Black Votes Matter — A LOT!

Posted on by under Election 2024, Global Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, voting rights

Although next year’s election is 346 days away, it is on all of our minds and is likely to be the hot topic in the news for the duration of that time.  Never before in our lifetime has so much hinged on the outcome of one single election.  I wish it weren’t so, I wish we could set it aside until late September of next year, but the reality is we cannot afford to.  Colbert King wrote a good analysis of it in The Washington Post yesterday that I’d like to share with you.  Pay particular attention to his analysis of how Black votes would have likely changed the outcome of the 2016 election.

Trump won’t need more Black votes. He just needs Black voters to stay home again.

By Colbert King

24 November 2023

When we sat down for dinner Thursday, I silently gave thanks that Donald Trump is not president of the United States.

My Thanksgiving Day invocation was inspired by remembrance of Trump’s dreadful presidency. But also by all the mean and ugly things he has said and done — along with his democracy-threatening actions — since his rejection by voters in the 2020 presidential election. (I think attempting to overturn a presidential election qualifies as antidemocratic.)

As a fourth-generation Washingtonian, I’m especially thankful that Trump isn’t in the White House. A vengeful Trump has called for a federal takeover of the District, which he regards as a “dirty, crime-ridden death trap.”

Why else am I thankful Trump’s not in the White House? He has publicly disclosed that if elected, he would consider weaponizing the federal government against those who would oppose his reign. He’s also made it known that he wants to strip career federal employees of civil service protections, to abolish the Education Department and to see more teachers trained to carry concealed weapons.

Trump’s thoughts on the NATO alliance and aid to Ukraine are life preservers to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

There are good and sufficient reasons to be thankful that Trump is running only his mouth, and not the government.

But where will we be in our Thanksgiving Day thoughts next year?

Will we be lifting prayers of thanks because Trump’s current bid for the presidency ultimately failed? Or will we be glumly staring at our plates, bemoaning the fate that awaits us after he takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2025?

In whose hands rests the answer? The best place to start is with those most responsible for deciding next year’s presidential election.

President Biden is a seasoned politician, but he might be sizing up the Trump situation all wrong.

Criticizing Trump for bragging on the stump about killing Roe v. Wade, Biden said: “Let’s be clear: The only reason a fundamental right has been stripped away from the American people for the first time in American history is because of Trump.”

Not accurate.

Trump was able to nominate the conservative Supreme Court justices who took a knife to Roe, and also struck down affirmative action programs a year later, because turnout among key Democratic voting blocs fell in the 2016 election, dooming Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the electoral college. Voters who skipped the balloting helped Trump make good on his word.

Trump did as president what he signaled as candidate. I wrote in a September 2016 column, less than two months before Election Day, “Examine [Trump’s] frightening list of right-wing court nominees. Install a Trump White House and say farewell to civil liberties, voting rights, consumer rights and reproductive rights.”

Numbers tell the story.

In 2016, the Black voter turnout rate in a presidential election declined for the first time in 20 years. At 59.6 percent, it was seven percentage points below the 2012 level, the largest decline on record for Black voters. But note well, Barack Obama was on the ballot in 2012 and 2008.

Obama got the turnout. In 2016, Clinton got the shoulder.

She did roll up, as expected, majorities in Black strongholds across the country. But Black voter turnout wasn’t there for her in states where it mattered most.

Trump won Michigan by 11,000 votes. But 277,000 eligible Black people didn’t vote. He won Wisconsin by 23,000 votes, but 93,000 eligible Black voters did not cast ballots. Trump’s 200,000-vote win in Georgia was helped when 530,000 eligible Black voters did not vote. Trump slipped by in North Carolina by a margin of 173,000 votes, while 233,000 Black voters stayed home. Much the same in Pennsylvania, which Trump won by 44,000 votes.

Who knew that better than Trump? Being Trump, he couldn’t just accept the unwarranted help and keep his mouth shut. He attended a mostly White victory rally in Hershey, Pa., in December 2016 and taunted: “They didn’t come out to vote for Hillary. They didn’t come out. And that was a big — so thank you to the African American community.”

Now, Trump’s 2016 campaign was helped by the heaps of negative ads about Clinton targeted to Black Americans by both his campaign and Russian interference in the election — well documented by the Mueller report.

That bit of history gets us back to the question: In whose hands rests the answer to the outcome of next year’s presidential election?

The voters, of course. But as with previous elections, Black voters in important battleground states are a key voting bloc and essential to the Democratic ticket.

And we are hearing echoes of the 2016 Clinton disaster. Flagging enthusiasm amid complaints that Democratic standard-bearer Biden, who can’t help it that he’s not Obama, is a bland motivator who has yet to meet all the Black community’s basic needs.

There’s little talk about a president hamstrung by a closely divided Senate, an extremist Republican House and a 24/7 opposition messaging campaign aimed at discouraging voting for someone of Biden’s age and political moderation. And not much serious thought is being given to the reactionary Republican candidates — as was true in 2016.

Will it work again?

We’ll know by next Thanksgiving.

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28 thoughts on “Black Votes Matter — A LOT!”

  3. Jill, you have heard/read me before greatly bemoan Texas’ horrendous voter turnout-rate several/many times before—for the last 2-3 decades minimum—but I also know it is not just Texas’ non-Republican voters who WON’T get out or make any effort to register-to-vote, much less actually vote! But this post is (sadly) absolutely spot-on and Colbert King nails it!

    The death of this nation’s democracy, and therefore its democratic republic Constitutional laws and institutions will be the undoing by its poorly educated or UNEDUCATED and INDIFFERENT, LAZY citizens who refuse to engage in their own governance and future. And not just THEIR own future, but that of their descendants.

    Why ordinary American (and Texan) citizens can’t comprehend this forethought/demise and outcome is beyond my comprehension. 🤷‍♂️

    Liked by 2 people

    • Yep, I fully agree and I share your angst. What’s that saying? “There are none so blind as those who will not see”? We seem to have a nation full of those who are either too ignorant to understand, or too lazy to think for themselves. We are currently teetering on a precipice … will we sit back and say our one vote doesn’t matter, and let the ignorant doom us, or will we be able to wake up enough people, cause them to understand what’s in store if they stay home and don’t bother themselves with that little task of voting? My fingers are crossed for the latter, but … I’m discouraged by the number of people who truly seem not to understand, not to care. Sigh.

      Liked by 1 person

  4. Jill, this is precisely how Trump won in 2016. Get people to stay home or vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate. Hillary Clinton ran a bad campaign and did not pay attention to PA, WI and MI. James Comey did not help with his announcement.

    I vividly recall all the young folks who just assumed Hillary would win complaining after the fact just as they did with the Brexit vote. You must vote. Even Trump did not think he could win, as he fired his transition team before the election.

    Keith

    Liked by 2 people

    • Yes, and today we have Dean Phillips, RFK, JR., and Stein again vying to pull votes away from Biden. If they consider reality, they will know they are only helping the Republicans, but … they seem not to care!

      I think it’s more critical than ever that we get people motivated to vote next year … I just wish I knew HOW! Sigh.

      Liked by 1 person

  5. It’s a difficult situation to assess; Biden has done some very good things but the Dumos are notorious for not getting their message(s) out. Look at the Hispanic/Latino vote for instance. After Trump treated migrants at the southern border literally like animals, putting children in cages, etc., calling them rapists, and drug dealers, etc. and Univision is literally bending over backwards to make him look better for the Latino vote! How can this be? What Latino would vote for Trump after his demeaning rants about them? But, believe it or not, they ARE out there!

    Americans are very finicky voters and vote more on their PERCEIVED ideas about candidates than what is usually the case and Trump is a classic example. The fact is EVERYONE must turn out to vote AND those officials accused of illegal actions during the last election must be held to account and prosecuted!

    Liked by 2 people

  6. Pingback: Black Votes Matter — A LOT! | Filosofa’s Word | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

  7. “Black Votes Matter — A LOT!”
    They matter more than white votes? What became of 1 American – 1 Vote?

    No, I know exactly what was meant, not that stupid. Just stumbled at the semantics. 😉

    Liked by 2 people

  8. The probable about Clinton versus Trump was that Hillary Clinton was not very popular even with many democrates. They should have chosen Bernie.

    When I read what Trump openly says he will do, it is rather baffling that even republicans want to vote for him. Or do they not understand what it means?

    Liked by 2 people

    • That’s part of it, and the other part is she is a woman … contrary to what they say, this nation is still very much male-dominated and many still mistakenly think a woman isn’t quite good enough to be president. Sigh.

      I think there are multiple reasons that Republicans honestly don’t care if Trump says he will punish those who speak against him, call us vermin, and talk like a fascist dictator, but primary among them is a lack of understanding of history (lack of education) and they thrill to the theatrics that Trump brings. They’re tired of stodgy, staid governance and like the excitement of the clown show. They cannot conceive of the future as you and I envision it.

      Liked by 3 people

      • “she is a woman”
        I don’t think that’s a problem, not even for Republicans. I guess it’s more the fact that she’s a dangerous harbinger for doomsday, a loose grenade, the wannabe president that would do the unthinkable and actually push the button!
        That woman is dangerous for the whole world, should never ever be voted into any office.

        Liked by 2 people

  9. If you did not like, or were frightened by the Trump tenure in The Whitehouse, then you do not have any excuse not to vote. You will spend the next year figuring how to vote, even if you have a local Republican Administration which makes it difficult to vote.
    Waiting in hope that someone else will do the job for you or that there will be an outbreak of Republican in-fighting does not hack it.

    Liked by 2 people

  10. The Black turnout at the polls is extremely important, but there is a huge problem waiting even if they do turn out. Biden is doing little to earn the ballots of the Black voters. I cannot give examples, becsuse there aren’t many to give. He needs to do something to visibly say, “I will help Black people to…” To what? That’s up to him, but it needs to be big! It would also help if he could do something big for voters turning 18 in the current election cycle! He had a lot of student support in 2020, but in the end he did little to repay them for their faith in him. There is an outstanding debt owing…
    I say these things not in a negative way, but as a warning to the Democratic Party. If you don’t take care of your voters, they will not take care of you!

    Liked by 3 people

    • Some good points here, but … Biden has a full plate right now and cannot possibly spread himself much thinner. People need to look at the bigger picture than just “what’s he doing for me?” But, I do understand your points, and you’re not wrong.

      Liked by 1 person

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