One of the things conservatives noted approvingly was the way the Republican National Convention reached out to blacks.  For too long, Republicans had a defeatist attitude about black voters.  Even though Republican policies manifestly benefited blacks, Republicans believed that the black bias in favor of Democrat candidates was insurmountable.  Trump never believed that, and it's his faith in black voters that may be paying off.  A post-convention poll shows that 24% of registered black voters support him.

We all know how black voters switched their allegiance from the Republican party — an allegiance created during Reconstruction — to the Democrat party, beginning during the Depression.  By the 1960s, even though the Democrat party was the party of slavery and Jim Crow, and even though more Democrats voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than did Republicans, the fact that a Democrat president presided over its passage seemed to cement blacks permanently to the Democrat party.  That's why, for more than 50 years, blacks give around 90% of their votes to Democrat presidential candidates.

Democrat policies haven't been good for blacks.  Instead, Democrats have pushed welfare-based policies as a drug-dealer pushes heroin.  The user knows that the stuff is bad for him but just can't say no.  Regardless of the facts on the ground, though, the Democrats still consistently managed to convince American blacks that Republicans, the party of abolition and Reconstruction, were invariably the second coming of the KKK.

Trump, however, was not from the Republican old guard and saw no reason not to make a play for black voters.  In 2016, his greatest efforts were not yet directed at blacks, but, as he rightly asked blacks while outside Lansing, Michigan, back in August 2016, "What do you have to lose by trying something new, like Trump?  What do you have to lose?"

Once elected, Trump did pay attention to black Americans.  He did not follow the Democrat path of lots of lip service and no beneficial policies.  Instead, Trump created opportunity zones that enticed businesses into black neighborhoods and funded Historically Black Colleges and Universities.  

Additionally, Trump, unlike Obama, passed the First Step Act, a prison reform bill that is returning to black communities many of the non-violent offenders (mostly men) whom Joe Biden's 1994 Crime Bill placed in prison.  Yes, some of them will be recidivists, but I happen to be among those who believe that part of the pathology in many crime-ridden black neighborhoods is that Joe Biden sent fathers to prison.  Trump let them out again.

The most important thing Trump did was get the economy humming by lowering taxes and reducing regulations.  Suddenly, blacks weren't dependent on the Democrats anymore.  They were making it.  This progress ended only because of the Democrats' ongoing pigheaded refusal to let go of the lockdowns in their states, which has hurt the economy, and their overwhelming support for the Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots that have destroyed black business zones.

Despite the setbacks for blacks that the Democrats willfully created in 2020, Trump was not going to let the Democrats again label blacks as victims and inveigle them back into the smothering confines of the Democrat fold.  Instead, Trump and the Republican National Committee made a play for minority voters during the convention.

One black speaker after another talked about the economic benefits flowing from Republican policies.  They spoke of the blessings of America if one is willing to take them.  And they described a society in which blacks are welcomed as equals instead of being used as political pawns every four years.

That message seems to have resonated with black voters (and Hispanic voters, too).  According to a Hill-HarrisX poll, Trump ended August with a nine-percentage-point increase among black voters compared to the beginning of August.  Currently, 24% of registered black voters approve of what he's doing.  Meanwhile, Hispanic voters have also increased their approval by 2% over August, from 30% to 32%.

These numbers should strike fear in Democrat hearts, over and above their fear that the riots have torpedoed the huge polling lead that Biden had over Trump.  In 2010, long before Trump appeared on the scene, Thomas Sowell wrote:

Republicans don't need to get a majority of the black vote. If they get 20 percent of the black vote, the Democrats are in trouble — and if they get 30 percent, the Democrats have had it in the general elections.

Most Republicans were too cowardly to take on that prediction.  Trump, however, believes in all Americans, minorities included.  To him, they're not just pawns in a power game; they are people who, if they'd be willing to vote for him, could join fully in America's bounty.

Image: Black voter registration 1960s, from the Kheel Center, Cornell University Library, CC BY 2.0.