UPDATE Trump's Obama Hatred: Erases Obama Fair Housing Rule for Suburban Votes

Any Obama Era Rules in Place are Fair Game

(Only my rules or ones I support will survive)

Major Update from here on the following original story with this new headline:

“Trump’s suburban collapse and the widening gender chasm”

A few introductory highlights:

Trump is seeking suburban votes he had in 2016 and lost many after the midterms by telling them his fair housing rule will cancel Obama’s rule and guarantee their “gated communities” will be basically safe from minority Americans who seek to live in the ‘burbs.

Well as this story headline shows – that is backfiring on him and rightly so … see more in the story link.

Background: Following that Democratic historic rout in the midterms, largely due to white college-educated voters abandoning GOP candidates, many analysts questioned whether what we were seeing was a momentary blip intended to send a message or a more permanent realignment of the voting bloc with Democrats.

Now, just months before Election Day, all available qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests white college-educated voters are sticking with Democrats for the foreseeable future.

Example: Katey Morse of one-time GOP stronghold East Grand Rapids, MI, a suburb of Grand Rapids, the state’s second largest city after Detroit. Morse, said she reluctantly voted Trump in 2016, but now can’t wait to get back in that voting booth to end “this nightmare,” (that according to MSNBC reporter Dasha Burns).

Morse was one of three “E.G.R.” Republicans who spoke with Burns for the outlet’s “County-by-County” series. Morse says she is down on Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, but she’s particularly appalled by his law and order appeal to so-called “Suburban Housewives.”

All that ties into and follows the heart of the main post below.

THE ORIGINAL POST (July 30, 2020): A lot of headlines on this recent Trump “roll-back” of another Obama-era decent policy that deals with the FHA (Fair Housing Act of 1968) as seen in this fine article from Law and Crime again erasing more of Barack Obama’s decent policy that Trump hates shown in this headline:

“Trump’s ‘Suburban Lifestyle Dream’ Tweets Are Reminiscent of the 1973 Housing Discrimination Case He Lost”

I posted about that case 1973 here. It now it appears Trump is going “Back to the Future” right Doc Brown – so, fire up the DeLorean and get Marty. 

Fairness and non-discrimination and desegregated housing is and remains the whole point of the Fair Housing Act. All of us have an interest in living in “fair and desegregated communities.”

It’s hard to even call what Trump is doing as it a policy. It doesn’t enforce anything. Instead, it hands off any action to local governments. They can do nothing but talk, take no action and claim they are furthering fair housing. This approach won’t affirmatively further anything other than discrimination. The White House declined to comment.

A bit more here from CBPP with their headline:

“Rolling Back Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule Will Undermine Housing Anti-Discrimination Efforts”

Trump is unraveling the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule put in place under the Obama Administration is an example of Trump taking actions that divide rather than unify the country. 

Housing segregation, at its core, allows policymakers to purposefully disinvest in communities of color and direct investment to white neighborhoods.

The Fair Housing Act’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing requirement recognizes that government at all levels should be actively working to create communities that are open to all. 

Watering down this core tenet of the Fair Housing Act (FHA of 1968) essentially tells federal, state, and local policymakers that it’s okay to ignore discrimination and that housing discrimination and segregation will continue to be swept under the rug (we will look the other way they imply).

Trump’s rhetoric (via Tweet naturally) fuels the same racist sentiments that created the need for the Fair Housing Act back in 1968. That has continued today to justify using laws, loans, public investments, and willful ignorance to curtail housing choices for people of color. Not affirmatively working to disrupt and dismantle these policy actions creates segregated, neglected communities that actively inflict pain on certain people while supporting others.

Segregation of any kind results in the kinds of actions we see again and again in certain areas: highways dividing Black neighborhoods, redlining, disinvestment in schools that serve kids of color, neglect of deteriorating buildings, and the shuttering of neighborhood anchors like grocery stores and banks.

Today, we are seeing the deadly results of continued limitations on housing opportunities and community investments. The COVID-19 pandemic is showing us the heavy price communities of color pay for lawmakers’ misdeeds. 

Over the course of just a few months, the impact of centuries of unequal housing, health care, education, and job opportunities has become glaringly obvious — higher infection rates, higher death rates, and higher rates of job loss among Black, Latinx, and Native Americans. 

At its core, the AFFH Act recognized that housing is instrumental to attaining the “American Dream.” It is indefensible: This administration seeks to tear that down in the name of politics and way to get votes instead rather than moving forward toward equity with Trump now again reinforcing our racist past.

What Trump Tweeted on June 30 laid out his plan in stark terms: “At the request of many great Americans who live in the Suburbs, and others, I am studying the AFFH housing regulation that is having a devastating impact on these once thriving Suburban areas. Corrupt Joe Biden wants to make them MUCH WORSE. Not fair to homeowners, I may END!”

Well, he has ended that Obama era rule. He signed new changes and w/o any public input as HUD and others used a “loophole” in the FHA law that says they can if a policy change deals for such suburban areas who have pending grant requests.

My 2 cents: It is patently obvious that this is a Trump reelection stunt and ploy to show he stands with suburban voters … what a lousy way to show that.

He apparently wants to get their votes with more discrimination and more so what we see in this terrible time in the country – what total out-of-control horrible man Donald J. Trump is. 

Why is he so out of control? Simple: Nothing is holding him accountable and that's what he wants most: To be a one-man show.

Thanks for stopping by.