Battle Creek Times

Ken Blackwell, an advisory board member of Black Voices for Trump, as well as former Cincinnati Mayor and former Ohio Secretary of State, recently appeared on WJR’s "The Frank Beckmann Show" to discuss President Donald Trump’s Platinum Plan and Black economic empowerment with temporary host Chris Renwick.

“What the president understands is that what urban areas need is capital investment, and urban areas is where the preponderance of the Black population in America resides,” Blackwell told Renwick. “Those communities need safe streets, good schools, work opportunity and religious liberty.”

The last 244 years have shown that big government and expanding the welfare state do not create “cities that are fields of opportunities,” he told Renwick. What makes the difference is “good people doing great things together.”

Trump’s policies have brought much-needed opportunities for capital investment to urban areas and Black communities, according to Blackwell.

“What Americans are faced with now is choosing between -- in many of these cities where there are protests and riots -- is a choice between justice and chaos, economic development and opportunity vs. unrest and urban flight,” Blackwell told Renwick.

And it’s not just people who leave when urban flight occurs, but their money as well, Blackwell pointed out. When both capital for investments and revenue from people who contribute more in taxes than they demand from the city in services leave, it puts the city in a downward spiral.

Renwick also asked for Blackwell’s perspective on why support for Trump has grown among Black supporters.

“More than the polls, I’ve crisscrossed the country, and what I’m hearing on the ground is that enthusiasm in the predominantly Black communities in America for the president and the president’s agenda is on the rise,” Blackwell told Renwick.

Blackwell told Renwick that Trump’s 2016 achievement of receiving 8% of the Black vote was already approximately double what either Mitt Romney or John McCain received, yet Blackwell's projections now show Trump receiving up to 18% of the Black vote.