TULSA, Oklahoma – Former Vanderbilt University professor Dr. Carol Swain and former Presidential candidate Herman Cain both agreed that support for President Trump is growing and not just in the black community, in an exclusive interview with The Tennessee Star prior to the official start of the Trump rally in Tulsa Saturday.
Both are members of the Black Voices for Trump Advisory Board, which started out with about 35 members and has now expanded to about 50. The Board includes other spiritual and social leaders such as Dr. Alveda King, Reverend C. L. Bryant, Deneen Borelli, Diamond and Silk and the Hodge Twins. At the insistence of others, Cain said he serves as one of the Board’s co-chairs.
Dr. Swain told The Star that she didn’t need a specific role to be at the rally. “I’m here to support the President.”
“I don’t have a special role in the rally. I am attending as a member of the Black Voices for Trump Advisory Board and the Mighty American Strike Force. I am always excited whenever there is an opportunity to support President Trump by attending one of his rallies. I see this historic post-coronavirus rally as an important opportunity for the President to encourage Americans during a time of great suffering in our nation. The President needs to be seen and heard by the people who look to him for leadership.”
A former Democrat who is known for her straight talk, “People come to me when they want to hear what’s really going on in the world,” said Dr. Swain.
Another point she and Cain agreed on: They were both a voice for Trump before becoming a Board member.
Founder of Be The People and author of several books, Dr. Swain said, “I do what I do for the United States of America.”
Cain said that the left with their division, violence and hate is “trying to drag us backwards.”
An expert in the area as former tenured professor at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Swain added that segregation on college campuses has been successful, to the point that she anticipates lawsuits to come out of it.
“We need to stop dreaming of a better yesterday. It’s about a better today and tomorrow,” Cain offered, although he said he couldn’t take credit for the quote.
When asked if they thought that support for President Trump going into the 2020 election was growing, particularly within the black community they were both very positive.
President Trump, before COVID-19, was poised to get between 20 and 30 percent of the black vote, Dr. Swain said.
While the George Floyd incident is being used to sell white supremacy, “I don’t think it will work,” said Dr. Swain.
It was estimated that Trump received 8 percent of the black vote in 2016, said Dr. Swain. Senator Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) thinks that it will be 12 percent in the 2020 election.
“That’s a 50 percent increase,” Dr. Swain pointed out.
Cain was convinced that Trump’s support is growing and used the June 9 presidential preference primary in Georgia, the state in which he lives, as evidence.
Running unopposed in the Republican primary, more than 900,000 people were motivated enough to come out to vote for Trump.
Keeping COVID-19 alive will also be used against Trump’s economy and for the purposes of absentee ballots.
To that, Cain said, when it comes to the economy, “voters are not stupid” in recognizing the states that are better off for being more open.
Although widely criticized for holding a rally during the ongoing presence of COVID-19, Dr. Swain said she had no health concerns about attending the rally.
“The Trump campaign has taken practical steps to protect attendees.”
Pointing to other large gatherings during protests and riots across the country, Dr. Swain contrasted, “The environment will be much safer than the mass rallies taking place across the nation. It is my understanding that the campaign will be conducting temperature checks and offering attendees masks and hand sanitizer.”
“Most Trump supporters don’t live their lives in fear and they have learned to be skeptical about the conflicting reports that change on an almost daily basis.”
“We are freedom-loving Americans,” Dr. Swain summarized about Trump supporters, “who believe in the greatness of our nation and its potential for improvement.”
During the rally, about two dozen members of the Black Voices for Trump Advisory Board had reserved seating and could be seen sitting to the left of the President.
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Laura Baigert is a senior reporter at The Tennessee Star.
