Biden and Trump campaign hard in the final sprint
Rep. John Garamendi weighs in on the state of the two campaigns three days before the 2020 election.
I was recently chatting with a Black friend who leans left politically when she said she would like to see President Trump win. I was surprised: She’s spoken out against the president on social media because of some of his past comments, especially when he told the Proud Boys “to stand back and stand by” during the first presidential debate.
But my friend, like many young people in the Black community, knows about Joe Biden’s history, which should repel far more Black voters than Trump’s racially insensitive comments. I’m hardly the only Black voter who feels this way.
Biden’s policies have devastated the Black community. The infamous 1994 crime bill, for example, which Biden authored, cost taxpayers $30 billion yet only reduced violent crime by 1.3 percent — and in the process, sent a shamefully high number of Black youths to jail for marijuana crimes that some states have decriminalized.
Or take Biden’s provision of a 1986 law that deemed crack cocaine significantly worse than powder cocaine. As a result, Whites, who more often used powder cocaine, were treated with leniency, while Blacks were disproportionately sent to prison for the same offenses.
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Given the choice before us, the best thing for the Black community may be four more years of Trump. Why? Maybe then Black voters will no longer be ignored and taken for granted by Democrats thereby making both parties work for their vote.
It’s time to break the back of the Democratic Party and make its leaders actually address the issues that impact Black lives.
President Trump is not perfect. He has said things that have rightly upset Black Americans. But he’s also uplifted the Black community through policies like the First Step Act and opportunity zones.
In fact, he’s been reaching out to the Black community consistently since 2016, looking for ways to tackle issues such as rampant unemployment and prison sentencing disparities, while funding historically Black colleges and universities — all of which Joe Biden could have addressed during his half-century in politics.
It’s time to break the back of the Democratic Party and make its leaders actually address the issues that impact Black lives.
I’ve never seen another president from either party invest so much energy into the Black community. As a result, Black people are listening. We see this in the polls.
Trump’s support among young black voters (aged 18 to 44) has increased from around 10 percent in 2016 to 21 percent, according to UCLA Nationscape’s polling, and I believe the real percentage is even higher.
Indeed, I’ve been watching closely on urban social media pages and seeing young African Americans post their support for Trump. Never before have I seen such widespread support among young African Americans for any Republican president.
On a recent episode of my podcast, “Outloud with Gianno Caldwell,” football legend Herschel Walker expressed a similar sentiment. He said he gets many calls from players in the NFL who support Trump but cannot publicize their support out of fear of retribution.
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Polling data shows support for Trump trending upward among Black and Hispanic men, many of whom are open to supporting an eager, enthusiastic president as they think the Democratic Party has taken them for granted.
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The Black community has a genuine opportunity in this election. If enough Blacks vote for Trump, the Black vote will finally be competitive. Politicians will at long last actually care about producing positive results for the Black community to woo Black voters, rather than treating them as another box to check.
The Black vote hasn’t been competitive in decades, since Democrat Lyndon Johnson reportedly said, “I will have those n—ers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.” For five-plus decades, Republicans haven’t made a sincere effort to counter that monopolistic hubris — until Trump.
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We have an opportunity to force both parties to offer their best deals to Black Americans and improve the Black community in a way that has never happened before.
It’s time to make the Black vote competitive again.
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