Biden's bid for Black votes

Get the Point!

During an interview with the NY Times last week, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) was asked what would it take for President Joe Biden to inspire Black voters to turn out in droves and help him defeat former President Donald Trump this fall?

Clyburn, arguably the most influential Democrat in Congress who was critically important for the Biden campaign in 2020, issued a message to the Black electorate by replying,"Do what you did before...turn that election around and save this democracy.”

Rep. Jim Clyburn with Ol’ Hobbs at a Democratic Party event in Tallahassee circa 2016…

Oh, but is it that simple?

If you are wondering why it is January and politicos are already talking about "turning the election around," it is because Donald Trump, despite facing four criminal indictments, is projected to score relatively well among Black voters in the coming general election.

Now, in ages past, prior Republican presidential candidates have always siphoned a small number of Black voters, usually ranging anywhere from five to 10 percent per exit polling; Trump drew six percent of the Black vote in 2016, and eight percent of the same in 2020. 

But in a recent NY Times/Siena College Poll, the data suggested that Trump could earn up to 22 percent of the Black vote in key battleground states in 2024! This possibility makes it all the more critical for Biden and his champions, like Rep. Clyburn, to stump for Black votes early on instead of assuming that turnout will be the same come November. 

While I will analyze in a later post why I suspect that such a high percentage of Black voters are attracted to Trump's 2024 candidacy, today's post will focus more on why I suspect so many Black voters are lukewarm to cold towards a second Biden term. 

To begin, as with anything under the sun, part of the problem is messaging! Not just the message, but WHO is contracted to deliver the message!

Back in 2005, I started writing a weekly column for the Capital Outlook newspaper, which was owned and operated at the time by legendary Florida A&M University journalism Professor Roosevelt Wilson. Prof. Wilson often lamented in his own weekly columns (and in our personal conversations) that the Democratic Party had a weak history of advertising with the Black press. 

In the near 20 years since, the Black press has expanded to include not just the weekly and monthly newspapers and periodicals like the Outlook, the Chicago Defender, and Ebony that our parents and grandparents enjoyed, but social media based news sites and influencers whose words resonate with the very target audiences that Democratic candidates, like President Biden, must attract. 

I had the honor of interviewing Rep. Clyburn and politico Antjuan Seawright twice during the 2020 presidential campaign for The Christian Recorder (AME Church) podcast on Facebook…

Such is why I contend that if a presidential campaign can spend multiple millions of dollars on mainstream TV ads and interviews with major networks, then they can surely spend some of those millions with the Black press and Black social media influencers, too!

As my faithful readers know, I do a great bit of checking for comments on traditional and social media websites, and I often engage in dialogue with a number of highly intelligent folks in my circle who are really struggling with "why" Black voters should support Biden in 2024. And these folks that I mention range from somewhat informed to very well informed and yet, many do not realize that the Biden administration's policies have helped to:

*Drive down unemployment to less than four percent;

*Pass a multi-billion dollar infrastructure package that will fix America's roads and bridges and put people to work fulfilling those tasks;

*Invest upwards of $7 billion dollars in America's Historically Black Colleges and Universities while expanding Pell Grant opportunities year have helped Black undergraduates at HBCU's and PWI's, alike;

*Provide $136 Billion dollars in Federal student loan forgiveness;

*Cap insulin prices for Americans suffering from Diabetes, a disease that disproportionately strikes Blacks.

While each of the above is laudable, the fact that some Black voters remain unaware of these achievements or, are aware and still unimpressed, reverts back to my above stated concern about poor messaging.

Conversely, while there is a significant segment of the Black electorate that is (or should be) impressed by such achievements, when we realize that politics are personal, we must concede that HBCU investment, student loan forgiveness, and grant giving means little to those Blacks voters who are not in college or never attended college in the first place. Ditto for those Black voters who do not suffer from Diabetes or are not trained in one of the trades that will fix roads and railways and bridges!

So, keeping with the theme that politics are personal, what I see and hear the most are concerns that while inflation is finally decreasing from a COVID Pandemic high under the Trump administration due to price increases for food and services as a direct result of labor decreases during the 2020 quarantines, that the costs of housing, fresh meats, fruits, vegetables, and dairy remain ridiculously high across the country four years later—while wages have not increased to offset those costs—is a problem for the current White House resident.

President Biden and Rep. Clyburn awaiting to address the crowd at Mother Emmanuel AME Church, the site of the 2016 race massacre, earlier this month…

President Biden not only must address inflation related concerns, but for those of us paying attention, there are a number of young Black progressives who, along with young progressive voters of all races, are extremely upset with this administration's refusal to force Israel to stand down in Gaza. From the United Nations to Doctors without Borders and other advocacy groups, the Israeli Defense Forces actions in Gaza have been routinely denounced as "genocide" but Biden, like many older Democrats and almost the entirety of the Republican Party, has shown an indifference towards the catastrophic number of Palestinian civilian deaths in the region. 

A Palestinian mother weeps as she holds the remains of her one year old son who was killed during an Israeli air strike in Gaza last month….

I wrote in this column space several months ago that Biden's insouciance in Gaza was a dire mistake that could bite him come November, and until the president and his inner circle realize that a great many young Black voters are in league with their Palestinian allies here in America and in the Middle East, all of the trumpeting of Biden's domestic achievements will fall largely on deaf ears as he faces a tough rematch against Donald Trump.