OPINION:
In 2020, when Joe Biden ran his campaign from the basement of his Delaware mansion, 92% of Black voters cast their ballots for him, a Pew Research Center report showed.
This time around, things are different — at least six months from Election Day. Former President Donald Trump’s support among Black voters has nearly tripled to 22% compared with 2020, CNN reported last week.
If that holds on Nov. 5, Mr. Trump would win a larger share of Black voters than any Republican presidential candidate since 1960.
Democrats — especially Mr. Biden — routinely take the Black vote for granted. But the Biden campaign is clearly freaking out, spending an entire week with vacuous events intent on showing African Americans that the president still remembers they exist.
Mr. Biden berated Republicans in a speech last weekend to graduating students at Morehouse College in Atlanta. He didn’t have the guts to say his predecessor’s name. Still, he told the country’s future leaders that “extremists close the doors of opportunity, strike down affirmative action, attack the values of diversity, equality and inclusion.”
“They don’t see you in the future of America, but they’re wrong,” Mr. Biden said. “We know Black history is American history. We know Black men are going to lead us into the future.”
After meeting last week with plaintiffs from the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case and their families at the White House, the president made time in his schedule — 25 minutes, to be exact — to visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington.
“My name is Joe Biden, and I’m a lifetime member of the NAACP,” the president said. He went on to say that America is the only nation “based on an idea: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and should be treated equally their whole lives — throughout their life.”
Well, not Blacks, the Founders said. They weren’t equal, and if Democrats had had their way, they never would be.
Democrats held the nation’s longest filibuster for 75 days to attempt to prevent passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. When the bill finally went to a vote, it received 152 “yea” votes from Democrats, or 60% of their members in the House, and 138 votes from Republicans, or 78% of their party.
But forget all that (the mainstream media have). Now, Mr. Biden says the Democratic Party is the only choice Blacks have: Take it or leave it.
In a later campaign event in Detroit, Mr. Biden did what Democrats do best: pander — and hand out free money. “We’re investing more money than ever in Black families and communities. We delivered checks to deposit in people’s pockets to reduce Black child poverty,” he said in Detroit.
He also said he’s been wiping away debt held by college students, which includes “a significant number of Black borrowers.” And hey, he said, I appointed a Black to the Supreme Court!
Republicans? “They’re trying to erase Black history, literally. They’re wrong. They don’t understand Black history is American history. Not a joke.”
But Mr. Biden — who in 2012 said to a largely Black audience that Republicans are “going to put y’all back in chains” — wasn’t done yet. “Let me ask you, what do you think he would’ve done on January the 6th if Black Americans had stormed the Capitol? No, I’m serious. What do you think? I can only imagine,” he said.
Before his Morehouse speech, he participated in a campaign event at Mary Mac’s Tea Room, a Black-owned small business in Atlanta. There, he delivered remarks and met with local supporters and volunteers. Attendees “enjoyed food catered by Mary Mac’s and a performance by Grammy-nominated DJ Willy Wow,” said a pool report.
But Willy Wow is a kids’ performer. A slew of top-tier rappers, including Cardi B, Amber Rose, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross and Meek Mill, have bailed on Mr. Biden. They remember how things were when Mr. Trump was president.
“This is what a lot of folks have been talking about, that Joe Biden has a specific problem among younger Black voters, and that is exactly what showing up right here,” CNN data analyst Harry Enten said. “It‘s these younger Black voters who very much are turning on him and being much more supportive of Donald Trump than they were four years ago.”
And no amount of pandering — or free money — can change that now.
• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on X @josephcurl.
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