The black students and Trump scene at Chick-fil-A may be more than it seems

“I don’t care what the media says, Mr. Trump. We support you,” said Michaelah Montgomery, who hugged Trump during a recent stop in Atlanta.

After former President Donald Trump greeted several young Black students during Chick-fil-A’s visit to Atlanta, Democratic strategists are throwing cold water on any suggestion that the viral moment signals broader support for him amongst young Black voters.

“I don’t think it changes the established norm that Donald Trump has an agenda that is generally quite hostile towards Black people,” Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist, told TheGrio. “That doesn’t mean every African-American voter will feel that way. However, this does not mean that there are no opinions that deviate from the norm.”

On Wednesday, Trump stopped by a Chick-fil-A restaurant near Atlanta’s top HBCUs: Spelman College, Morehouse College, Clark Atlanta University and Morris Brown College. The Republican presidential candidate, who faces 4 criminal charges — including one in Atlanta prosecuted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis — greeted mostly young, black customers and employees.

The former president, who bought young customers milkshakes, was met with smiles and joy, including from Michaelah Montgomery, who told him: “I don’t care what the media tells you, Mr. Trump, we support you.” Trump then offered to hug Montgomery, who later declared, “Tell my mom I made it!”

According to her LinkedIn account, Montgomery graduated from Clark Atlanta in 2020 and is the founding father of Conserve the Culture, a conservative grassroots group. She looked as if it would be implying as much Fox News on Friday that Chick-fil-A students were a part of her organization.

Although Trump’s planned visit (the Chick-fil-A sequence is owned by one in all his golf club members) has generated loads of attention on social media, political experts say it doesn’t change the facts about Trump’s attitude towards black voters.

“I don’t want to exaggerate a small, viral moment at a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta and give the impression that … Donald Trump is winning over Black people,” Kevin Olasanoye, executive director of the Democratic Party of Georgia, told Tolulope. “He didn’t win over many Black people in 2020. He didn’t win over many Blacks in 2016. He won’t get many Blacks in 2024.”

While some polls last 12 months showed Trump gaining more than 22% amongst black voters in key battleground states, a recent poll by Pew Research Center found that only 12% of Black voters say they support the Republican Party. Trump won 8% of the Black vote in 2020, in line with Pew.

However, several polls also show a decline in Black support for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, largely because of their feelings concerning the economy and the foreign policy of the Biden-Harris administration supporting Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

“We just need to talk about these issues in a real way so that people remember what the real story of the Trump presidency is (and) what the real story of the Biden presidency is,” Olasanoye said.

Reecie Colbert, a political strategist and host of “The Reecie Colbert Show” on Sirius disinformation (and) disinformation.”

Some of that misinformation comes from rap culture, said Colbert, who noted that Montgomery referenced rapper Lil Baby’s song “4PF.”

“I think her references to that kind of refer to some of these rappers who have perpetuated the idea that Trump gave us stimulus checks and gave us money, when in fact it’s the other way around,” she noted. “We have seen the closure of black businesses, we have seen the rise of black unemployment, we have seen the annihilation of much black wealth.”

On the opposite hand, Colbert said, the Biden-Harris administration, which also issued stimulus checks under the American Rescue Plan after two months in office, has seen record low black unemployment and a big return of small black businesses.

She added: “And don’t forget that the child tax credit cut black child poverty in half during the year it was in effect.”

Colbert said that despite the numbers, there remains to be an “appeal” to Trump that perpetuates “the false notion that he has been an economic boon to the country and to Black people.”

Payne, who was director of paid Black media during former Sen. Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential election, noted that Trump also has a star factor.

“There is something about fame that washes over people and allows them to either forget or compartmentalize other things that exist, and that is something special about Trump,” he said. “I think his fame and his brand have a huge impact on their perception of him. But I think it would be unfair to characterize this as something exclusive to black voters.”

Payne said Democrats might want to “persuade” young black voters, not simply motivate them to “turn out” as they’ve in years past.

“It’s more important to continue to bring this issue to large numbers of African-American voters, young African-American voters, to remind them of the reality of what the Trump presidency has been,” he said. “To remind them of things they may have forgotten.”

“This is the party that has prevented young black voters from getting student loan forgiveness,” Olasanoye said of the Republican Party. “This is a party that is at odds with younger black voters on climate justice.”

Trump, he argued, is in no way running an “issue-based campaign.” He added: “I don’t believe in what Donald Trump says, I believe in what he’s doing and I think black people should do it too.”

Olasanoye said the challenge for Democrats is that “we’re not talking about it in a way that resonates with people, especially Black voters.” He continued: “We need to do this quickly because there are only 207 days left until the most important election of our lives.”

He added: “If we lose this election, it will be because we have not told our own story. We have no one to blame but ourselves.”

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