Out of Many, One

Last May, when Donald Trump held a campaign rally at Crotona Park in the South Bronx, he became the first Republican to visit the New York neighborhood for a national campaign event in 40 years. The neighborhood’s congressional district, NY-15, has long been a Democratic stronghold, with a Partisan Voting Index score of D+35 from the Cook Political Report. It is America’s poorest congressional district, with a median household income of just $32,381 in 2021 and more than one-third of households falling below the federal poverty line. Sixty-four percent of South Bronx residents identify as Hispanic, while 31 percent are black; foreign-born residents make up 32 percent of the district’s population.

New York Democrats and members of the mainstream media took offense at Trump’s decision to hold a campaign rally there. But residents who attended the rally had reasons for their interest. In an MSNBC report, many, including first-time voters and longtime Democratic partisans, cited crime, inflation, housing costs, and immigration to explain why Trump attracted them. Such sentiments reflected the concerns of black and Hispanic voters nationally: a November 2023 poll of 1,602 registered voters from the Black Economic Alliance, a nonpartisan group of black business leaders, found that black voters wanted elected officials to spend more time addressing economic issues—including high taxes, a lack of affordable housing, and job creation and workforce development—and less time on social issues such as abortion. A 2023 survey conducted by UnidosUS found that inflation and the rising cost of living, along with jobs and the economy, were the issues most important to this demographic.                  

For almost 90 minutes, Trump spoke at length about these issues. But he also sought, through his remarks, to establish a common identity among the Bronx rallygoers—one unrelated to race or ethnicity. “It doesn’t matter if you’re black, or Brown, or White, or whatever the hell color you are. It doesn’t matter,” said Trump. “We are all Americans, and we’re going to pull together as Americans. We all want better opportunity.”

Trump isn’t going to win New York in 2024, much less earn a majority of voters in the South Bronx. And even in more favorable political terrain, Trump’s appeal to bread-and-butter issues and his celebrity charisma may matter more for his current political fortunes. But this rhetorical shift toward unity, however brief, was notable. As an increasingly heterogeneous country continues to feel as though it’s being pulled apart, appealing to a common American identity will be a vital long-term political strategy—and essential to fostering some sense of national unity.