OPINION:
Former President Barack Obama is out and about on the campaign trail for Vice President Kamala Harris, telling Black voters basically they better vote for her in the presidential election, or they ain’t Black. But the message is falling flat. He’s losing his magic touch. The race card isn’t proving effective.
“Obama, on the campaign trail has one particularly tough crowd: Young Black men,” NBC News just reported.
Yikes. When the Black man can’t get out the Black vote for the candidate who is sometimes Black, well then — Democrats know they have a problem. And boy, do they know they have a problem.
“Polls show that former President Donald Trump has made inroads with Black voters,” NPR wrote earlier this month. “That’s according to a recent NAACP poll that found one in four under 50 (Black men) support Donald Trump over Kamala Harris.”
Even mainstream media outlets are seeing this anomaly.
For years, Blacks people in general, and Black men, specifically, have voted Democrat. In September 2016, Pew Research Center reported that 87 percent of Black voters “identify with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic, compared with just 7 percent who identify as Republican or lean Republican.” Just for comparison purposes, in this same poll, Pew found 54 percent of White registered voters identified as Republican or leaned Republican versus 39 percent who identified as Democrat, or leaned Democrat; and 63 percent of Hispanic voters identified as Democrat compared to 27 percent who said they voted Republican.
The times, they are a’changin’.
“Why Black men could be key to Harris’ swing-state chances,” Axios just wrote.
The piece went on to report of “the slow ripple of Black male voters from the Democratic Party to the GOP” is coming to a head. And Harris and her campaign are now being forced to sweat out the support from camps of people who used to be loyal knee-jerk Dem voters. And their message isn’t exactly resonating. Harris, for instance, in a bid to gain the Black vote, promised during a radio town hall with Charlamagne tha God that if she won the White House, she would work hard to decriminalize marijuana across the nation.
Say what? It’s not exactly a winning message to a nation of voters of all walks of ethnic background, to include Black as well as White voters as well as every color in between, that the big issue of concern is making sure everyone has equal, fair, equitable and unfettered access to marijuana. Never mind the food costs. Never mind the health care costs. Never mind the subpar school systems that seem to dominate the inner-city sanctums where Black people and minorities heavily populate. Keep ’em high and happy; that’s the Harris motto.
“Any African American or Hispanic [who] votes for Kamala — you’ve got to have your head examined because they are really screwing you,” Trump said at a recent rally in Georgia.
It doesn’t get any clearer than that.
The open border policies of this Biden-Harris administration haven’t just harmed those who live in the southernmost states and face incursions of illegals with thieving, criminal intents onto their personal and private properties. Rather, taxpayers are paying to fly and bus and relocated these illegals to points north, east and west of the border, and then pay for their housing, then pay for their medical care, then pay for their food, then pay — in some cases — for their legal defenses and educational costs. Meanwhile, these illegals also serve as cheap labor for a business sector that has been emboldened by a “see no evil, deal with no evil” political class that’s refrained from deporting those who don’t belong — and in the end, the cheap labor has seriously dinged the job market.
“Illegal Aliens Taking U.S. Jobs,” the Federation for American Immigration Reform wrote way back in March of 2020.
Democrats dispute this. Apologists for open border advocates scorn that. Harris supporters in the press particularly fight hard against that view. But that doesn’t change facts.
As National Review wrote in August, “Blacks, particularly Black men, are disproportionately concentrated in the low-skill labor market and are disproportionately likely to have no more than a high-school diploma. Likewise, illegal immigrants are disproportionately low-skilled and disproportionately likely to have minimal educational levels. Both groups compete with one another in the low-skilled labor market. … At least one study suggests competition from illegal immigrants accounts for approximately 40 percent of the decline in Black employment rates over the last several decades.”
Simultaneously, illegals in the workforce depress the pay scale, not just for Black people and minorities, but across the board, across all workplaces.
“A 2007 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimated that as a result of the growth of undocumented workers, the annual earnings of the average low-skilled documented worker in Georgia in 2007 were $960 lower than they were in 2000,” National Review continued.
The trickle effect brings a skewed economy around the nation.
“Democrats have been unnerved by recent polls that show Harris’ numbers sagging among Black voters, particularly young Black men,” NBC wrote. “[O]ne of Obama’s tasks is to persuade Black men … that voting for Trump would be a grievous mistake.”
Only — Black people aren’t buying the lies.
Soon enough, neither will women. Neither will Hispanics. Neither will youth. And where will Democrats be then? They’ll have to campaign on platforms of policy, not angry emotion; not petty jealousies; not divide-and-conquer demographics. Meaning: Their election wins will be few and far between.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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