Back in August, 2016, candidate Donald Trump told a crowd in Michigan that he was asking for the vote of every single African American.

Speaking at a rally near Lansing, Trump said, “Look how much African American communities have suffered under Democratic control. To those I say the following: What do you have to lose by trying something new, like Trump? What do you have to lose?”

He didn’t lose Michigan. He carried that state and others with the help of voters who broke with their history of reliably voting for Democrats.

Democratic politicians who contemptuously refer to Trump by an assortment of synonyms for “idiot” may be surprised when they find out that his plan to win the vote of every single African American is still an active project.

Trump’s skillfully executed plan is visible in front of everybody, if you just tune in and watch him.

On May 30, Trump met with reality TV star Kim Kardashian at the White House. She wanted to make the case for commuting the prison sentence of Alice Johnson, a 63-year-old great-grandmother who had served over 20 years of a life sentence for a nonviolent drug offense.

Trump’s a busy man and he could have spoken with Kardashian on the phone, or even on Twitter, but instead he held an Oval Office meeting with the popular celebrity. Why?

So you would see it.

And not just you, a person who reads the opinion pages, but all the people who get their news from Facebook, daytime TV talk shows, late-night TV monologues, and even the front page of a tabloid newspaper while they’re stuck in the supermarket checkout aisle behind someone who’s searching for a coupon.

Everybody saw Kim Kardashian in the White House, so everybody saw President Trump commute the life sentence of an African American woman who ran joyously to her waiting family on the day of her release from prison. TV cameras were there to broadcast the scene.

As the former executive producer of a successful television show, the president is likely aware of Nielsen research that shows, as USA Today reported last year, that “African Americans watch far more TV than any other group.” An L.A. Times story about former Fox News host Megyn Kelly’s ratings challenge at the Today show noted that African American TV viewers make up “18 percent of the available audience in the 9:00 a.m. hour.”

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California’s job numbers aren’t good Right in front of our eyes, the president of the United States is producing a reality show about criminal justice reform.

On Friday, Trump told reporters he wanted to hear from NFL players who have been protesting racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem. “I am going to ask them to recommend to me people that were unfairly treated” by the criminal justice system, he said, vowing to “look at those applications.”

Think about the news stories that will come out of this at the local and national level. Trump is setting up the equivalent of weekly TV episodes, each one reinforcing the message that the criminal justice system has unfairly treated African Americans and he is trying to do something about it.

Is it a sincere effort by the president to enact politically difficult reforms to the criminal justice system, or is it a sophisticated political strategy to win enough votes in the African American community to smash the coalition that has reliably elected Democrats at the national, state and local level?

Don’t underestimate him. It could be both.

Susan Shelley is a columnist and editorial writer for the Southern California News Group. Susan@SusanShelley.com. Twitter: @Susan_Shelley