Washington Post: “When Wisconsin Republicans opened an office earlier this year in the historic Bronzeville neighborhood, it was meant to be a physical symbol of President Trump’s commitment to urban voters. But on Friday, as state officials began recounting ballots in Milwaukee County at the request of Trump’s failed reelection campaign, the office had become, for many residents, a symbol of Republican hypocrisy. ‘The president kept talking about Black voices mattering when he attempted to make inroads with the African American community,’ said Cavalier Johnson, president of the Milwaukee Common Council. ‘Then he loses the election, and turns right around and targets the same communities that these Black folks came from.’ Johnson, who is Black, reflected deepening outrage over the president’s push for a recount, which some characterized as an attempt to disenfranchise Black voters in a desperate and chaotic bid to stay in power.”

“Though Trump courted Black voters — and improved his showing over 2016 — he and his allies are now trying to deny President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in key battleground states by targeting ballots cast in heavily Black cities such as Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta and Milwaukee, arguing that these Democratic strongholds are hotbeds of fraud. Trump and his allies have presented no evidence of fraud or widespread error in any of these cities, and courts have repeatedly declined to grant their requests to invalidate ballots. Still, the president shows no signs of backing down, prompting Black leaders, political analysts and historians to cry foul at what they described as tactics reminiscent of those used to suppress the voice of Black voters following the Civil War.”