There are three things you need to know about contemporary American politics: (1) the black vote is hugely significant to the Democratic Party, but (2) fewer than half of black voters agree with the Democratic Party’s views on government, and of those who do, many are routinely mistreated by the politicians they vote for; therefore, (3) the only practical way to ensure that a gigantic majority of black voters reliably and enthusiastically cast votes for Democrats is to avoid debating the real issues and focus instead on the politics of race.
About a quarter of Democratic voters are black, and in some states a majority of all Democrats are black. The implications of these facts have not been lost on the Democratic establishment. If, say, a third or even a quarter of black voters had voted Republican, or had they not voted at all, the results for Democrats would have been disastrous.
But why do black voters prefer Democrats? That’s not an uncomplicated question. Less than half (47 percent) consider themselves “liberals”, which is not much different from the number of people who consider themselves “conservatives” (45 percent). And even among self-identified “liberals,” black voters seem to be treated unfairly by the people they vote for. In our inner cities, many black parents send their children to the worst schools, receive the worst city services, and are subject to the worst environmental hazards in the country (think Flint, Michigan). In almost all cases, these cities are run by Democrats.
In a previous post, I described the extraordinary history of my hometown of Waco, Texas. During the years of segregation and Jim Crow laws, black voters consistently voted for the same Democrats who enforced these horrible practices.
Would they vote for Republican candidates if Republicans had campaigned more aggressively for the black vote or approached it differently? I don’t know. I think Democrats today feel there’s a danger of losing coverage. After all, one of three blacks in the U.S. Senate is a Republican, and more than a quarter of black voters in Ohio voted to reelect Republican Gov. John Kasich.
About 90 percent of blacks identify as Democrats. But how can the party ensure that they remain that way and continue to vote that way? The answer that Democrats have chosen is what I call race politics.
Racial politics is identity politics, and it has been the bedrock of the Democratic Party for almost 100 years. People are treated as members of groups and encouraged to believe that they are victims of the bad behavior of those outside the group. By voting for Democrats, they are encouraged to believe that they are taking revenge on those who oppress them or protecting themselves from them. Identity politics is the politics of division. It is the politics of pitting one group against another. Too often, it is the politics of hate.
In Franklin Roosevelt’s day, workers were pitted against management. The penniless and middle class were pitted against the affluent. In the up-to-date era, more groups have been added: blacks, Latinos, gays, women. In each case, the message is the same: “Vote for us because you’re a woman; vote for us because you’re gay; and vote for us because you’re black…”
According to many liberal commentators, the Republican Party has been sending racist messages to white voters for years. Both conservative and liberal commentators have accused Donald Trump of the same thing. But those accusations require us to sift through all sorts of subtleties. On the Democratic side, subtlety has never been an issue. After all, if you’re subtle, some voters might miss the point.
I bet every reader of this column has heard about Willy Horton’s Ads that George Bush (41) ran against Michael Dukakis in 1988. They are meant to be an example of Republicans playing on racist fears, even though the issue was first raised by Al Gore in the Democratic primaries. But have you ever heard of the James Byrd ads?
On the eve of the 2000 elections The NAACP ran television and radio ads aimed at black voters, suggesting that as governor, George W. Bush was unconcerned about the death of James Byrd, a black man who was chained and dragged to his death behind a truck by three white racists.
As far as I know, Al Gore never condemned the ads, and no mainstream media outlet pressured him to do so. The Democrats’ racial incitement was ignored then, as it is today. (See here, here, and here.)
In 2012, George Zimmerman, a neighborhood patrol coordinator in a gated community in Florida, fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a youthful man with a troubled past, during an argument. Normally, no one who lived more than 50 miles away would have ever heard of the case. But “patrol coordinator” sounds a bit like “cop,” and it was initially reported that Martin was black and Zimmerman was white. The national news media jumped on it. Virtually every news report suggested that racism was a factor and that the incident was an example of a national problem. (See summary here.)
After it was revealed that Zimmerman was Latino and from a multiracial family (including blacks), the mainstream media did not back down. They redoubled their efforts. Several outlets, such as CNN and New York Timesbegan describing Zimmerman as a “white Latino.” NBC manipulated the audio recording to suggest Zimmerman had acted improperly. Soon, nearly 90 percent of African Americans called the shooting “unjustified.” When Zimmerman was acquitted, it fueled even more racist fire.
So what makes Trayvon Martin different from the 13,000 other people murdered each year, including an estimated 6,000 African-Americans? Was he a gifted artist? A musical genius? An aspiring entrepreneur? Better. In the midst of a complex re-election campaign, President Obama declared that “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.”
And there you have it. The person George Zimmerman shot could have been the next president of the United States! (If voters could ignore his criminal record.)
Barack Obama is the most partisan president of our time, and he seems to understand almost instinctively that racial polarization is central to the Democratic Party’s electoral strategy. (See
Did these comments cause Black Lives Matter marchers in Dallas to chant, “Pigs in a blanket; fry them like bacon”? It certainly didn’t discourage them.
While the president’s speech in Dallas on Tuesday was intended to be unifying and conciliatory, he once again brought up the entirely false Trayvon Martin case and lavished praise on the Black Lives Matter movement.
All of this is echoed by Hillary Clinton, whose campaign ads brazenly mention Trayvon Martin and who now decries “systematic” and “implicit bias” in police departments.
I think there’s a problem with the interaction between police and black men. Even black police seem to be saying there’s a problem. But Hillary’s not talking about solutions to the problem. She’s stirring up the problem. There’s no “Trayvon Martin law” that she’s proposing.
The national Democratic Party has a vested interest in the problem, not the solution. The national news media is only too ecstatic to facilitate meet their needs.
PS. New test by a team led by an African-American Harvard economist finds that there is no bias against black civilians in police shootings. Here’s more surprising results reported by Heather Mac Donald. See also her Wall Street Journal editorial Yesterday.
