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Polls suggest Black men are drifting from the Democratic Party and embracing former President Donald Trump, and Cornel West attributes it to “Scarface” syndrome.
Mr. West, who is running against President Biden as an independent, says the president is slipping in polls in part because he can’t compete with Mr. Trump on the gangster yardstick, epitomized by the 1983 film in which Al Pacino plays a murderous Cuban drug boss.
“It could be the hypermasculinity that they see in Trump,” Mr. West, a prominent Black academic, told reporters. “You know, you’ve got a whole wave of young Black brothers who are in love with ‘Scarface.’”
That’s one theory among many as political analysts try to explain Mr. Trump’s attraction from members of a voting bloc that used to be considered Democrats’ most reliable and who rescued Mr. Biden’s campaign in the 2020 Democratic primary.
Mr. Biden went on to win 92% of the Black vote in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center.
Things are shaping up differently for a Trump-Biden do-over.
Mr. Biden’s approval rating is in the tank, and voters across demographic groups are not thrilled about an 82-year-old starting another four-year term.
A New York Times/Siena College national survey released this week found 17% of Black voters backing Mr. Trump.
Even worse for Mr. Biden was the same pollsters’ survey of six battleground states last month, which found Mr. Trump with 22% of Black voters’ support in a hypothetical rematch. That would be nearly three times Mr. Trump’s 2020 share of the Black vote.
Chris Walton, a former chairman of the Milwaukee County Democratic Party in Wisconsin, said the poll findings are baffling given that Black unemployment has sunk from 9.2% to 5.8% and inflation has cooled off.
“These polls just don’t seem accurate,” Mr. Walton said. “Who is answering these polls? It just doesn’t make sense to me.”
He also mocked Mr. West’s “Scarface” theory.
“We are picking a president, not a damn mafia don,” Mr. Walton said. “That is one of the dumbest things I’ve heard out of this election so far.”
To be sure, Black voters are still Mr. Biden’s strongest supporters out of any basic demographic polled.
Any slippage could be devastating because Black voters represented nearly a third of eligible voters in Georgia in 2020 and 13% in Michigan, 10% in Pennsylvania and 6% in Wisconsin, according to Pew.
Mr. West’s theory centers heavily on voters turning to Mr. Trump.
Charlamagne Tha God, host of “The Breakfast Club,” a syndicated radio show, pointed to the pandemic-era stimulus checks and Mr. Trump’s signature on prison sentence reduction legislation as reasons some Black voters are considering him.
Mr. West mentioned Mr. Biden’s role in passing the 1996 Crime Bill, which liberals have blamed for filling up prisons with Black Americans.
In an interview with Chris Wallace for CNN, Charlamagne said Democrats have taken Black voters for granted.
They also sense that Mr. Biden has lost luster, particularly as inflation pummels those living paycheck to paycheck. Mr. Biden’s embrace of Israel in its war with Hamas may be playing a role. Younger Black voters seem to be the most willing to break with their longtime political home.
Mr. Walton said Black voters will rally behind Mr. Biden when the general election campaign comes into more focus and the president’s team talks more about his record on the economy, abortion rights and child care.
Indeed, polling in the fall of 2020 showed Mr. Trump gaining ground with Black voters, only to end up at about the same level as other Republican presidential hopefuls. Still, for a man decried by Democrats as the most racist president in modern times, that’s something.
Mr. Biden says he doesn’t believe surveys showing him losing support.
“You’re reading the wrong polls,” he recently told reporters.
His campaign is reading the same polls reporters are and moving to better shore up support among Black voters.
Mr. Biden took a trip to Milwaukee on Wednesday to speak to the Wisconsin Black Chamber of Commerce, where he told members, “You brung me to the dance.”
He said he has overseen the fastest growth in Black businesses in more than 30 years and that Black wealth is up 60% since before the pandemic. He said Black child poverty has been cut in half since he took office.
He took swipes at Mr. Trump, saying Black businesses were “last in line” for emergency pandemic assistance such as small-business loans and claimed Republicans more broadly were “erasing Black history and banning books.”
That reflects Mr. Biden’s hope to make the election less of a referendum on him and more of a choice between himself and Mr. Trump.
“While MAGA Republicans push an extreme agenda that would harm Black and rural communities and take our country backward, a second term for President Biden and Vice President Harris would build on the work they’ve already accomplished for Black Americans and continue to deliver on the issues that matter most to our community,” said Biden campaign manager Quentin Fulks.
Cynthia Tucker, a former editorial page editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said in a recent op-ed for The Dallas Morning News that recent polls are alarming because Mr. Trump has made racism fashionable again. She said Black voters will remember that over time.
“Biden will have every opportunity to point to Trump’s racism, and Trump will make it easy,” Ms. Tucker said. “The contrast will remind Black voters — indeed, most voters of color — that keeping Trump out of the Oval Office is imperative.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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