With regard to voting, the scolding of Black men by former President Barack Obama was disturbing. Let us remember when Joe Biden was a candidate for vice president, he once attempted to scare Black voters by saying that Republicans will put you (Black people) back in chains if you vote for them. And now as president, Biden has said, “You ain’t really Black if you have to think about who to vote for.”
Democrats seem to believe they own the Black vote.
Obama received just 26% of the White male vote and lost the white women vote by around 10 points. Yet he walked into a second term. That is because of the near unanimous Black vote with an extremely high Black voter turnout.
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“He’s had your back; time for you to have his back” – that was the idea behind the campaign slogan. Translation: It was code for a Black slave volunteering to absorb the remaining lashes from a slave who was being punished by the slave owner.
Vice President Kamala Harris is merely copying this sentiment with a similar slogan from slavery (inspired by Harriet Tubman): “We are not going back.”
I proudly voted for Obama in 2008. McCain picked a candidate for vice president who was not qualified, just like Biden and the Democrats who have just picked a candidate for president who is not capable. It has nothing to do with the fact that both former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Harris did not go to elite colleges, which had been an American tradition for those seeking such high offices – our best and brightest. Rather it was because they both failed to show their intelligence during interviews. They failed to think on their feet. Palin’s blank look when faced with questions matches Harris’s word salad and repetitive responses.
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I also voted for Obama in 2008 because he went to church weekly. This is something important to me. Lastly, he had the ability to be president. That is not because he had two Ivy League degrees; he could show his abilities in unscripted moments.
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For Obama’s Inauguration Day (January 20, 2009), I went to the Capitol to get the best seat in the former Members of Congress section. I had to leave my Maryland home at around 5:30 a.m. Two of my children went with me, along with my sister (there was a four-seat maximum). We sat for hours in the cold to witness this historic event. For me it was personal. It was further confirmation of something I already knew from experience – white people would vote for a qualified Black person.
When I first ran for statewide office in Connecticut in 1986, I overwhelmingly won the white vote and did so in my three city council elections and three congressional races. So, I was proud. (It must be noted: Today, most of the new members of the Congressional Black Caucus come from majority-white districts. A true kick in the crotch to racism.)
For reasons that are not relevant today, I could not wait to vote against Obama in 2012, however. When I saw what his campaign was doing, I realized it would only divide America if he got re-elected. But I remained silent. I did not want to influence my children’s first vote for president.
His opponent, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, played right into Obama’s hands by constantly hitting Obama with negative ads.
In the last days of this presidential campaign, former President Donald Trump needs to stop attacking Harris. We get it. He needs to remind people why they should once again vote for him or do it for the first time because such a vote is in their best interests. Here are the reasons they should give the voters:
1. When Trump was president, things were better. We had peace and prosperity, along with a secure border. When American leaders are weak, we have no peace worldwide.
2. Since 2017, the Democrats have heaped hatred on Trump. They are obsessed with attacking him.
3. The Democratic candidate for president (Harris) cannot land the plane. She does not have the strength to land the plane. Ironically, Biden-Harris helped to create the perilous conditions we face today.
4. We can have a much brighter day with Trump. America can return to its prominence as the shining city on the hill.
The put “all-your-eggs-in-one-basket” approach has actually harmed, even killed, Black people. It was the root cause of the Great Migration which saw six million Black people exit the South, thousands lynched, and 6,500 killed overall. It was the “near unanimous” voting habits of Black people that caused white people to lose nearly every election in the South which had a huge Black population.
Black people stop it. We “are” a political monolith. When you give nearly all your votes to only “one party,” you are by definition a monolithic group.
Black people can prove they are not by returning to the voting pattern of Black Americans in the 1950s and early 1960s, when Dwight D. Eisenhower won a large number of Black votes as did Richard Nixon in 1960. They didn’t win a majority of them, but it was close.
And what happened in the 1960s? The country saw great progress for Black Americans without partisan politics.
Nobody knew the political party of the following Black Civil Rights leaders: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, Malcolm X, Stokey Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Huey Newton, among others. There was no monolithic Black community during that period. Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress voted for historic legislation: the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, the Voting Rights Act, Fair Housing bills, which all contributed to ending Jim Crow racial segregation.
The 1964 presidential election marked the last time a Democrat running for president (Lyndon Johnson) won both the white and Black vote together. Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Biden all lost the white vote while receiving near unanimous Black support on their journeys to the White House. Republican candidates for president have won the white vote since 1964.
The split among white women or the modest white women Republican victory “strategy” handed Democrats the keys to the White House for decades.
If Harris wins, it would be due to the abortion issue despite Trump’s vowing to veto any attempt to restrict abortion rights. Trump has also offered more extensive assistance for childcare needs. It should be a mute issue. Time will tell.
Gary Franks served three terms as U.S. representative for Connecticut’s 5th District. He was the first Black Republican elected to the House in nearly 60 years and New England’s first Black member of the House. Host: podcast “We Speak Frankly.” Author: “With God, For God, and For Country.” @GaryFranks. (C)2024 Gary Franks. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
