By Monica Showalter
While President Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis were duking it out in the Midwest, Joe Biden went presidentially campaigning, too, pandering for the black vote.
According to NPR:
Speaking at the school’s 155th commencement ceremony on Saturday, the president echoed rhetoric from his 2020 campaign, characterizing the current moment as a “battle for the soul of our nation” and calling on graduates to help lead the country into a new era of progress.
“We’re living through one of the most consequential eras of our history with fundamental questions about the stake for our nation,” he told the crowd at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. “Who are we? What do we stand for? What do we believe? Who will we be? You’re going to help answer those questions.”
Biden also cast himself as the antidote to what he implied was a rising tolerance for racism, directly mentioning Donald Trump’s infamous characterization of the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville as “very fine people on both sides.”
Which sounds a little dreary:
Vote for Biden or ‘They’re gonna put y’all back in chains.’
Vote for Biden or ‘You ain’t black.’
Biden of course is an elderly white man with a record of racially skeevy statements — everything from declaring President Obama ‘clean’ and ‘articulate.’ to criticizing racial desegregation measures as a ‘racial jungle,’ to making offensive jokes about industrious Indian immigrants working in low-wage service jobs, serving him.
Sound like the guy to rope them in? No wonder black voters are increasingly joining the Republicans.
Even Biden seemed to understand this, which is why he touted his various ‘firsts ‘of a few individuals — Kamala o blaHarris (a Howard alum who was oddly not there) as his vice president, Ketanji Brown Jackson as a Supreme Court justice…
His Republican rivals have made many such ‘firsts’ too, so that’s not the winning hand he wants his audience to think.
What he’s offering is thin gruel, if not downright slop, compared to what his predecessor, President Trump, brought to the black community on his watch.
Under Trump, black Americans “thrived” economically, as USAToday put it. Black unemployment rate hit record lows, accompanied by record-high black labor force participation. Black homeownership rose to new heights, and black prosperity amassed significantly.
It did so for the same reason those economic indicators rose significantly among white Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, handicapped people, ex-prisoners, and everyone else — tax cuts, ending bureaucratic red tape on job-creators and creating respect abroad.
Remember this?
America’s first black billionaire says Trump economy has been good for African Americans
The NPR piece, cited above, notes that Biden is making this reemergence from his basement because black voters are already deserting the Democrats in droves.
Biden has no idea how to win them back, other than by beating the racial resentment drum and hoping that some of what bounces off sticks.
Anything but cut taxes and end overregulation, which would benefit more than blacks but wouldn’t have that racial grievance-mongering he looks for
Good luck with that Joe.
