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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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African-Americans found themselves trapped in urban decay rather than a promise of continued economic prosperity.

If Trump's political life survives this prosecution into the next election, I really wonder how the whole thing will play with African-Americans and how he'll try to play it. He had already gone to great lengths in his prior campaigns and presidency, doing everything he could to give the appearance that he was working hard to embrace them as a constituency and draw their votes. Given that a regular concern of the African-American community is something along the lines of, "Vague police powers are abused to target us, suppress us, and keep us out of any sort of 'official' life," doesn't he immediately get to play that up even more? "I understand you; these people wield these laws and powers unjustly, targeting us unfairly just to keep us down, because they don't like us." Maybe it won't end up being effective in pushing numbers, and he'll have to balance it a little bit with the 'law and order' constituency that wants promises that he'll go after actual theft, murder, and rioting... but how does this not shoot up to being one of the top three-or-so issues of his campaign?