CNN’s Dr. Drew Pinsky: ‘Much to My Surprise,’ Trump Supporters ‘Are People of Color of Various Races, Ethnicities’

CNN/screenshot
CNN/screenshot

On Wednesday, CNN’s Dr. Drew Pinsky said he has been surprised that, contrary to stereotypes, many of Donald Trump’s supporters are minorities.

Last week, Pinsky brought in an audience of Trump supporters on his HLN show because he wanted “to understand the Trump phenomenon.” He said “much to my surprise” many of the people supporting Trump “are people of color of various races and ethnicities.”

“I have to stop every time in my show and stop and go ‘wait a minute, you don’t look like who I hear the Trump supporters are,” Pinsky said, noting that Trump’s supporters told him that they have “been treated as some sort of monolithic group.”

The Grio even observed that, “surprisingly, many in the audience were African-American.”

Pinsky made his remarks to host Carol Costello, who, along with Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President Javier Javier Palomarez, accused Trump of engaging in “hate speech” on Tuesday. Those on the right have also tried to demean Trump’s supporters. Glenn Beck, using the favorite tactic of progressives that he claims to so despise, also accused Trump’s supporters of being racists just like he accused Newt Gingrich’s supporters of being “racist” during the 2012 election cycle when Beck was upset that Gingrich was gaining ground on Mitt Romney.

Pinsky said that Trump’s supporters are those who need jobs in America, who “want people who are taking my jobs dealt with… if they are taking my jobs illegally.” They want a candidate to “support me and make me feel good about my country again.” Jamiel Shaw Sr., whose son was murdered by an illegal immigrant, told Pinsky that he supported Trump when he heard Trump talk about getting rid of the illegal immigrant gang bangers. Shaw said Trump should have also mentioned that illegal immigrants are also “murderers” in addition to “rapists” in his announcement speech and asked, “what would you expect someone running for president to do if [an illegal immigrant] killed someone in your family?

In a recent national Survey USA poll found that Trump defeating Hillary Clinton also, Trump received the support of  25% of blacks and 31% of Hispanics, and his pro-worker immigration policy may be resonating with blue-collar (and even white-collar Americans in the tech sector) of all backgrounds. Slate‘s Jamelle Bouie even conceded that Trump’s immigration plan was “not a bad play” for courting black voters in the general election.

Anecdotal evidence also indicates that Trump may be stronger with minorities than conventional wisdom suggests.

Katrina Campanis, a former Apprentice contestant who is of Hispanic descent, recently said that “there’s a lot of people I know that are going to vote for Trump and they are Hispanic,”

“A lot of Hispanic clients of mine have told me they’re going to vote for Trump but they just don’t want to go out in the public and expose themselves.”

The Wall Street Journal‘s Peggy Noonan wrote about her Cesar, a Dominican immigration who “works the deli counter at my neighborhood grocery store.” Cesar told Noonan that the hosts of a popular radio show (“El Vacilón de la Mañana”) on a local Hispanic radio station, La Mega, on 97.9 FM, were surprised than more than half of the callers after the first GOP debate called in and praised Trump. The hosts told Noonan that “they were very surprised” that the “Latin-based market” supported Trump. After Trump’s confrontation with Jorge Ramos, the majority of the radio station’s callers backed Trump as well.

Here’s more from Noonan’s column:

I said: Cesar, you’re supposed to be offended by Trump, he said Mexico is sending over criminals, he has been unfriendly, you’re an immigrant. Cesar shook his head: No, you have it wrong. Immigrants, he said, don’t like illegal immigration, and they’re with Mr. Trump on anchor babies. “They are coming in from other countries to give birth to take advantage of the system. We are saying that! When you come to this country, you pledge loyalty to the country that opened the doors to help you.”

He added, “We don’t bloc vote anymore.” The idea of a “Latin vote” is “disparate,” which he said generally translates as nonsense, but which he means as “bull—-.”

He finished, on the subject of Jorge Ramos: “The elite have different notions from the grass-roots working people.”

Regarding their opinion of political and media elites, minorities, it may turn out, may have a lot in common with the Reagan Democrats who are flocking to Trump’s candidacy.

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