I see that Thomas Edsall is coming to see black voters more as I do. From his New York Times column:
The African-American electorate has been undergoing a quiet, long-term transformation, moving from the left toward the center on several social and cultural issues, while remaining decisively liberal, even radical, on economic issues, according to a series of studies by prominent African-American scholars.
“There has been a shift in the attitudes of black masses about the extent to which systematic discrimination and prejudice are the primary reasons blacks continue to lag behind whites,†Candis Watts Smith, a political scientist at Penn State, wrote in a paper published in the Journal of Black Studies in 2014, “Shifting From Structural to Individual Attributions of Black Disadvantage: Age, Period and Cohort Effects on Black Explanations of Racial Disparities.â€
Smith argues that older black Americans with deeply ingrained memories of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and 1970s have been joined by a younger generation, with the result that
African Americans’ attention has increasingly shifted from structural reasons of black disadvantage (e.g., systematic discrimination in the job or housing markets) to individual-based explanations (e.g., lack of individual motivation; oppositional attitudes to school and learning) of these disparities, especially in the post — civil rights era.
I don’t encounter young black Americans as frequently as I used to but middle-aged and elderly blacks are a lot more socially conservative than you might conclude if you get your information from the major news outlets. And, based on the times I’ve served with blacks on juries, they not only believe in law and order, they believe in punishment. Much more than I do I should say.
In the recent Chicago mayoral primary elections black voters voted for the most conservative candidate running. Lori Lightfoot didn’t get elected by blacks. Her primary supporters were whites living on the Northwest Side. And Toni Preckwinkle didn’t even carry her own ward in the general election.
I’m surprised at his figure that blacks comprise 25% of Democratic primary voters. I would think it was a lot higher. Maybe it’s just a lot higher here. Whatever their numbers or percentage middle-aged and elderly black voters do register and vote, much more regularly and faithfully than their white counterparts in my experience.
Democrats ignore them at their own risk but that’s become a very bad habit. Judging by the polling information more blacks support Joe Biden than they do either of the black (or at least notionally black) candidates running for president. Maybe that’s name recognition. Maybe it’s because of his association with Barack Obama. I think it’s because he’s seen as a more centrist candidate than Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren and they think he can win.
If blacks vote for Joe Biden because he was Obama’s VP, they’re fools. He’ll do no more for the black community than Obama did (and look at what Obama is doing now to Chicago with his temple of self-idolization). I’m starting to think Biden’s campaign is trying to make him look so inept and clueless that people will vote for him simply because they feel sorry for him, especially if he’s the final candidate and Trump brutalizes him in a debate. Vote for me because I’m such a sad sack? If he is the Democratic Presidential candidate, the fight for the VP slot will be 1944 all over again on fusion-powered steroids.
i don’t think that’s the reason that Biden polls higher among blacks. I think the reason is that he’s seen as a known quantity with what’s viewed as a fairly centrist record and they think he can win.
Or, said another way, he polls higher among blacks for the same reason that Obama picked him as his running mate.
“I think the reason is that he’s seen as a known quantity with what’s viewed as a fairly centrist record and they think he can win.â€
It’s still foolish. Party, and the attendant perceptions, over self interest. However, lost in the public positioning over the NC special elections is the erosion in Dem black voting. Privately the DNC knows it. Expect even more vigorous attempts to paint Trump as a racist. Break that monolith and Democrats are dead in 2020. That could bode well for Harris and the #2 slot.
And since I’m on a roll. Warren can’t win PA, OH , WI. Maybe not even MI or MN. Now what………….?
It hasn’t received as much attention in the media as it deserves but there is a certain level of concern among the Democratic leadership. Not as much as there should be but concern. It does not take a particularly large number of black voters deciding that they just don’t love the Democrats that much any more. Support for third trimester abortions, for example, is one good way to put a strain on the relationship. Reparations is almost as divisive among blacks as it is among whites. It used to be that 2/3s opposed it but now the number is closer to 50-50. I suspect that’s a generational thing.
Will blacks turn out to vote for Elizabeth Warren? I don’t know and IMO neither does the Democratic leadership. Don’t assume they’ll turn out just because she runs as a Democrat.
The problem that Republicans have is that some are racists. Not all by any means but some and the party can’t dissociate itself from the racists without self-immolating.
As the late Mayor Daley once said, whatever it looks like now somebody is going to win the election. And I have long thought that Cory Booker was the best pick the Democrats have for VP.
“The problem that Republicans have is that some are racists. Not all by any means but some and the party can’t dissociate itself from the racists without self-immolating.â€
The Democrats have just as many, plus the race hustlers and race panderers. It’s not a contest to see which party has the greater number of bad actors, and there are plenty to go around; the Democrats have the exact same self immolation problem. But a large and growing number of blacks are well aware that their lot has improved the last several years, and that they are taken for granted by the Dem party. Kudos to Trump for not taking the, ahem, wisdom of the Don Lemons of the world and crumbling like a child.
Only time will tell, but the vitriol-meter seems to increase with every leftist failure. They are recycling racism, Stormy and Putin’s stooge now. Heh, the IG report must be close to release. I wonder if the meter goes to 11…….
“The Democrats have just as many”
Someone needs to wear a hat when they are out in the Florida sun, or stop taking stupid pills.
Steve