Republicans came to Philly to court Black voters — and wound up insulting them instead

I heard it.

I was sitting close to the stage on a bar stool when U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R., Fla.) made that nostalgic-sounding remark on Tuesday night about how “during Jim Crow the Black family was together.”

I was one of a couple of hundred people attending the “Congress, Cognac, and Cigars” event, part of a push from the Trump campaign to court Black voters.

But that’s not all Donalds said about Jim Crow that night. “During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — because Black people have always been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted conservatively.”

» READ MORE: This Trump VP candidate came to Philly and said Black families were stronger during the Jim Crow era. Now Rep. Byron Donalds is in trouble in D.C.

It was disappointing to hear Donalds sound like a Dixiecrat repeating an old trope about the rise of so many female-headed households.

Maybe the tequila and cognac Donalds, a contender to be Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, had been sipping had gone to his head because absolutely nothing about those days of legalized apartheid was good for African Americans.

I know his home state of Florida isn’t big on teaching Black history, but as a Black man, he should never forget how we were legally prohibited from exercising our right to vote, among other things, and could be jailed for even ordering food at a lunch counter. He also would have been legally prohibited from marrying his wife Erika (who is white) in many parts of the country. He certainly wouldn’t be occupying a seat in Congress.

Nothing was better during Jim Crow. Nothing. Donalds should know that.

The following day, his statement drew a sharp rebuke from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) and other Democrats. “That’s an outlandish, outrageous, and out-of-pocket observation,” Jeffries said of Donalds’ comments. “How dare you make such an ignorant observation?” The backlash has been so strong that even Trump has tried to distance himself from the event.

But that night inside the Cigar Code on Delaware Avenue, I didn’t hear anyone push back against Donalds’ rose-colored vision of the past. Not one.

Donalds was clearly in friendly territory. The fact that the nonsense he spouted went down as smooth as all of that Hennessy he and members of the audience were sipping inside that smoke-filled cigar lounge should be cause for concern for the Democrats come November.

I walked in Tuesday night with my head on a swivel, uncertain about what to expect. The room was filled mainly with well-dressed Black men — a demographic the Republicans are going after hard this election season. They were standing around puffing on cigars and talking.

Once the program was underway, sports journalist Michele Tafoya kicked things off by asking why the GOP hadn’t done more to promote itself to African Americans, and why the Democratic Party has such a strong hold on the Black community. U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt (R., Texas) responded, “That is the question that we have to answer every single day as being free thinkers that are Black men.” (If he’s a free thinker, does that make the rest of us sheep?)

Hunt, who was there with Donalds, talked about his 70-something parents who had met at Southern University and A&M College, a historically Black university in Baton Rouge, La.: “They were married to the Democratic Party at that time. It made sense where the country was, where we were politically.”

Since then, though, clearly much has changed. “In a handful of generations, this country has made the kind of growth the world has never seen, but we as a culture have not been able to catch up with that from a political standpoint,” Hunt said.

But then Hunt grabbed the wheel of the car and veered it off the road. “We were better off under Republicans than we were under Democrats, but the reason why the Democrats have a hold on the Black community is because our parents’ parents’ parents keep telling us, ‘You’ve got to vote Democrat. You’ve got to vote Democrat,’” he said. “But it’s up to us and this generation to say, ‘Well why?’”

Here, he lost me. Black people aren’t Democrats just because our parents told us to be. We vote blue because we want to — and because we see that our interests are better served by a party that values diversity, advocates for health care for all, and respects women’s rights to sovereignty over their bodies, among other things.

The event continued mostly in this fashion: One minute I was nodding along as Hunt and Donalds were talking about the reality of the Black experience in America, then they would veer off and say something outlandish, making me want to yell out, “Really?” I don’t recall hearing one word of criticism about the twice-impeached felon convicted in a hush-money payoff to an adult film star. But I did sit and listen to Donalds call Democrats “stupid” and say “Americans know when something don’t smell right. Black people, in particular, we really know when something doesn’t smell right.”

At one point, I gazed around the room, taking note of all the well-dressed Black people listening attentively, when I spotted a local socialite and real estate agent. She was sitting by herself in a dark corner puffing on a cigar. Our eyes locked for a moment. Then my phone pinged. She sent a text saying, “I didn’t know what I was coming to.” I chuckled inwardly.

As much as Republicans love to brag about African Americans gravitating to the GOP, being a Black Republican still carries a certain amount of social stigma. She didn’t want the association, and given the current state of the Republican Party, I can’t say I blame her. It’s not what it used to be, back when most African Americans belonged to the party of Lincoln. Before long, she slipped out the door.

Come November, the vast majority of African Americans will wisely cast ballots in favor of President Joe Biden. However, perhaps 30% of Black men, according to a Wall Street Journal poll, are expected to vote for Trump.

I got the sense that most of the people in the room that night had already climbed aboard the Trump train. When I think about all that man has put this nation through, that prospect makes me really sad.