Democrats Losing The Base

Black folks have been the most reliable voters for the Democrat Party the last 50 years. But the Party has delivered very little in return for that loyalty. That lack of delivery has led to voter apathy, and is the leading culprit in Hillary losing to the Chumph.

We, as a people are now under existential threat from Trump and his white wing followers – but the Party and it’s policies are being driven by the interests of white women.

Black voters just delivered two major victories for the Democrats in Virginia and Alabama. That vote wasn’t as much for Democrat candidates, as against the Chumph white supremacists.

If elected Democrats don’t find a way to head off the Chumph…They are going to lose again in 2018 and 2020.

I’m A Brown Woman Who’s Breaking Up With The Democratic Party

I realize now that the love has been one-sided.

Dear Democratic Party:

You were the love of my life. I fell in love early and hard. I have been the kind of party loyalist ― the kind of sappy, soapbox-y, clichéd devotee ― that makes Fox News moonwalk with glee.

The first vote I ever cast, at 18, was for Bill Clinton. The last vote I cast was for his wife, Hillary. My adoration for Hillary bordered on mania. In college, I named my ficus plant after her. Twenty years later, I canvassed, held fundraisers, dragged my 8-year-old daughter door to door, proudly wore HRC’s face on T-shirts and housed campaign volunteers in my home.

I loved you so much that I cried each time I voted. Thinking about the women who died fighting for my right to vote did it every time. I cried when I voted for Bill. For Barack Obama. I wept when I voted for Hillary. You’ve been that kind of mad love to me.

And now I want to break up.

I realize now that the love has been one-sided, unrequited. You’ve never recognized me, as a brown woman. You’ve taken my love, my money, my tokenism, with nary anything in return. You married the white woman and hooked up with me on the side.

Black Lives Matter is a second ― or third ― thought. Where is your outrage over the national epidemic of police brutality against black people? You continue to call angry white men who commit mass murder “lone wolves.” But if someone who looks like me screams “Allah” and fires a gun, it’s “terrorism.” And you wonder why angry white men are gunning down innocent brown men at bars, in their yards, on the street.

For all your talk about Dreamers, there’s been little action. You don’t seem to give a crap about kids of color who will be kicked out of this country, the only country they know. What if all those Dreamers were white? I suspect there’d be a very different outcome.

You spend a lot of time and energy wooing white voters, while giving short shrift to voters of colors and assuming we’ll always show up for you.

To be fair, there’s no reason for you to assume otherwise. We always show up for you. Take, for example, the special election in Alabama on Tuesday. Had black people not shown up, an accused child molester would be our newest senator.

What will Doug Jones do for the black folks who put him in the Senate? If history is any indication, very little.

This past year, I held and attended numerous fundraisers for your candidates. I donated money every time I was asked. I marched: for women, for children, for reproductive rights, for science. I traveled across the country for the March for Women in Washington, D.C. It was there that I got the first hint that you weren’t that into me. The giveaway? The sea of white women in pink hats with brown and black women dotting the waves like debris. I let it slide but I kept my eyes and ears open.

My fellow brown and black sisters started to notice, too — and the chatter began, in whispered hushes at first, then loud and clear. You are a party of white feminists. Of white feminism, the kind of feminism that focuses on the struggles of white women. It was the first time I’d heard the term, most likely because self-awareness is hard and I was a brown woman trapped in a white feminist’s world.

But then I woke up. I saw you with clear eyes for the first time.

For every Kamala Harris and Pramila Jayapal sticking their brown and black necks out for me, there are dozens of white female Democrats who want me to shut my trap.

Your advocacy for reproductive rights zeros in on wealthy white women. Women of color and other marginalized women get sidelined. The gender pay gap is worse for black and Latina women than it is for white women. Women of color make up 64 percent of women in U.S. jails. Why isn’t the Democratic Party talking about this and trying to fix it?

My own “liberal” white congresswoman in Colorado has given me a hint as to why.

At the congresswoman’s town hall in February, Neeti Pawar, the brown female founder of the South Asian Bar Association of Colorado, was one of the only people of color in a room of nearly a thousand. She asked about immigration and DACA protections. The congresswoman scoffed. When Pawar pressed on, she was told to remain silent or she’d be asked to leave. During a follow-up, staffers told Pawar that civil rights weren’t the representative’s “issue.” Brown and black people don’t have the luxury of sidelining civil rights. It’s life and death for us.

And it didn’t stop there.

I was organizing a fundraiser for a U.S. senator earlier this month, and had planned to use the opportunity to highlight women of color by having black women introduce him. The congresswoman’s staff caught wind of the event and asked if she could introduce the senator. I explained my position but invited her to come as a guest. No response. When pressed on her stance on racial inclusion, her staff didn’t respond to me directly but tattled on me to the white women co-hosting the event.

I know there are some good ones among you. But for every Kamala Harris, Maxine Waters and Pramila Jayapal sticking their brown and black necks out for me, there are dozens of white female Democrats who want me to shut my trap, and say please and thank you. I should be grateful for scraps while white women enjoy a proper marriage with you.

I’m done with all that. And if you don’t want to lose more women like me, there are a few basic things you can do.

Pay attention to the reproductive health of women of color and other marginalized women. Do something, anything, to protect Dreamers. Or, if you’re really feeling bold, move forward on some form of reparations for black people.

Finally, mentor young people of color to run for office. Campaign for brown and black folks. Raise money for them. Show up for them. I’d come running back to you with open arms if you did even a few of these things.

In the meantime, I’ll be on the sidelines waiting, watching, hoping, praying. You broke my heart.

 

Federal Lawsuits for Voter Suppression Filed Against 5 States

The New Jim Crow – Voter Suppression. Maybe the solution to this is to have these particular states have to run an extra election for those voters who have been illegally denied.

Federal lawsuits filed in 5 states after African-American voters purged from registration rolls, targeted for intimidation by the Trump campaign

In violation of the Voting Rights Act, the NAACP and Democrats allege Republicans have targeted black voters

New federal lawsuits were filed in five different states Monday, alleging that thousands of black voters are illegally being purged from voter registration lists by Republican officials and threatened with intimidation by the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Democratic officials in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada argue that the Trump campaign, led by notorious longtime advisor Roger Stone, is “conspiring to threaten, intimidate, and thereby prevent minority voters in urban neighborhoods from voting.”

Democratic officials are concerned that Stone’s pro-Trump voter intimidation group Stop the Steal, which is recruiting right-wing volunteers to conduct unscientific “exit polls” outside swing state precincts, could violate both the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discriminatory voting practices in the American South, and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which outlawed intimidation against African American voters particularly.

The Guardian recently reported that the Trump-affiliated group plans to send volunteers to 600 different precincts in nine Democrat-leaning cities with large populations of black and Hispanic voters to act as so-called poll watchers.

This comes after the Democratic National Committee asked a federal judge in New Jersey last week to block the Republican Party from supporting efforts to discourage minorities from voting based on Trump’s baseless claims that the presidential election is “rigged.”

On the campaign trail, Trump has called for his supporters to “watch the polling booths” while speaking in places like Philadelphia. According to the DNC’s suit, the RNC is supporting Trump’s recruitment of so-called watchers at polling places, which is in breach of consent decrees going back to 1982 that forbid the group from engaging in such efforts.

And in North Carolina, where the Republican-led legislature recently passed voting restrictions that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit found “target[ed] African Americans with almost surgical precision,” the NAACP filed a lawsuit on Mondayalleging that local elections boards have illegally purged thousands of black voters from the registration lists as early voting is already underway in the state.

In the pivotal battleground state, any registered voter in the state can challengeanother voter’s registration. And according to the historic civil rights group, Republicans in the state have taken up aggressive efforts to challenge the vote registration of thousands in heavily African-American parts of the state since the Supreme Court revoked the requirement for the state to submit all voting changes to the federal government for pre-clearance under the Voting Rights Act in 2013.

The group’s lawsuit zeroes in on Cumberland, Moore and Beaufort counties, where thousands of voters’ names have been challenged.

The NAACP says black voters comprise more than 65 percent of challenges in Beaufort county. In Moore County the secretary of the county’s Republican Party single-handedly challenged nearly 400 registered voters. And in Cumberland County, the right-wing group Voter Integrity Project, whose director Jay Delancy thinks the mentally ill should be barred from voting, has challenged voters’ eligibility with no other evidence than a single piece of mail that was sent to their home and bounced back as undelivered.

Federal standards state that voters should not be stripped from the voter rolls fewer than 90 days before an election. North Carolina law allows for the practice up to 25 before election day. Early voting began in the Tar Heel state last week. So far, estimates show that early voting numbers for African-American voters are down 17 percent since 2012.

As Salon reported last week, North Carolina’s voter purge has already ensnared a 100-year-old African-American woman who was nearly denied her right to vote after her voter-registration status was challenged.

 

Don Lemon Takes Trumpazoid to the Woodshed Over “Black People Are Worse Off Now Than Ever”

Glad Lemon has finally found his courage and direction. Taking this horse’s patoot to the woodshed…

WATCH: Don Lemon opens up at can of whoop-ass on Corey Lewandowski over Trump’s fake black outreach

 

Tuesday night, CNN host Don Lemon gave former Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski a lesson in black history as well as some stern advice for his boss when it comes to speaking to black voters.

After panelist Peter Beinart ridiculed Lewandowski’s defense of Trump’s comment that black communities are “absolutely in the worst shape that they’ve ever, ever, ever been in before,” the Trump advocate said it was “a fact.”

Lemon shut him down, saying, “As a person of color who has lived the last fifty years in this country, things have never been better for African-Americans.”

Later, after Lewandowski attempted to deflect from Trump’s racism by saying he has African-Americans working for him, Lemon took the former campaign manager — along with his boss — to the woodshed.

“Then why doesn’t he ask those African-American friends why the words he uses are so insulting?” Lemon asked. “Because I’m sure they would tell him, if they were indeed his friends, if they were indeed employees who weren’t afraid of him and of losing their jobs. They would sit down and say, ‘listen Mr. Trump, what you’re saying is insulting, and I know you’re not talking to me, you’re talking at me. And I know that you’re not actually reaching out to me, you’re reaching out to make other people more comfortable with voting for you.’ That’s what I would say to him as someone who has given him a chance and has interviewed him more than eight or nine times.”

“And if he, as a candidate for president of the United States, doesn’t understand that, then he doesn’t want to represent all of the people in this country.”

 

Roland Martin – Trump’s “Minority Outreach” is Really For Suburban White Women

Interesting analysis –

This Morning, on his TVOne News Show, Roland Martin let loose…

“Trump doesn’t want to talk to us, ’cause he’s talking past us.”

 

 

 

Why Black Folks Hate the Chumph

Got into this a bit yesterday in the comments section. Maybe somebody was listening…

How bad is the Chumph loathed?

KKK Leader David Duke has more support among black folks.

No Group Loathes Donald Trump as Much as African Americans. Here’s Why.

The Republican nominee is no David Duke—since at least David Duke says what he means, while Trump just dog whistles.

There is almost no group left that Donald Trump hasn’t offended: Muslims, babies,women, Gold Star families, and of course Hispanics. Yet there is one group that despises Donald Trump more than any other: black Americans.

At an average of just 2 percent support in the polls, Trump is running fourth among black voters, as Harry Enten noted last week. He’s 84 points behind Hillary Clinton, but also trailing Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Jill Stein.

The findings of recent surveys read like an Onion headline or possibly a “Saturday Night Live” sketch left on the cutting room floor: “Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke has more black voter support than Donald Trump.”  Just think about that for a second. A white guy who was actually a leader of an organization synonymous with not only hating, but terrorizing, black people is more popular with black people than a white guy who used to host a reality show and now may become president.

Trump’s insanely offensive rhetoric against other groups has drawn extensive media coverage and denunciations from people from both sides of the aisle. His allegations of bias against federal judge Gonzalo Curiel were called the textbook definition of racism by Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, among many, many others. His early calls to ban the entry of Muslims to this country have been so widely denounced it’s hard to find a public figure –even among those who have endorsed him—who has not come out against the remarks. He’s made more derogatory comments about women that I can count.

While he has certainly had moments that can be perceived as offensive to black Americans, such as when he inaccurately tweeted that black people are responsible for 81% of white homicides (which was nowhere near true), when people think of groups Donald Trump has insulted we’re certainly not at the top of that list.

 

And yet, Trump is polling at 24 percent with Hispanic voters, and still has the support of 35% of women voters. With black Americans though, he is at 1 or 2%, depending on the poll. That rock-bottom number has put traditionally red states with notable pockets of black voters in play for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

While black voters tend to be more party loyal than other groups, Mitt Romney still managed to get 6% of the black vote, and that was in an election year in which black voters turning out to reelect our first black president shattered previous historical turnout records and were given much of the credit for Obama’s glide back to the White House.

So what is it about the Donald?

It’s true that candidate Trump has not singled out black Americans for the same obsessive and insulting focus he has some other groups, but the contempt for him within the black community has been brewing for much longer.

For starters, he made himself the face of the “birther” lie against President Obama. He claims credit for pushing the President to release his birth certificate. (Ironic considering the President’s 2008 opponent, Sen. John McCain, really was born outside of the country, as was 2016 contender Sen. Ted Cruz, both of whom have since become Trump foes.) For many black Americans, the entire birther conspiracy was added to the list of indignities no previous commander-in-chief, all of whom were white, had been subjected to. While most birthers until Trump had primarily been seen as basement kooks who occasionally landed airtime on a few cable shows, he lent the movement a mainstream face that many black Americans have not forgotten or forgiven.

Additionally, while Trump’s language and policy proposals have perhaps not been as openly hostile to black Americans as some other groups, black people are well acquainted with coded dog whistles – and the impact they can have. For instance, Trump’s false tweet about the level of crimes committed by black Americans against whites is precisely the kind of rhetoric that plays into the worst fears of his overwhelmingly white supporters. He’s been doing this for decades, since he put out full-page ads calling for the death penalty for the five black boys of the Central Park Five (something he’s never apologized for, even after it emerged that those boys, who spend decades behind bars, were innocent).

Historically, rhetoric like Trump uses has resulted in terrifying fallout for black people. Many forget that the 1915 film “Birth of a Nation,” is credited with reinvigorating the membership of the Ku Klux Klan, the film’s message essentially that someone needed to take a stand against the rising tide of dangerous brown people. Sound familiar? The era immediately following the film’s release would be one of the most horrifying in terms of violence against black people, men in particular.

So when Trump says of a black protester “maybe he should have been roughed up,” and black protesters at his rallies are punched and otherwise assaulted, his candidacy inevitably calls to mind darker days – particularly for black Americans living in an age in which the shootings of unarmed black men by police are not an uncommon occurrence.

But perhaps the main reason so many black voters are repelled by Donald Trump is that he’s not David Duke. I have a family member who grew up in the segregated South who said she always prefers people who are honest about who they are. They’re simply safer. Ones who present a façade are much more dangerous. While you can see the David Dukes of the world –and all they represent – coming a mile away, there is something particularly dangerous about the kind of bigot that hides behind a suit, tie, a smile and a handful of so-called “black buddies” – who are on the payroll of course. (Here’s looking at youOmarosa.)

Duke’s bigotry may be offensive, but at least it’s honest. Trump’s is just plain offensive.

 

How Much to Hispanics and Black Folks Despise the Chumph?

Hispanics and Black Folks have taken a real disliking to the Chumpf. I suspect Asians aren’t far behind, as well as Gay people, and women.

Here’s More Proof That Black And Latino Voters Really Don’t Like Donald Trump

It turns out antagonizing Americans of every stripe, as Donald Trump has done continually with his bombastic rhetoric, has actual consequences.

A Washington Post/ABC survey released Wednesday shows seven in 10 Americans view the presumptive GOP nominee unfavorably, up 10 points since he announced his candidacy for president. (Hillary Clinton reached a new high in the unfavorable stakes as well — 55 percent.)

Yet even more striking is Trump’s standing with people who are black and Latino — growing voting blocks whose support is crucial to cobbling together a winning coalition. A staggering 94 percent of black voters view the real estate mogul negatively, as do 89 percent of Latinos, despite his predictions that he will “win the Hispanic vote” in November.

It’s not hard to see why.

Trump wants to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. He’s gone on a racist tirade against a federal judge of Mexican heritage, and his outreach to Latinos entails posing for a picture on Cinco de Mayo with a taco salad bowl. He initially refused to disavow former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, before later doing so. And he has significant backing from white supremacists, especially online, where they harass his critics with vile and racist attacks.

The reality TV personality has taken the 2012 GOP “autopsy” — a set of recommendations the Republican National Committee released meant to broaden the party to minorities — and completely blown it up. With five months to go until November, and no sign their presumptive nominee is willing to change his approach, it’s difficult to see whether the Republican Party can repair its already low standing with non-white voters.

The Manhattan businessman’s only play may be over-performing with whites and independents. Clinton’s unfavorable with 75 percent of white people, 73 percent of whites with no college degree and 63 percent of independent voters, according to the Post/ABC poll. However, current polls show Trump isn’t in a stronger position than Mitt Romney was in 2012 to pull in enough white voters to win.

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar,rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.

Could be why several periodicals have begun saying the “L” word…

Now, I have problems with Clinton being too far to the right, and having too close ties with the big banks. However I believe she is a savvy enough leader, with a powerful style that she isn’t going to be stupid enough to hamstring her Administration, or Democrat majority Congress with the dumb arsed self defeating “bipartisanship”, and spineless timidity in speaking out about issues. She will take a sharp knife to the sort of BS extremist Republicans have been pulling and getting away with from day 1.

HILLARY CLINTON COULD BE HEADED FOR A LANDSLIDE

A slate of new polls shows Clinton on pace to decimate Trump.

After several weeks of polls that showed Hillary Clinton only a few points ahead of Trump, and two that put her lead within the margin of error, Bloomberg on Tuesday released a pollgiving the former secretary of state a whopping 12-point lead on Trump in a head-to-head matchup. A popular vote with results in that range would lead to an electoral landslide, too: according to a Frontloading HQ analysis, released Monday, Clinton destroys Trump in the electoral college, 358 to 180. Last week, an ABC poll showed her winning the national map with 262 to 191, assuming Trump takes all the Republican-leaning states.

Hillary Clinton Will Win by a Landslide Against Donald Trump

Americans want a president, not a bitterly divisive performer

Hillary Clinton will win by a landslide against Donald Trump. I expect her to win 46 states, and if I am wrong, it is equally likely she will win more than 46 states in November, rather than less…

Another huge advantage Clinton and Democrats possess is the mathematics of the electoral college. Usually Republicans have the advantage in midterm elections because they are likely to achieve a stronger turnout than Democrats, while Democrats have the advantage in presidential elections because their turnout will be higher and, even more, because the state-by-state breakdown of electoral college math gives Democrats the edge.

Because of the insulting and divisive style of the Trump campaign, the Democratic electoral advantage will be even greater than previous presidential elections. The prospect of a Trump presidency will galvanize Democratic voters to come out in huge numbers, generate a wave of anti-Trump Hispanic voters that could win key states for Democrats in both the presidential and senate elections and alienate and alarm many female, independent and younger voters…

Anything is possible in presidential politics, but things are shaping up to produce a Democratic landslide for Hillary Clinton similar to the landslide of Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater in 1964.

 

Black Voters and the Democrat Party

The following article attempts to make the case that the mass exodus from the Republican Party in the late 60’s due to Goldwater’s anti Civil Rights stance was counterproductive. That somehow, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 failed because while it made the legal structure of Jim Crow in America…It didn’t go far enough in eliminating the structure of White Privilege which remained. Never mind that it was the Republicans, led by Goldwater who gutted the legal and criminal enforcement section of Title IV of the Civil Rights Act leveling criminal and civil sanctions against violators, and protecting the continuation of discrimination to this day.

I mean, what if the folks who constructed the predatory mortgage loan were looking at 5-10 years in Gen pop, instead of a financial slap on the wrist during the 2006 meltdown? The simple fact is, since Goldwater it has always been a “conservative principle” to protect the racists, and the institutions which benefit them. Things like propping up the racist Southern Myth that the Civil War wasn’t necessary because the kindly slave owners would have freed the slaves.

The reason that now, near 97% of black voters support Democrats is really simple…Nixon, Reagan, and Bush. It’s a perverse argument, made in one form or another by the right, and has the logic of the Jews joining the Nazi Party in 1930’s Germany, because eventually Hitler would have seen the light.

The other fiction presented by the author is that Jim Crow only lived in the South. That isn’t quite true.

When Black Voters Exited Left

What African Americans lost by aligning with the Democratic Party

Days before the 1960 election, Coretta Scott King received a call from then-candidate John F. Kennedy while her husband was in a Georgia jail, charged with trespassing after leading a sit-in demonstration against segregation in Atlanta. “This must be pretty hard on you, and I want to let you both know that I’m thinking about you and will do all I can to help,” Kennedy told her. The Democratic nominee’s brother and campaign manager, Robert Kennedy, called a DeKalb County Judge and successfully lobbied for Martin Luther King Jr.’s release.

The personal call and the timely intervention significantly bolstered Kennedy’s standing among black voters. They also strengthened the political alliance between the Democratic Party and African Americans. After his release, King praised Kennedy for exhibiting “moral courage of a high order.” His father, the influential Baptist pastor Martin Luther King Sr., said, “Kennedy can be my president, Catholic or whatever he is. I’ve got all my votes and I’ve got a suitcase and I’m going to take them up there and dump them in his lap.” Kennedy earned 68 percent of the black vote, which was the decisive factor in key states like Illinois, Michigan, and South Carolina.

Once in the White House, Kennedy faced pressure from civil-rights activists to make good on what King called a “huge promissory note” to pass meaningful civil-rights legislation. When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he cemented a political alliance between African Americans and the Democratic Party that continues to this day. But celebrating these landmark pieces of legislation makes it easy to overlook what black people in the United States lost when civil rights and equality for blacks were hitched to the Democratic Party.

While the passage of the Civil Rights Act helped Johnson earn support from 94 percent of black voters in 1964, there is a gulf between what black Americans hoped the legislation would achieve and what Democratic politicians actually delivered. Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 helped end apartheid conditions in the South, a critical objective for which grassroots black Southern activists fought and died, the legislation did little to address the structures of racism that shaped black lives in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. This was an intentional consequence of how the bill’s sponsors, largely liberals from the North, Midwest, and West, crafted the legislation.

As King understood, Democratic politicians acted more boldly on race issues in Alabama and Mississippi than in New York and Massachusetts. “There is a pressing need for a liberalism in the North which is truly liberal, a liberalism that firmly believes in integration in its own community as well as in the Deep South,”King told the New York Urban League in September 1960. As the Urban League’s executive director Whitney Young put it a few years later, “liberalism seems to be related to the distance people are from the problem.”

After the 1964 election, where Republican candidate Barry Goldwater described the Civil Rights Act as unconstitutional, black voters essentially found themselves in a one-party system for presidential elections. Republicans turned their attention to white voters in the South and suburbs and have made few serious attempts in subsequent campaigns to appeal to the African American electorate. Richard Nixon in 1960 is the last Republican candidate to earn more than 15 percent of black votes.

Voting by Union or former confederate States

This is a problem for black voters, because the Democratic Party’s vision of racial justice is also extremely limited. Northern liberals pioneered what scholars now call “colorblind racism.” That’s when racially neutral language makes extreme racial inequalities appear to be the natural outcome of innocent private choices or free-market forces rather than intentional public policies like housing covenants, federal mortgage redlining, public housing segregation, and school zoning.

Democratic lawmakers drafted civil-rights legislation that would challenge Jim Crow laws in the South while leaving de facto segregation in the North intact. When NBC News asked the civil-rights organizer Bayard Rustin why many African American communities rioted the summer after the bill passed, he said, “People have to understand that although the civil-rights bill was good and something for which I worked arduously, there was nothing in it that had any effect whatsoever on the three major problems Negroes face in the North: housing, jobs, and integrated schools…the civil-rights bill, because of this failure, has caused an even deeper frustration in the North.” Today’s protest movements against second-class citizenship in Baltimore, Ferguson, Oakland, and elsewhere are in part a legacy of the unresolved failures of civil-rights legislation.

Unfortunately for black voters, most white politicians and voters assume that the civil-rights revolution not only leveled the playing field, but also tilted it in favor of African Americans. The white backlash to civil rights helped resurrect the Republican Party after the disastrous Goldwater campaign in 1964, and, over the last five decades, the Democratic Party has followed the electorate to the right.  …Read the Rest Here…

One of the prophetical things Goldwater said that has come to be is –

 

 

Hillary and BLM

Good conversation here on Bill Maher’s show…Michael Eric Dyson does an excellent job of laying out the case here.

 

Spike Lee Endorses the Bern

Once again evidence of that generational split…

I believe we have finally reached the point of full cleavage between the Civil Rights Generation of the 60’s, and black millennials. This has some serious repercussions whatever way the Presidential election turns out in terms of local politics, and elections – and may harbor a shakeup of the current cadre of black politicians in the US Senate and especially the House. Which means a lot more focus on the economics underpinning racism than the symbolism.

 

Spike Lee endorses Bernie Sanders: ‘When Bernie gets into the White House, he will do the right thing!’

Spike Lee is asking America to do the right thing: Vote for Bernie Sanders.

The Brooklyn-bred filmmaker endorsed the Democratic presidential hopeful Tuesday, releasing a radio ad for the Vermont senator’s campaign in South Carolina.

“Wake up! Wake up, South Carolina!” the director said in the ad, borrowing a line from his movies “Do the Right Thing” and “School Daze.”

He continued: “This is your dude, Spike Lee. And you know that I know that you know that the system is rigged! And for too long we’ve given our votes to corporate puppets. Sold the okie-doke. Ninety-nine percent of Americans were hurt by the Great Recession of 2008, and many are still recovering.”

The new spot was released just days ahead of Saturday’s Democratic primary in South Carolina.

“That’s why I am officially endorsing my brother, Bernie Sanders,” he continued in the radio ad. “When Bernie gets into the White House, he will do the right thing!”

Lee mentioned that Sanders was a part of the 1963 March on Washington with Martin Luther King Jr. and added that the senator was once arrested in Chicago “for protesting segregation in public schools.”

 

Cenk Uygur Hammers Keli Goff of The Daily Beast Article on Black Folks Voting

Cenk goes off on Daily Beast columnist Keli Goff! And he is right. There is no reason to believe that voting for Sanders is against black folks interests. Or for that matter that Hillary Clinton will tackle the tough issues of race and racism in America if elected to be President.

BTx3 is not ready to go with or endorse either side at this point.

The only major satisfaction I see in electing Hillary is, after 8 years of a black President, shoving that sharpened stake up the nether parts of conservatives further by (probably) 8 years of a woman being President. And I have no doubt she is ruthless enough to deal with the conservaturd set, unlike Obama. However I have doubts whether any progress made under her leadership would be more than cosmetic in terms of the black community, in large part because of folks like the CBC supporting her.

What Bernie would do though is to attack the structural supports of racism in America – through reforming elements of the financial system. Providing black families the ability to gain wealth and pass it on is key to reforming the culture enabling racism and discrimination in this country. So when he says “bust up the big banks” – the impact of that is a lot broader than most folks understand. And Bernie has walked the walk supporting Civil Rights – for a long long time. Whether he is strong enought o dirve that legislation though is up to conjecture.

 

 

Sympathy for the Devil…Black Folks and Ben Carson

In an America where segregation is part of living memory of many over 55, and black periodicals published and lauded many black “firsts” – for some it is very difficult to see past skin color, and look in askance at a fellow black person. The black community has been continuously harmed, time after time in supporting black politicians who are crooks (Kwame Kilpatrick, Ray Nagin, “Dollar Bill” WIlliam Jefferson, Larry Langford ), or have moral failures, DC’s own Marion Barry. Few have accomplished more harm to black communities around the country than the corrupt, the crooked, and the wicked who misuse their positions of trust…

Yet that “skin like me” thing typically provides scant shelter to that class of black folks whose moral and ethical standards allow them to carry the banner for conservative racism. That isn’t to say that being Republican and black makes one persona non grata. We certainly have seen evidence of community support for Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice. The buckdancing Uncle Tom conservative types don’t feel the love, AKA Herman Cain, and Alan West.

Republicans try and counter that in seeking out black folks of “exceptional accomplishment”. It’s a thin wallpaper.

So why are some black folks still confused about Uncle Ben Carson?

Home is where the self-hatred is…Indeed.

Many African-Americans see two sides to Ben Carson

Ayauna King-Baker loved Ben Carson’s “Gifted Hands” memoir so much that she made her daughter Shaliya read it. So when Carson showed up in town to sign copies of his new book, King-Baker dragged the giggly 13-year-old along to the bookstore so they could both meet him.

To King-Baker, Carson’s “up-by-your-bootstraps” life story makes him a genuine celebrity worth emulating in the African-American community. But she’s also a Pompano Beach Democrat watching Carson rise in the Republican presidential polls.

For King-Baker and many other African-Americans, the vast majority of whom are Democrats, there are two Carsons: One is a genius doctor and inspirational speaker and writer who talks of limitless horizons; the other is a White House candidate who pushes conservative politics and wishes to “de-emphasize race.”

How they reconcile the two may help determine whether Republicans can dent the solid support Democrats have enjoyed in the black community for decades.

President Barack Obama won 95 percent of the black vote in 2008 and 93 percent in 2012. Carson wasn’t immune to the excitement of seeing the U.S. elect its first black president.

“I don’t think there were any black people in the country that weren’t thrilled that that happened – including me,” Carson told The Associated Press in a recent interview when asked about Obama’s first victory. “Everyone had hope this would be something different. It was nice having that hope for a little while.”

Carson has since become an aggressive critic of Obama. Carson rose to prominence in the tea party movement after repudiating the president’s health care law in front of Obama during the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast. Today, Carson charges that Obama’s performance has actually set black candidates back.

“I don’t think he’s made my path any easier,” he said. “So many people said there’d never be another black president for 100 years after this.”

Carson has not gone out of his way to court black voters this year. He insists he won’t change his message to attract specific audiences, although his campaign tried a rap-filled ad this month.

He already has one convert – King-Baker. She says she plans to change her registration to vote for the doctor in the Florida primary. “He has the momentum, he has the conversation, he’s very serious, he’s speaking to the people, and I just think he would be a very good president,” she said.

None of this will matter unless Carson survives the primaries, where he’s been leading in early preference polls.

Black votes aren’t a major factor in GOP primaries. Only about 16 percent of African-American voters affiliated with the Republican Party in 2012. But they will be a factor in the November general election.

African-American voters are one of the few growing segments of the voting public. The percentage of black voters eclipsed the percentage of whites for the first time in 2012, when 66 percent of blacks voted, compared with 64 percent of non-Hispanics whites and about 48 percent of Hispanics and Asians.

Carole Bell, a professor of communication studies at Northeastern University, estimates that Carson could attract as much as 25 percent of the African-American vote if he’s the GOP candidate. “That would be a tremendous accomplishment for the GOP at this stage,” she said.

Carson is better known by African-American voters than were other black Republicans who ran for president, such as businessman Herman Cain, who achieved passing prominence in the 2012 race, and former ambassador Alan Keyes before him.

Carson was a celebrated figure before he entered politics because of his work as a neurosurgeon. Carson led a team that successfully separated conjoined twins, which led to movie appearances, best-selling books, a television biography and a motivational speaking career that crossed racial lines.

“Black people were proud that Carson had become a famous surgeon and had accomplished what no one else ever had in separating the twins,” said Fredrick Harris, director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University.

That’s part of his appeal, said Rebecca Britt, 43, a registered Democrat who also came to see Carson in Fort Lauderdale and buy his most recent book. “He’s one of the heroes in our community, with what he’s been able to accomplish in the medical field,” she said.

But can that translate into many black votes?

Carson has said he would not support a Muslim for president, a position his campaign says helped him raise money and attract conservative support. He’s been critical of the Black Lives Matter movement, which drew its name from protests that followed the death of an unarmed black 18-year-old, Michael Brown.

The retired neurosurgeon told the AP that Americans should take the focus off of race during a recent trip to Brown’s hometown, Ferguson, Missouri.

Carson may draw support from conservative African-Americans and those already in the GOP, but it’s unlikely that he would make major inroads in the Democratic Party’s dominance among blacks in a general election, said D’Andra Orey, a political science professor at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi.

Given the GOP’s fraught history with African-Americans, it could be “nearly impossible for blacks to support a Republican who espouses what they deem to be racially conservative rhetoric,” Orey said. “Put short, it’s an uphill battle for any Republican who seeks out the black vote.”

 

 

Donald Trump Has Black Supporters?

It must be the hair! I mean, he’s the only man  in the world who spends more time at the beauticians than a teenage girl getting ready for a prom date. I’ve met black women, who after getting their coif perfect, are more likely to ask you to run your hands through their locks than Trump. And guys, you KNOW the quickest way to a short relationship is to mess with a sister’s hair! 🙂

Even more interesting is the fact that Trump, despite his white supremacist base – draws more black voters in polls than does Carson.

 

Donald Trump Has Black Supporters (Really)

Last week, Survey USA released an eye-catching poll showing how Donald Trump would fare in head-to-head match ups against potential Democratic nominees Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and Al Gore. The most shocking result was not that he beat all four of the candidates. What made everyone’s jaw hit the floor is that he received more than 20 percent support among African American voters in every match up.

Normally, the GOP would be ecstatic about a Republican garnering this much support from the much sought-after African American voter base, but Trump’s success as a divisive, anti-establishment candidate has resulted in most onlookers responding with disbelief and/or alarm.

How does a candidate who holds political rallies in Alabama with supporters screaming “white power” and has been endorsed by the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer receive over 20 percent support of African American voters in a national poll?

And better yet, why isn’t Ben Carson, the only African American presidential candidate — who according to a recent Monmouth poll is tied with Trump in Iowa with 23 percent, receiving a similar level of support amongst African American voters?

“Donald Trump has a certain swagger about him that I think registers with people. Especially if he is talking about trying to make government work for the people,” said Donald E. Scoggins, a lifelong Republican and president of the Republicans for Black Empowerment. “I think Trump’s support is primarily personality driven.”…

The GOP rarely presents candidates who appeal to African Americans. Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, when he only won 6 percent of the African American vote and was consistently plagued as being out of touch and aloof, speaks to the significance of this problem.

Carson also shows how difficult it is for the GOP establishment to relate to black voters. Through his success as a surgeon and author, Carson has been known throughout the black community and specifically black churches for decades. African Americans are not only willing to listen to him, they already have, but as a candidate his appeal has fallen flat. His criticisms of Black Lives Matter and the protests in Ferguson and Baltimore following the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray has made him appear out of touch with the black community, including conservative blacks.

Carson’s belief that racism and poverty can be eradicated through individual acts and not structural change resonates with white conservatives, but is loathed by black Americans. The BLM movement aims to tackle systemic and institutional racism to improve the lives of black Americans. The civil rights movement of the 1960s was about confronting and breaking down the racist and institutional structures in America that prevented black advancement.

He expresses a belief in individual liberty and freedom as a universally uplifting force and this resonates with Republican voters. Black voters, even the conservative ones, more closely relate to collective, community-based initiatives that tackle large problems that negatively impact the entire community. Carson most certainly is apart from this community…

 

On Black Folks and Blue Voting

This is a very good article, in that it goes beyond the rhetoric to looking at the root causes of the black-blue alliance. Well worth a read to get beyond the trash, and racist rhetoric advanced by conservatives. The core rationale for black folks supporting Democrats is economic…

Now that the economy is changing, the response to prevailing economic conditions, and creation of a new economic model which includes black folks is paramount.

Black and Blue

The Black and Democrat Alliance has a lot more to do with factors such as jobs, economic security, and distrust of small government than just race...

When we talk about American social models and the need to go beyond what I’m calling the blue social model and on to liberalism 5.0, race needs to be discussed.  The collapse of the blue social model, a shift from federal to local power and a shift from government to the private sector are not race-neutral topics.  It’s not just the underclass in the inner cities who face problems as the old models of subsidy and support become less sustainable; middle class African Americans compared to whites tend to work disproportionately in public sector jobs or in private sector jobs like health care that are heavily subsidized by government transfers.  A pension crisis for state or federal workers will hit African-American families harder, proportionately, than white ones; municipal layoffs and bankruptcies will have a disproportionate effect on both the African-Americans who depend on these services and those who are paid to provide them.

If you believe as I do that the old model is going to have to change because we just can’t pay for it anymore — and if you also believe that a less bureaucratic and less statist society can be a richer and a happier one — you need to think seriously about what this means for the group in American life most closely tied to the failing blue system.

And to understand the politics and emotions swirling around politics today, you have to come to grips with the racial subtext in the conversation about the breakup of Big Blue.

Not that I am trying to guilt-trip white America.  Most white Americans strongly believe that the struggle for racial equality is a vital component of American life.  Not everyone agrees with what should be done going forward, but you have to turn over the rocks and look hard to find people who want to turn the clock back – say, towards the kind of legal segregation I grew up under in the Jim Crow South.  The conversation we need to have about the next stage of liberal thought isn’t about race blackmail and pious PC.

 

Obama Losing the Black Vote

The people advising President Obama are definitely OTL. While accomplishing a great deal, possibly more than any President since Johnson, in the first 20 months of his Presidency, public opinion still continues to lag about his accomplishments, and misunderstandings about what the new legislation he has driven through mean to the American people…

Still abound. They spend way to much time worrying about offending the white voters who didn’t vote for Obama last time – and wouldn’t vote for Obama if he was the second coming.

Now, it might be comfortable fo some to blame the massive disinformation campaign by Faux News and others on the right…

But I blame in on just plain old Democrat cowardice. It would seem, having a spine is anathema to the majority of elected Democrats, despite the surfacing of a few champions occasionally.

The President of the United States has one heck of a “Bully Pulpit” – the fact that he hasn’t until now utilized the full force of that is the most critical failure of his administration. No wonder that the progressive and minority base…

Just isn’t going to show up this election. This is a classic case of forgetting the folks who got you there…

Neglecting the Base

Bob Herbert

Maybe it was just a coincidence, but it was striking, nevertheless.

The mayor of Washington, Adrian Fenty, one of the so-called postracial black leaders, suffered a humiliating defeat in his bid for re-election last week when African-American voters deserted him in droves. The very same week President Obama, the most prominent of the so-called postracial types, was moving aggressively to shore up his support among black voters.

Mr. Obama, who usually goes out of his way to avoid overtly racial comments and appeals, made an impassioned plea during a fiery speech Saturday night at a black-tie event sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus. “I need everybody here,” he said, “to go back to your neighborhoods, to go back your workplaces, to go to the churches and go to the barbershops and go to the beauty shops. And tell them we’ve got more work to do.”

It’s no secret that the president is in trouble politically, and that Democrats in Congress are fighting desperately to hold on to their majorities. But much less attention has been given to the level of disenchantment among black voters, who have been hammered disproportionately by the recession and largely taken for granted by the Democratic Party. That disenchantment is likely to translate into lower turnout among blacks this fall.

The idea that we had moved into some kind of postracial era was always a ridiculous notion. Attitudes have undoubtedly changed for the better over the past half-century, and young people as a whole are less hung up on race than their elders. But race is still a very big deal in the United States, which is precisely why black leaders like Mr. Fenty and Mr. Obama try so hard to behave as though they are governing in some sort of pristine civic environment in which the very idea of race has been erased.

These allegedly postracial politicians can end up being so worried about losing the support of whites that they distance themselves from their own African-American base. This is a no-win situation — for the politicians and for the blacks who put their hopes and faith in them.

Mr. Fenty was cheered by whites for bringing in the cold-blooded Michelle Rhee as schools chancellor. She attacked D.C.’s admittedly failing school system with an unseemly ferocity and seemed to take great delight in doing it. Hundreds of teachers were fired and concerns raised by parents about Ms. Rhee’s take-no-prisoners approach were ignored. It was disrespectful.

Blacks responded last week by voting overwhelmingly for Mr. Fenty’s opponent, Vincent Gray, who is also black. This blowback undermined whatever Ms. Rhee and Mr. Fenty had hoped to achieve. Thanks to their ham-handed approach to governing and disregard of the sensibilities of their constituents, both of them will soon be gone. But the children they claimed to care so much about will still be locked in a lousy school system.

Black voters across the country are not nearly as discontented with Mr. Obama as blacks in Washington were with Mr. Fenty. But neither do they have the same enthusiasm that they had in the historic 2008 election… (more)

 

The HNIC “‘Fesses up” About Republicans and Black Folks

Perhaps as a result of facing the heavy flak he has received as Chair of the RNC, Michael Steele comes clean about the state of the relationship between the Republican Party and black folks. Could be that Mikkie has figured out the handwriting on the wall, finally – and suddenly found a spine because of it…

GOP chairman: African-Americans not given good reason to vote for party

Why should an African-American vote Republican?

“You really don’t have a reason to, to be honest — we haven’t done a very good job of really giving you one. True? True,” Republican National Chairman Michael Steele told 200 DePaul University students Tuesday night.

Steele — a former Maryland lieutenant governor and seminarian serving as the first African-American head of the Republican Party — offered a frank assessment of the American political system…

Steele seemed to hold the diverse student audience’s attention most when he talked about his own experience suffering racial discrimination — in his first law firm interview for example — and when he confessed his party’s failure to reach out to African-Americans:

“We have lost sight of the historic, integral link between the party and African-Americans,” Steele said. “This party was co-founded by blacks, among them Frederick Douglass. The Republican Party had a hand in forming the NAACP, and yet we have mistreated that relationship. People don’t walk away from parties, Their parties walk away from them.

“For the last 40-plus years we had a ‘Southern Strategy’ that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South. Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, ‘Bubba’ went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton.”

Now Mikkie didn’t suddenly have this epiphany for no reason. Also in the news today is what an internal Republican audit of the RNC’s finances turned up –

Internal RNC probe finds financial controls in disarray

Barely 6 1/2 months before the midterm elections, an internal investigation by the Republican National Committee has revealed that the organization is beset with questionable financial management and oversight and is spending more money courting top-dollar donors than it raises.

The investigation found that the Republican Party’s national governing body is losing money on its major-donors’ fundraising program — spending $1.09 for each $1.00 raised, according to RNC members privy to the investigation’s findings. It typically costs about 40 cents for every dollar raised from donors who give more than $1,000.

The investigation also found that the RNC has allowed employees to forge Finance Director Rob Bickhart’s initials on expense-reimbursement request approvals, according to an RNC member who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The RNC’s top elected and appointed management have united in defense of the committee’s practices. RNC Chairman Michael S. Steele can withhold or increase RNC contributions to a state party.