Trump: Democrats have 'failed and betrayed the African-American community'

During a rally in Wisconsin Tuesday night, Donald Trump made a play for the votes of African-Americans, a demographic he said the Democratic Party has "taken for granted for decades."
Trump made his remarks in West Bend, where the population is 95 percent white. Earlier this month, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that among African-Americans, support for Trump is at 1 percent. During his speech, the Republican nominee said Democrats have "failed and betrayed the African-American community," and see them "only as votes, not as individual human beings worthy of a better future." Trump, who declined an invitation to the NAACP convention in July, said he will "rebuild inner cities," and his opponent, Hillary Clinton, "doesn't care at all about the hurting people of this country," who are "suffering" because of her.
Trump also said Clinton is "against the police, believe me. You know it and I know it and guess what, she knows it." In a message for any "lawbreaker hurting innocent people" watching at home, Trump said their "free reign will soon come crashing to an end," because he will "break up the gangs, cartels, and criminal syndicates terrorizing our neighborhoods." When it comes to education, Trump said he will end tenure and merit pay for teachers while promoting school choice. He also vowed to renegotiate NAFTA, make it a "costly proposition" for American businesses to leave the country, and said he's fighting for "peaceful regime change in our own country."
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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