I'm used to the Democratic Party being disingenuous. And, I'm used to them pandering to the black community, or Hispanics, or the gays, or anyone who will fit neatly into their identity boxes. What I'm less accustomed to is their political ploys appearing so desperate and disconnected.
It seems to be everywhere I look. Here's a post from my state's Democrats published on Monday:
For years, Black and brown communities have been unjustly targeted and convicted at alarming rates for simple marijuana possession.
— NV Dems (@nvdems) April 29, 2024
Pres. @JoeBiden took swift action to pardon all prior federal offenses and urged governors to do the same.
It appears to me that they have reached way into the back of the pandering toolbox to appeal to black voters. Joe Biden was the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a leading proponent of the 1994 Crime Bill. While Democrats in Nevada are touting his pardons for prior marijuana offenses, aren't there still people serving these sentences in federal prisons? (And if they are in state prison — at least in California — aren't the odds pretty good that Kamala Harris put them there?)
So "injustice" is fine if it's happening in real time, then? How is this the talking point they opted to go with? And why?
I've reported on the polling that says Biden is losing the support of black voters, a demographic they have taken for granted for far too long, frankly.
I wrote:
A Quinnipiac University poll released last month showed Biden's support among Black voters is at 60 percent, and among Hispanic voters, it's at 34 percent in a five-way race with Trump and three third-party candidates. This is a massive drop from Biden's 2020 numbers where he won 87 percent of the Black vote and 65 percent of the Latino vote, according to exit polls.
Read More:
Democrats' Death Grip on LGBT, Young, and Minority Voters Loosens Amid Shifting Demographics
Many of us take polling with a grain of salt, or at least use a lot of discernment in interpreting them. I wasn't certain how big the problem was with black voters, even after it was presented as quantified. No, I realized Biden had a problem with it when Colin Jost decided to make a joke about it at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and it landed super flat.
Jost said:
My Weekend Update co-anchor, Michael Che, was going to join me here tonight — but in solidarity with President Biden, I decided to lose all my Black support.
At the White House correspondence dinner, American comedian and writer Colin Jost roasts Biden after recent polls showcase his loss of support within the black community. https://t.co/cvIgH1h7Zz
— Legal Thoughts SideBar (@LegalThoughtsSB) April 28, 2024
Anyway, to accompany the Democrats' bad jokes and marijuana conviction pandering, the Congressional Black Caucus PAC recently endorsed Dem white lady Susie Lee in Nevada's 3rd Congressional district. Why? Apparently, it's because she's vulnerable, and more than 8 percent of the population is black, which is great since that's a number still below their per capita rates. I took it as another sign of struggle rather than a strength.
I’m proud to have received the endorsement of the Congressional Black Caucus PAC!
— Susie Lee (@SusieLeeNV) April 24, 2024
Southern Nevada is made stronger by its diversity—I will always fight to uplift and support our Black communities. https://t.co/yJIP68WXBS
Chris Larson, a Democrat state senator from Wisconsin, wrote on X/Twitter on Monday:
The two major political parties in the U.S. have taken very different approaches to voter participation.
Democrats want to register new voters, make voting more accessible, and encourage every eligible voter to turn out.
And, we've heard this kind of rhetoric before, that any voting regulation is racist. For example, the old trope that black people can't even obtain identification, so we cannot, in good faith, pass voter ID.
Our Republican voter registration guru, Scott Presler, challenged the senator to sponsor a bill giving hunters and fishers the ability to register upon applying for their sporting permits.
Presler responded:
Senator, since you want to increase voter participation, sponsor a bill that any time someone applies for a hunting or fishing license in Wisconsin, they may also have the option to register to vote at the same time. 40% of Wisconsin hunters are not registered to vote. You would be helping to save democracy.
The senator said that Presler didn't answer some other question he published in a follow-up tweet, so, womp womp, the Democrat lawmaker won't be "saving democracy," as advertised. Presler decided to share some "light reading" with Larson, posting an article about a leaked memo.
As I previously wrote about:
A confidential memo obtained by The Washington Post shows Democratic National Committee (DNC) activist Aaron Strauss, who helps direct progressive spending at the leftist think-tank OpenLabs, warning donors in January not to register new voters.
Citing recent polling that shows Trump's strength among unregistered voters, Strauss wrote,
Indeed, if we were to blindly register nonvoters and get them on the rolls, we would be distinctly aiding Trump’s quest for a personal dictatorship.
Strauss also cautioned that efforts to secure Democratic votes among younger individuals and Hispanics/Latinos (called "non-Black people of color," apparently) were proving to be costly, with estimates suggesting it cost more than $1,200 per net vote in 2020 due to the inclusion of many non-Democrats in these groups. He highlighted that among racial and ethnic minority groups, “only African American registration is clearly a prime opportunity,” noting that acquiring Democratic voters among Black people cost approximately $575 per vote in 2020.
Exactly!
— ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) April 30, 2024
So, no, Democrats don't just want to widely register voters. That's fake news. But it is an authentic example of rhetoric and talking points that used to work for their party, and now they don't fit.
All of it sounds ill-fitting for the issues of the day, from disingenuous touting of after-the-fact pardons while black people still sit in federal jails for marijuana... which the administration has done exactly what about? Next, they were making not funny jokes about losing the demographic at the WHCD, which was awkward. And, the aligned PACs are endorsing Democrats solely based on them being vulnerable and having a district with a somewhat low-bar black population ratio. What kind of endorsement is that?
Finally, their racially charged voting rights theatrics are wearing thin because demographics are not cleanly divided the way that they prefer.
Sometimes, what we can't infer from the data can be ascertained through other analyses like observing behaviors and reading the room. The tactics used recently by Democrats to appeal to the black community are so off-base and desperate that I have to conclude their issues with the demographic are very real and have them throwing everything at the wall to see what will stick.
