Do Black voters have Biden’s back?
President Biden is in a perilous position with a group he has relied upon for support up until now: Black voters. The president’s belated push for voting rights legislation crescendoed with a big speech in Atlanta on Jan. 11 — and faded out just as fast.
The cause of police reform has slipped away, too. Congressional efforts to reach a bipartisan deal on the issue went nowhere last year. Biden quietly abandoned a campaign pledge to create a national police oversight commission back in April.
Then there is COVID and inflation. Those twin troubles have had a negative impact on Biden’s standing with the population at large. But they are felt with added sharpness in the Black community, which suffers from long-standing inequities of health and wealth.
To be sure, none of this means that Black voters are going to turn toward the GOP.
African American voters have cast their ballots overwhelmingly for Democrats for decades — a dynamics that has its roots in the party’s support for the Civil Rights struggle and the calculated efforts of leading Republicans such as President Nixon to capitalize on white backlash.
There’s not going to be a sea-change anytime soon, especially when many Blacks see Republican-led efforts to enact stricter election laws as a new twist on the old tactic of disenfranchisement.
But Biden and his fellow Democrats need to keep their support and enthusiasm among the Black community sky-high if they are to have any real chance of counteracting long-standing GOP advantages with other groups, notably white seniors and whites without a college education.
Biden has said that the civil rights movement was central to his political awakening. He can also point to two major firsts — his loyal service as Vice President to President Obama, the nation’s first Black president, and his own selection as running mate of Vice President Harris, the first Black woman to hold the office.
Rev. Al Sharpton was glad Biden had focused on the Senate filibuster as he sought to get the legislation passed — even if the effort was not ultimately successful.
The civil rights activist and MSNBC host blasted the public positions adopted by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who expressed support for the underlying legislation but opposed the rule change that would have enabled it to pass.
There could be a way back into Black voters’ hearts for Biden. Sharpton suggested a three-pronged approach on voting rights, for example: breaking the original provisions of the proposed legislation into smaller parts; having the president explore more expansive use of executive orders; and the DOJ going after alleged violations of civil rights law more aggressively.
But the way ahead does not look easy or certain, even if those measures were attempted. Even a moderate lapse in Black turnout could doom many congressional Democrats in November. Once again Blacks must turn out in record numbers for the Democratic agenda to become a reality!
