ArcaMax

Remember the so-called "autopsy" report that the Republican National Committee produced after GOP Mitt Romney's demographically driven defeat? Minority outreach flew out the window in the 2016 campaign season, thanks in particular to Trump's blunt threats to undocumented immigrants, Muslims and women's rights, among other affronts, plus his ham-handed idea of an appeal to black voters: "What the hell do you have to lose?"

Trump could use the sort of exposure that Woodson has helped to bring Speaker Ryan during visits to poverty-stricken communities over the past three years. Woodson and Ryan met when they worked for the late Rep. Jack Kemp, a former pro football star who was very popular in minority communities before he died in 2009.

Kemp's market-driven approach to poverty fighting began in the late 1970s when the then-congressman enlisted colleagues in an Opportunity Society initiative to empower public housing residents.

The crime-ridden Kenilworth-Parkside public housing development in Washington became a laboratory for change, driven by resident leaders. They drove out the drug dealers, reduced teen pregnancy and welfare dependency and launched self-help initiatives, among other programs, to help their children get into college.

Similar grassroots efforts in other cities have shown how effectively community residents can help themselves through public-private partnerships -- and replacing government bureaucrats in many cases with residents who live with poverty-related problems every day.

While nobody has a monopoly on remedies for the complicated problems of race and poverty in our very diverse society, we do have the capacity to work together on a variety of solutions, if we have the will.

The tragedy of our modern Twitter-age politics is how much easier it is exploit divisions than try to heal them.

With Hillary Clinton looking like an overwhelming favorite to win in November, national Republicans once again are faced with a future that is becoming increasingly diverse and still looking for answers to such thorny issues as immigration, income gaps, trade relations and the rise of international terrorism.

Donald Trump's campaign has done us the favor of raising issues in public debate that Washington politicians have been afraid to touch in recent years. Now that the issues have been raised, I am waiting for cooler heads from all backgrounds to come together, put aside petty difference and face the big question of our future: What comes next?

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)

(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.