The Northam Debacle

In 2016, Donald Trump’s appeal to black voters couldn’t have been more direct: “What the hell do have to lose” by supporting Republicans, he would say, given the damage Democratic policies have done to minority communities. Trump noted that the Democrats offer a mere image of concern for minorities, whereas Republicans deliver policies that actually help them.

As president, he has built on this message by spurring economic growth that has lowered the unemployment rate in the black community. During Obama’s first two years in office, black unemployment rose; under Trump, it has fallen.

The liberal apoplexy about the Northam debacle is a reminder that the Democrats obsess not over sound policies but the preservation of politically useful images. They don’t want to lose any ground to a president whom they routinely smear as a racist. They live in dread fear of losing a monopoly on the black vote, a monopoly based not upon substantive achievements but on the successful manipulation of identity politics.

`The black economist Walter Williams has written:

Keeping blacks blind to the folly of unquestioned support for the Democratic Party by keeping blacks fearful, angry and resentful and painting the Republican Party as racist is vital. Democrats never want blacks to seriously ask questions about what the party has done for them. Here are some facts. The nation’s most troublesome and dangerous cities — Indianapolis, Stockton, Oakland, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Kansas City, Baltimore, Memphis, St. Louis and Detroit — have been run by Democrats, often black Democrats, for nearly a half-century. These and other Democratic-run cities are where blacks suffer the highest murder rates and their youngsters attend the poorest-performing and most unsafe schools.