. Their policies are basically racist policies. I believe it’s a racist party. Donald Trump is just the opposite. He’s going to tell you how it is. He’s going to give it to you straight.”
Touting Trump’s achievements as president, Fisher went on to say, “Trump has done more for the black community than any president I can think of in my lifetime, and Biden has done nothing.”
Unrequited Loyalty
As a whole, black voters have overwhelmingly favored the Democratic Party for years. Their allegiance to the party whose members defended slavery, started the Ku Klux Klan, wrote the Jim Crow laws, and largely opposed the Civil Rights Act has always been curious. The modern Democratic Party champions abortion, which a majority of blacks oppose. It shuns and belittles Christianity while a lot of black people consider themselves devout churchgoers. It promotes a progressive culture war that seeks to destroy the nuclear family while most black activists recognize that the breakdown of the family unit is one of their community’s biggest problems.
Black Lives Matter is still very much a left-wing organization. Though it started with the entirely valid message that black lives should be valued as much as white lives, it was soon hijacked by the radical left. At one point, just a couple of years ago, the Black Lives Matter website seemed to contain more information about “transgender” rights than it did about black people. Interestingly, that has now changed. While the wider organization often appears to be little more than a money-making scheme, local and state chapters across the country have done some good work. Most of that has been overshadowed by the George Floyd riots of 2020, when radical Black Lives Matter activists rampaged through American cities, sometimes openly calling for the murder of police officers.
More and more, it seems black voters are, like Fisher, deciding that they have been used by the Democratic Party to win elections. There is simply no denying that a majority of the poorest, most dangerous, and most underserved inner-city neighborhoods in America are black neighborhoods in metropolitan areas that have been run by Democrats for decades. Some of those cities haven’t been under Republican control for 50 or 60 years. Democrats have always said that poverty and hopelessness drive crime and drug use. To an extent, this is indeed true – but which party has mired these neighborhoods in despair and destitution?
Trump will almost certainly not get the endorsement of the larger Black Lives Matter organization, but he is polling astonishingly well among blacks in some 2024 battleground states. Meanwhile, in at least one poll, Joe Biden has a 40% disapproval rating among blacks – and he’s doing even worse with Hispanics. Democrats have for years been able to take the black vote for granted. Those days might be gone already, and if they are not, they certainly appear to be numbered.
