What a surprise: It appears that lines like “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black” aren’t going to work for Joe Biden in 2024.
Biden, you may remember, made that infamous remark during a radio interview in 2020, on a nationally syndicated radio show hosted by African-Americans. It didn’t go over well then and picked open yet another scab when it came to Biden’s problematic racial history.
.@JoeBiden: "If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black." @cthagod: "It don't have nothing to do with Trump, it has to do with the fact — I want something for my community." @breakfastclubam pic.twitter.com/endvWnOIV2
— America Rising (@AmericaRising) May 22, 2020
But Trump’s gains among black voters were modest at best in 2020, despite that and other racial faux pas on Biden’s part. The Democratic Party’s most loyal demographic, for the most part, did their thing. According to a Monday report in The Wall Street Journal, that might not be the case in 2024 — and it should have Democrats panicking.
The piece opened with the tale of Michelle Smith, “a Black mother working two jobs and raising three teenage boys in North Philadelphia.” She voted for Biden three years ago because “she thought he would help people like her.”
“Now she says she won’t vote for him again, citing higher prices, skyrocketing rent and a feeling she has been left behind,” the Journal’s Catherine Lucey wrote.
“I really did think he was going to help people in my situation,” Smith, 46, told the paper. “It’s like all of them talk a good game until they get elected.”
Now, the home health aide is earning $12.50 an hour and doing Instacart deliveries as a side gig to make ends meet.
“I think I’m not going to vote, period,” she said.
Smith is hardly alone. When it comes to wage gains, black workers have seen gains cool faster than other demographics while still having to pay the same (inflated) prices for goods, services and housing.
In the third quarter of this year, they saw a 4.2 median rise in earnings against a 10.3 percent gain in the same quarter last year, Lucey wrote. The second quarter saw a similar pattern, with wages only up 4.5 percent vs. 6.9 percent in 2022.
Furthermore, Lucey wrote, while black workers saw record low unemployment in April (4.7 percent), that increased to 5.8 percent in October — “outpacing the increase for Americans overall.”
Democrats are paying attention, Lucey noted.
“Party leaders are chiefly concerned about diminished Black voter turnout, but are also worried that some of these voters will instead back Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, who is the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination,” she wrote.
“Hoping to prevent a drop-off, Democrats are pumping money into voter canvassing, education and advertising in battleground states.”
This comes after a New York Times/Siena College poll found that 22 percent of black voters would vote for Trump in a hypothetical rematch of the 2020 race, and a quarter said they either wouldn’t be voting or weren’t sure they would be casting a ballot.
Considering Biden beat Trump 92 percent to 8 percent in the black vote in 2020 — and that was an improvement over the last Republican nominee for president not named Trump, Mitt Romney — a huge swell of black support for Trump would spell huge trouble for the Biden campaign.
Lucey quoted an unnamed black elected Democrat saying exactly that:
“I am absolutely concerned. Frankly, I am extremely concerned,” the Democrat said. “This is a huge problem.”
Activist and organizer Alicia Garza agreed.
“The risk is that people stay home,” she told Lucey. “I think the problem is Black voters are consistently underinvested in.”
Not only that, but any gains in the black vote by Trump or Republicans are dismissed by the establishment media as either aberrations or the result of chicanery and lies.
For instance, take Vox, the official outlet of liberalsplaining since 2011.
“Trump made gains with Black voters in some states. Here’s why,” a Nov. 4, 2020 post-election headline read.
The subheadline explained what Vox thought the reason was: “With disinformation and economic promises, Trump lobbied hard for the Black vote in the final days of the campaign.”
Ah yes — that pesky “disinformation.” That must be it! And only “promises” of economic prosperity. Never mind that black unemployment had also registered record lows under Trump, and not just because of a tight labor market like under Biden.
Now, the establishment media is being more realistic: Biden hasn’t delivered for black voters. The same as ever, the Democrats just assumed that black Americans would come out and do their duty to support Democrats. And what black voter wouldn’t want to, when this was the guy at the top of the ballot?
Joe Biden slip-up in Iowa tonight.
— Andrew Clark (@AndrewHClark) August 9, 2019
"Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids."
Yikes…have fun mitigating that one. pic.twitter.com/m2VxZbnFHF
Joe Biden on LL Cool J: “LL J Cool J, uhh, by the way, that boy's got— that man's got biceps bigger than my thighs”
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) September 25, 2023
pic.twitter.com/fnG9et4rma
Watch: Biden refers to a black FEMA adviser as "boy." pic.twitter.com/aWqv0vjOhE
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) August 31, 2021
Joe Biden on how American families should spend evenings:
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) September 13, 2019
"Play the radio, make sure the television — excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night." pic.twitter.com/ghmbdSu5Am
Such solutions! If only black voters would have followed his advice and left the record player on at night, they’d all be better off.
Biden hasn’t delivered for anyone, but he especially hasn’t delivered for black voters — the voters the Democratic Party counts on time and again to deliver victory in close states. When Trump is polling at 22 percent among black voters, there’s a problem.
Your bad, black America!
Like most of Biden’s other problems, it’s not one that’s going to be fixed overnight — if ever.
It’s also self-inflicted, like most of Biden’s other problems.
It’s who Joe Biden is, and black voters might have figured that out.
via westernjournal
