Elections are coming upon us and I’ve been wanting to write this post since the 2020 races. Well, longer. The frank truth is, we can’t have this conversation after people have become emotionally invested in their faves as candidates. Let’s consider this the prophylactic conversation that needs to come before the infectious fuckery. The thing is, we get passionate about people we perceive as holding a strong vision of What Must Be Done, because we agree with them – there’s a ton of narcissism in fanhood. We’re not sure about all of what they say, but they sound right, it sounds good to you and by cracky! – they are the right person for the job. We all fall in love just a little bit, with a mirror of who we are or desire to be. And it’s ok. It’s a critical component to being a successful public anything but definitely a politician. Where it goes off the rails is when the candidates with a lot of media favor and shall we say a fairly monochrome fan base runs smack dab into THE BASE.
Now, who the base of the Democratic Party is, is fair question. Is it largely white people? Especially very young people active on social media? The numbers on that are kinda tricky. Black voters are a bit less than 25% of the Democratic voting base for 2020 according to those Pew numbers and 40% of the Democratic voting base is non-white – which still means that 60% of the Democratic voting base is white. But is it really as far left as say, Twitter, would have you believe? Doesn’t really look like it. Frankly, I find most of these definitions ridiculous and inadequate. Believing that shutting up about social justice is fine if we get to free college and Medicare for All is about as progressive as Separate But Equal. You’re just asking for a bribe for the moral compromise, but I digress. Either way, social media is a terrible gauge of where the base is on policy & media is a bad gauge of who the base is.
All this allows me to jump to the point of this post – people who gain attention, a following and then launch their campaigns for office due to their personal popularity. It happens over and over again, yet, it’s always a surprise. But why does it happen? After all, the majority of the Democratic base is white. The problem is, the white vote is largely held by Republicans and when Democratic candidates win, it’s due to the coalition of white and non-white voters. So, when primaries are held in majority white areas, those candidates who win do fantastic, then collapse when they need to appeal to the entire voting base in more diverse areas.
I feel this is a very basic fact, like 2 + 2 = 4, yet it’s always a surprise every election. Every time there’s a “dream” candidate that has a plan or a real revolutionary, white progressives are very, very shocked when the response from the non-white, particularly Black, voting base is at best, a shrug. When they’re told that a Warren, a Sanders, a Buttigieg has no real track record with the community, then a speech is brought up or a very recent photo op. We do understand what history is, correct? Clinton Foundation was in Harlem for years before the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign, not to mention her work & her husband’s throughout the years – that’s a track record. Photos at the local Pride Parade starting in 2014, that’s… adorable.
Good or bad, you have to have a record of engagement with minority communities. You can’t discover us like Christopher Columbus when you need us. A good portion of the hottest candidates that seek office are not used to having to not just talk to POC, but relate to us, and integrate with us. And if you make a mistake, you’re going to have to step up to us, own it and at the very least, make some mouth noises that make it seem as if you get why it was wrong with a plan for what to do going forward. The minority vote is taken for granted in the primaries. Sure, we don’t really have an option with regard to Republicans holding power. They are dangerous to our civil rights. We can’t ignore them. I mean, we’ve not voted for Republicans for decades. This has not made the Republican platform transform into reparations for Black people, end qualified immunity for police and properly seasoned food mandates.
For years, I’ve watched Black people be presumed pro this person or that, then people are stunned when the CBC and Black voters come to a different conclusion on who would be effective at winning and legislating. I’ve watched people I respect bemoan that Black voters don’t understand how good [X] is and don’t seem willing to realize how this is their best choice. I cannot stress this enough – Black people have had to live in a world that turns hostile on a dime. They have to understand white culture & thought patterns to navigate this place. They know who has made an effort and they know who just showed up and beckoned to them as if Black voters are the help. And if all they have is a few speeches or a couple of minority endorsements, this is not connection to the Black voting block.
It’s a huge mistake and it’s a consistent mistake. The attitude that just mentioning a subject or appearing with a notable person means the minority vote isn’t being taken for granted is a weird privilege. It says a lot being told this is an issue can immediately cause anger. We exist. We are a necessary party of winning. We have been asking for help with voting issues for decades, yet we’ve been sidelined for arguments over Monsanto, donations from rich people and various other things. This election and every election to come requires a strong, united, Democratic party voting wave and all out effort. All because warnings about election access, courts and local seats went ignored in elections prior. For want of a nail, etc. etc.
The common “wisdom” that we must appeal white voters means that critical relationship building by potential candidates is neglected and when they run, the hype may be blinding them to key voters who are not interested. Allegiances aren’t built overnight and you can’t just cater to a small subgroup as if they’re representative of everyone. I’m looking at the Fetterman gubernatorial run in PA as I type this but it applies to so many races past and sadly, future. Treat us like people you give a flying fuck about, Democratic candidates. Respect us enough to work alongside us instead of coming in like we can be picked up as a side dish. It would be nice to feel we’re just as important as the mythological white voter who is simply waiting for free healthcare.
Chief Oshkosh
What’re your thoughts on the Fetterman campaign? I haven’t been following it.
zhena gogolia
@Chief Oshkosh: I get 1000 e-mails from him a day for some reason, but beyond that, I’m stumped.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chief Oshkosh:
So would I. I don’t really know too much about Fetterman myself. Though, having already been elected PA Lt Gov, a statewide office, I would think he would be well-positioned to win a Senate race, also a statewide election
Geminid
“Is [the Democratic base] as far left as say ,Twitter would have you believe?”
I think of the Wason Center poll of registered Virginia voters, especially the numbers for ideological self-identification. They have been consistent over the past few years, at: “strong liberal, 10%; liberal, 10%; and moderate, lean liberal, 24%. I was a little surprised to see that the aggregate of “strong liberal” and “liberal” is still less than the “moderate, lean liberal” group. But the numbers stay fairly consistent. I would add that the aggregate of the three groups on the conservative side runs around 48%, while those on the liberal side total 44%, so I figure the three on the liberal side represent Democrats plus a few Independents.
So at least in Virginia, the party is not especially liberal. This is reflected in the popularity among Democrats of Ralph Northam, Mark Warner, and Tim Kaine, the three Democratic politicians who hold statewide office. They run from liberally moderate to moderately liberal, at least in my book. There is a “progressive” rating service called Progressive Punch that gives Kaine a D and Warner an F, but I give this outfit an F-.
Lyrebird
Hoping a bunch of people read this or hear the message otherwise.
I guess one thing I definitely don’t understand that I sometimes see on Afr. Am. twitter feeds is, why don’t white women with a clue get reactionary white women on board. Or Liberal Redneck saying, you have to risk making people upset at the BBQ. I (white woman) am less than trash to the people who have those BBQs, everyone in my family – 4 generations – campaigned for Obama, for HRC after, etc. Mrs Kavanaugh would probabaly see me as one step away from dog food.
So I give a what pennies I have to Fair Fight, Four Directions, I vote… And write probably useless “hear, hear!” messages in reply here.
Lyrebird
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Seems to me Fetterman was given an opportunity to set things right with Afr. Am. leaders in PA and he didn’t take it. Like Bernie, the first time around.
Full disclosure: I’m giving to Lamb.
Kropacetic
This is all spot on. I do think it’s worth adding, though, that polling is not immutable and it is very much worth having respectful conversations about our preferences.
Some people come at this like “black people think this” and act like it’s set in stone and that black voters aren’t also actively thinking about the election and weighing options. This is not productive either.
We agree on most things around here, we should be able to engage each other constructively.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I think there is sometimes a failure to recognize that different parts of the Democratic coalition have their own needs and interests. That those needs, interests, and experiences can lead to people drawing different conclusions about policies, politicians, etc. I will add that that failure of understanding is sometimes willful. It is just as bad to accuse someone of ‘being in the pocket of Big <insert industry>’ when they don’t agree with the accusers preferred policy approach as it is for the accusee to ignore how changes in the economy and the social safety net really have hurt younger people.
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): John Fetterman won a statewide primary on his own. But in Pennsylvania the candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor run on a single ticket. Governor Tom Wolf was a popular candidate, and I’m not sure Fetterman can be said to have won statewide election in his own right.
opiejeanne
Thank you for writing this. It’s well thought-out and expressed so clearly that it should be grasped by everyone at first reading, but, you know.
I know Fetterman became popular because of his standing up to the numpties who were screaming about voter fraud, but I also know that he has some stuff in his past that looks pretty damned racist. I don’t know what he’s been up to recently, though, so I’ll go and find out.
Ben Cisco
Thank you for posting this.
I wanna scream it from the rooftops sometimes.
JaneE
Perspective changes everything, and generalizations almost always have exceptions. Who knows who the non-voting public would prefer? What positions and policies do they favor if they don’t care passionately enough to vote? Polls routinely show decent majorities for Democratic programs and policies, but that never seems to be reflected at the voting booth.
Just because a majority of black or white voters favor something doesn’t mean that every black or white voter feels the same way, and favor can mean passionate zealotry for or hold-your-nose lesser of two evils for.
We have been talking equality (or equity) since I was a child, and the progress is glacial if it really exists at all. The Civil Rights Act was supposed to put the power of the law behind equal access but it only works if it is fully enforced, and every administration since then has had a different take on what that means. The constitution has guaranteed equal protection for over 150 years, and we ain’t there yet. Not by a long shot.
Just as it is hard to keep Blacks voting for you when they don’t see you doing things, it is hard if not harder to make whites see that without Black equity the whole country suffers.
Historically, when the masses felt powerless and oppressed they staged a revolution or supported invaders over their own government. New governments taking over regularly eliminated debts and redistributed lands. A reset or Jubilee for the majority. More often than not the execution of the aristocratic or wealthy was a part of this, at least centuries ago but that has been replaced by confiscation and imprisonment. If we don’t get all of our people at least tending in the same direction, we may go through a modern version of that type of reset. And historically, it doesn’t take all that long before the inequality resurfaces. Wealth reappears, and race or religion or ethnicity will become divisive or deprecated, just not necessarily the ones that were deprecated before.
What does it take to get people to just talk to each other? Understanding takes time. Time is something we don’t have much of any more.
Geminid
@Lyrebird: Fetterman’s 2013 incident with the jogger received little attention in the 2018 election, or in his first Senate race in 2016. That has changed.
Fetterman has stated that he has said all he is going to say about this matter. He is ahead in the few polls taken, but I don’t think his posture will change even if he loses the lead.
MazeDancer
@Lyrebird:
Then he’s out, for me. (Unless he wins the primary, in which case I am for an empty cart, a complete idiot, anyone as long as they vote Dem)
It is only through the luck and grace of Black women that I learned about Bernie, Very early. Every Black woman I followed on Twitter hated him. So I learned why. And agreed.
My election motto is do what Black women tell me to do. Has never let me down.
ruemara
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m going to say neither of you read my post.
Lyrebird
@Ben Cisco: If you did, I bet you still would do so eloquently. I had the chance to see you in one of the Zoom meet ups last year. Sorry if this seems random. I am about to get my teaching reviews, and I have lots of room to improve my off the cuff speaking technique, so that skill jumps out to me!
sab
@MazeDancer: That is my position too. They were for Biden back when I was knocking on doors for Warren. And they always vote.
Kropacetic
@ruemara: Saying you had this race in mind doesn’t explain much without additional context that some people may not have. It suggests it applies one way or the other, but which?
Sometimes asking for clarification is just that.
Another Scott
This is a great piece. Thanks for sharing it.
I’m reminded of Mayor Jane Byrne living in Cabrini Green in Chicago. And I’m reminded of Sen. Cory Booker living in Newark. Both were symbolic acts (one for a few months/couple of years; one for decades IIRC). Symbolism is important, and sincere symbolism is great, but it’s not enough. Byrne lost to Harold Washington in the next primary. Booker never caught fire running for President.
I don’t know the answer. I suspect that there is no “one answer”, no One Weird Trick. Candidates have to find a way to connect with enough voters and “enough” is going to vary – a lot – depending on the race and the circumstances. But candidates have to be willing to do more than hire good consultants who can make appealing videos. They have to be willing to do more than buy a fake ranch, or drive a fake red pickup, or fake wash dishes at a soup kitchen. They can’t get away with that in the age of everyone having a video camera and Google searches being able to find just about anything. They have to build trust with voters, and an important way to do that is to work with them for extended periods of time – good and bad.
Thanks again.
Cheers,
Scott.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@ruemara:
If I understood your post correctly (at least I think I did), you’re saying that Fetterman is taking African American and POC voters for granted, right? And has not taken the time to build those relationships?
I honestly don’t know anything about the guy and haven’t been following the race very closely
ruemara
@Kropacetic: I explicitly stated a problem, then used him as an example. I didn’t think it took a leap to connect that a white man with a past that included both good policies, but him also taking a gun and chasing down a Black man jogging could be perceived as a problem with the state-wide Black voting electorate
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s a funny thing, because I’ve read the Politico profile and he’s living in a Black area, and he’s done some very good work. But the way he interacts with them is very problematic, some of his critics have made clear. My PA friends say Lamb is more likely despite the mostly white & out of state preference for Fetterman.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Geminid:
That makes sense. I assumed that the PA lt governor was elected separately. That’s how it is in Ohio
Kropacetic
@ruemara: But what if someone didn’t know that history prior to reading your statement? I made the inference you intended but I would definitely have labeled it an educated guess.
They asked about a very specific politician that you named at the very end of your post. It’s clear they read it. If anyone comes out with questions, that’s just cause for conversation.
Eta: And that’s my last on this because your post was awesome. You argued your position well and I don’t want this to be a distraction.
The act you describe would definitely disqualify any primary candidate in my book too.
Yutsano
I’m trying to figure out if this makes me more hopeful or more worried about Beto. I know he has really deep roots in the Hispanic community in Texas, but what about other minority groups? Almost all the cities in Texas have large Black populations. What is his outreach there? Is he making others part of his coalition? I know he actually made a strong play against Rafael Cruz. It’s also really hard to outvote the white people in Texas. What are his gaps here and does he have time to fill them? I have questions…
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@ruemara:
Wow. I didn’t know that about him. Not a good look
Cameron
It’s been five years since I lived in Pennsylvania, so I don’t have much of a personal opinion. I think my cousins in Pittsburgh are Lamb supporters, but I’m not sure. All my buddies in Philadelphia are Republicans. Hope they get to vote for Dr. Oz. Have to ask my Dem friend in Harrisburg what she thinks.
Down here I’m looking at statewide races. I don’t think a Democrat could win any local race in Manatee County. Doesn’t look great for state races, either, but DeSantis still has plenty of time to blow things up.
WaterGirl
Oh, sure, save all your best kitty photos for the front page, not for the calendar
Harrump! :-)
WaterGirl
i will now read what is surely going to be an insightful post. Well, after dinner because i’m starving.
Brachiator
A wonderfully provocative post! A couple of quick thoughts.
Going into 2020, none of the presidential candidates were especially appealing. I settled on Kamala Harris because I liked some of her positions and she was from California. Despite the enthusiasm of some Balloon Juice people, Elizabeth Warren never did much for me, but I voted for her in the California primary, to see if she could stay in the race and bring some new ideas.
All that said, Biden is my guy, without reservation. I love that he governs from a place of compassionate wisdom. I have been particularly happy with his choice of Yellen at Treasury and his continued support of Powell as Fed Chair. Biden’s economic approach to handling the pandemic was not as thorough as I might have liked, but it was superior to anything I heard from any other politician, and smartly included the best elements of plans offered by other Democrats.
Biden didn’t change. He was hiding in plain sight. And this tells me that other Democrats may rise to the occasion if elected or appointed to national office. And I have to acknowledge that in some cases, who I might like may not have much to do with who might be the best candidate. However I suspect that a candidate who I deeply dislike may never be acceptable.
About the base and related matters. As long as I have known anything about politics, I have seen Marxists and some other progressives insist that class matters more than anything else. This is a central tenet of their belief, and it is wrong, and this blind spot always alienates these politicians from black people and some other groups. And some of these people never learn, even though some of them want to insist that they have the answer to everything.
Who is the base? Beats me. But we don’t just add up total numbers in state and national elections. The interests of various groups that make up the Democratic Party are similar and overlap, but in some states a particular demographic may be more important than another. And the black vote is not monolithic, but is critical to the success of the Democratic Party. And yet I keep seeing political strategists attempt to deny this truth, and some political figures, or at least their supporters, seem resentful that this is political reality.
Some leaders and pundits lump all nonwhite groups into one basket. This is beyond stupid.
West of the Rockies
I’m not a one-issue voter, but I will say that ignoring climate change or kicking it down the road is an existential threat to everybody.
Candidate X says the right things about college loan policy and taxation, but is kind of meh on CC, my enthusiasm diminishes.
There are issues that are existential threats to a lot of us on a personal level: gun control to the Sandy Hook parents, drug reform to anyone who knows someone abusing fentanyl, police reform to POC. Other issues are not quite existential but dire nonetheless: college loan forgiveness, affordable daycare, etc.
None of those will extinguish the planet.
So we make choices and bargains, knowing we have a Republican opposition and conservative SC. We say, “Let’s take infrastructure; we’ll tackle voting reform later.”
The Democratic Party is not monolithic and nor are its component blocks. Gay rights are more important to someone with a gay daughter (my situation) with a trans boyfriend than they are to someone watching their son battling fentanyl addiction. I’ve not personally known anyone with such an addiction. We’re on the same team but have different priorities.
I will never have to have The Talk with my (nonexistent) black son or daughter. Cory Booker may place less priority on LGBTQ+ rights than do I.
Figuring this stuff out takes time and humility and empathy. I hope we’re up to the challenge.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@ruemara:
I’m sorry
Chief Oshkosh
@ruemara: I did read your post. And I went to the link about Fetterman you provided. And then I asked: What are your thoughts on the Fetterman campaign?
I’m asking because I had assumed that the Fetterman campaign represented an example of what your central theme was in your post. However, some of what was at the story in the link you provided did not seem to align with that, so I was left unsure. Hence my question.
I obviously can’t speak to Goku and zhena gogolia, but that is why I was asking what you thought of the Fetterman campaign. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The 2013 incident received little attention until last year. It was covered at the time by at least one local television station. That report showed two differences in Fetterman’s and the jogger’s stories. Fetterman said the jogger was masked, the jogger said he was not. The jogger said that Fetterman pointed the shot gun at his chest, Fetterman said he did not.
Fetterman clearly violated Pennsylvania’s firearms laws when he drove after the jogger with a loaded shotgun in his truck, but he was never charged. The District Attorney involved made news this spring when he had to rescind a directive to his assistants that they not offer clients of a certain defense lawyer plea deals. The lawyer in question was a Black man who had accused the DA’s office of racism. Fetterman’s critics say that this calls into question the DA’s lenient treatment of Fetterman in 2013.
Kropacetic
@West of the Rockies: Spot on. There’s this notion out there, mainly in our dearly trusted MSM, that Dems would be OK if only they’d just throw one of their “controversial*” constituent groups under the bus?
Who gets the toss? BLM activists, trans folk, the atmosphere? And if we toss a group, how can other groups trust us?
*Controversial in the sense that some small-minded people with too much power made them controversial.
Kropacetic
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): When you don’t know, asking is the right thing.
Starfish
@Lyrebird: The conflict on racial justice is largely among white people. They have to decide if they are going to go along to get along with their Trumper relatives at the holidays or argue with them.
Most Black folks are not sitting around with folks who mean to do them harm saying “Oh well, we are going to ignore your politics because family is more important.”
What is really bananas to me are the marriages where one white person is a liberal and the other is a Republican. There are a number of folks setting all that aside to make the relationship work. I don’t understand how that works out when the concepts of fairness and justice are so far apart. I have a couple of friends and acquaintances in such marriages. No clue how it works.
wonkie
I back the candidate that I think can win. I base that mostly on polling data and the strength of their campaign organization. I’m not issue oriented except in a broadly Democratic way since no one can deliver on an issue anyway–they have to compromise once in office. The author might see this ias white privilege and maybe it is. I see is as desperation. I don’t think we can afford to lose to fascists.
West of the Rockies
@Starfish:
I cannot imagine being with a Republican woman. I might think one physically attractive, I might respect her ability to teach high school geometry, I might adore her apple pie, but form an intimate and meaningful relationship with someone incapable of seeing how vile Trump (and Gaetz, MTG, Gingrich, McConnell, Hannity, Carlson, etc.) are? No damn way.
I could probably be no more than a mildly courteous neighbor or coworker. Would not be a friend or ally.
Ruckus
@JaneE:
History changes slowly because the means of change are minuscule steps – because humans. And also because for some change seems to render their power, however little or perverse, less. That is why lack of change blows up in the first place – power and it’s abuse.
I don’t know the answer, anymore than most anyone else, but this country has a long and horrible history of abuse of those it deems are not of the in classification. And that classification is white and wealthy, in that order. That leaves the white poor above everybody who isn’t. And not long ago that was more than acceptable to the majority. It is only in the last few decades, a split second in human history, that this is changing. It is almost at wealth, white, everyone else. Not really an improvement. But it is well past time that our country recognizes that the concept of equality is of humans, not gender, not skin color, not wealth, not job status, not education. Human beings are equal. That’s what this country stands for, at least on paper. Reality is just a bit different. That attitude has to change. How we actually get there is anyone’s guess but I’m going with it’s not going to be an easy change.
And, given the level of progress we’ve made we have to accelerate that change and considering that the opposition is not willing to concede and is ramping up it’s extreme position, and the majority of the public information segment is either on the extreme side or is seemingly unwilling to be on the side of humanity, none of this is going to be easy. Or maybe even possible.
Roger Moore
@Kropacetic:
Yep. The media keeps asking for a “Sister Souljah moment”, but that’s not really what they want. The whole thing about Clinton criticizing Souljah was that what she said was clearly outside the mainstream even among Blacks, so it was a perfect chance to gain some credibility with Whites without alienating most Blacks. And it was at a time when the parties weren’t quite as settled as they are today, so there were still persuadable swing voters worth pursuing.
What the media wants today is for Democratic politicians to criticize statements that aren’t just reasonably mainstream among Democratic minority voters but are even reasonably well accepted among White Democrats, all in the name of pursuing hypothetical winnable Trump voters. It just doesn’t make sense politically.
Kropacetic
@wonkie: I understood your point to agree with the OP from a different angle.
Another Scott
ObOpenThread: ICYMI –
Neato. You can see and hear the gears turning.
(via JJMacNab)
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
H.E.Wolf
Thank you, ruemara, for this post. Deeply appreciated.
I pay close attention to what our Black jackals say, as front page writers and and as commenters; and in many cases I follow their lead. Many thanks to all of you. We are fortunate to have you here.
Ruckus
@Starfish:
It works the same way as in the bigger picture, they accept each other. It works because they both get something in return.
It doesn’t end up being possible in the bigger picture because there someone wins and someone loses. The fact that someone should win and the other side should lose is never discussed because the should lose side has been on top and can not understand why that can’t continue. They don’t see that in the end they really don’t lose because they figure that it will always be some group on top, every other group on the bottom, like dog shit on the sole of your shoe, which is how they see the current situation. They expect that they will get treated how they’ve treated everyone else for generations. They can only see black/white, bright or dark, + or -, A or B. Subtle is beyond them. They know what and how they want to treat others and figure that is reciprocal.
Omnes Omnibus
A couple of observations. First, another side of this is the Northam blackface issue. Many people were ready to toss him aside, but it seems that local VA AA voters were more interested in his performance a Gov. than his racist idiocy as a med student. Second, I am not a PA voter so I ma not sure how much it matters, but Fetterman leaves me cold. The is a whole school of Northeastern, white, ethnic, loudmouth your face school of politicians that does not really appeal to me. Fetterman seems to come straight from that. On the whole, I’d rather not.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
The Wikipedia article about this makes an interesting point about this incident
Many black people and black political leaders were pissed about this, but they also recognized that it was political theater meant to appease white people.
The Reverend Wright bullshit was a similar attempt by some white conservatives to take down Obama. Obama in turn deftly threaded a needle by combining a slight distancing from Wright with schooling white people on racism.
Kent
I lived in Texas for the better part of two decades. The problem in Texas is that there isn’t anyone who better meets your criteria. There isn’t a very deep bench. At least Beto is high energy and is a fighter and high-profile enough to raise a lot of money. I don’t see anyone else on the horizon. About the only other possible candidates would be some of the Dem congressmen like Collin Allred or Joaquin Castro but they would both be starting from much further back than Beto. There are some more progressive Democrats from very urban districts but their statewide appeal is likely to be limited.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Rupert Murdoch was, IIRC, one of the first people in the UK to be vaccinated, and I’m sure Lachlan didn’t patiently wait his turn according to the rules, but he exploits this broken woman because people who listen to her are key to the tax and regulatory breaks he wants, in order to become marginally richer and more powerful than he already is, as he awaits a death he must know is imminent. And they come through for him.
Geminid
@Omnes Omnibus: Ralph Northam built rapport and alliance with Black people in Southeastern Virginia from the start of his career as State Senator. These ties stood Northam in good stead when he ran for Governor. His Democratic opponent in 2017 tried to run to his left. Tom Perriello was something of a light blue dog, though, in his one term as Congressman for the VA 5th. A couple of his shaky votes on reproductive rights and gun safety put NARAL and and gun safety groups on Northam’s side. Northam had been solid on these issues. But it was Northam’s support among Virginia’s Black Democrats that made the biggest difference in his 7 point primary victory.
Kropacetic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The Republican Party is a coalition of people whose primary point of agreement is to protect each other’s worst impulses, nay, laud them!
This crosses lines of race, gender, class, and education; but naturally draws the most support in the group with the most power.
Omnes Omnibus
@Geminid: Yes, if memory serves, even on this blog, it was white people (myself included) who were quick to try to bury him, while the AA commenters were more circumspect and withheld judgment.
Kropacetic
@Omnes Omnibus: To be fair, it certainly wasn’t our place to say “no big deal.”
eclare
Fetterman chased a Black guy while he was armed? I haven’t heard that (I live in Tennessee.) Wow.
West of the Rockies
@Kropacetic:
Yes, that would not have been a good look, to be sure.
Kropacetic
@eclare: Traversing the suburbs on foot at a brisk but sustainable speed raises tons of red flags. Nothin more to see, amirite…?
Kropacetic
@West of the Rockies: God forbid we say nothing.
eclare
@Kropacetic: A woman put a note in our neighborhood newsletter last year that her Black grandson was visiting for the summer, and he liked to jog at night when it cooled off. Please don’t call police, etc. It was so sad that she felt she had to do that. But totally understandable.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@eclare: I saw you say this the other day, and it’s very sad. What a way to have to live.
zhena gogolia
@Another Scott: That’s exactly the part I made my husband watch last night. Astounding. I’m almost through Part 1 and I think it’s my favorite film of all time.
Kropacetic
@eclare: It’s so sad. I wonder how many neighbors were offended she thought of them that way.
gwangung
@Kropacetic: Probably the same ones who would have called the police on her grandson.
Lyrebird
lurker
@ruemara: Read your post – you make some excellent points, things I have had to learn somewhat painfully through life experience in non-electoral situations. In particular, you are correct that if you wrote this post in early-mid 2020 it would not have received thoughtful consideration.
Did not read the politico link, as I refuse to give politico clicks voluntarily. Also did not know about the incident, and am watching things from well away from PA.
It was not until the comment I am replying to, numbered 21 in my sequence, that it was clear to me that you viewed Fetterman as a bad example of how to deal with a community rather than a good example. I suspected you were referring to Fetterman as problematic, but the comment was sufficiently vague that I could not tell if there was something about him that was more Bernie-like or more Clinton-like. Stories we all heard about Clinton included the media trying to make things seem worse than they were. Stories I heard about Bernie made it clear this was a guy who lacked what some call the common touch.
**Looking this over, I left it ambiguous about whether I was referring to Bill or Hillary, as either could fit what was typed above. I was thinking of Hillary.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@eclare:
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
This makes a twisted kind of sense. If a White person defends him, they have to be extremely careful or they’ll look like they’re minimizing the offense. But as the target of the offense, a Black person has the ability to defend him and look gracious in the process. IMO, the right thing for White people to do is STFU and let the people who were actually offended make the call.
I see that as an important part of being a good ally. You aren’t supposed to be in charge all the time. Let the other guys make the call, and be an ally by lending your strength to their decision.
jefft452
@Kropacetic: “And if we toss a group, how can other groups trust us?”
THIS!!!!
eclare
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wow. Couldn’t read the article, paywall.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: Just about every Democrat who expressed an opinion on it said that Northam should resign. Until it was clear that the Lt. Gov. and AG had issues that were even more serious (Lt. Gov. Fairfax’s rape accusations) or just as bad (AG Herring’s blackface). Before the blackface picture came out, the GQP was trying to get Northam to resign over his remarks about a late-term abortion bill just a few days earlier.
BlueVirginia.US from February 2019:
On the general point, Geminid is right that VA is not as liberal as NoVA. Northam was rumored to be ready to change to the GOP a few years before he ran for Governor. He is generally on the conservative side of the Virginia party, and that helped him win state-wide in 2017. But I’ve never been as much a fan of him as Geminid.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Lyrebird
@Lyrebird: I can’t find it now, I think iamchanteezy or someone else has spoken up for Kenyatta. The link here is a post from another blogger with sfaict strong ties to the KHive.
Anyhow, thanks @MazeDancer: yeah, I’ll support the too cutesy by half empty cart candidate if he wins the primary, too, but in the meantime, thanks for laying down some truth!!!!
Jay
So President Joe Biden released reserves from the Strategic Oil Reserves,
Meanwhile in Canada, we have released reserves from the Strategic Maple Syrup reserves.
Roger Moore
@Another Scott:
My general feelings about this are roughly that even if the accusations were true, they aren’t that relevant. People change. They do stuff they later regret. You’re much better off looking at what someone has done recently than what they did a long time ago. Maybe we only found out about the blackface incident recently, but it was actually a long time ago. What Northam did in office in the years leading up to his run for governor mattered a lot more than what he did while he was still in school.
brantl
@Starfish: It’s freaking hard. As the liberal in one of those marriages, I wish my spouse paid more attention to the news, and how her politics don’t fit how she tries to treat people
But some people grow really fucking slowly.
ruemara
@Geminid: Which is to my point that mistakes can be made but the solid relationships were what kept Northam in office and frankly, Black people showed they made the right choice. We don’t have to condone everything he did in his life. Everyone had a bad moment.
SFBayAreaGal
@Ben Cisco: Me too
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: Yes and no.
It was his 1984 medical school yearbook (Eastern Virginia Medical School). He was around 25. He says he doesn’t remember the picture, or know how it got into the yearbook. A “minstrel” and a guy in a KKK hood is clearly racist.
Mark Herring was at a UVA college party in blackface (performing as a rapper) in 1980. He was around 19. It’s bad, but it’s not as bad as that Northam picture.
19 is much more of a kid than 25.
I think it’s an indictment of the universities in Virginia in the ’80s that this behavior was tolerated and regarded as normal – and even celebrated in Northam’s case – for up-and-coming white men.
Herring was an excellent AG for Virginia and was planning on running for Governor before these scandals blew up. He might have had a better chance than TerryMac, maybe.
Anyway, it’s good that neither of them resigned. And it’s a good reminder that we have to look at the big picture while also having high standards. Nobody is helped by us disarming ourselves while the GQP tries to burn our government to the ground.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Lyrebird
First, let me thank you again for the whole column!
Second, your re-statement here reminds me of Biden, and of a succinct and also really excellent comment – I think it was from The Thin Black Duke. Biden had made an edgy, possibly bad joke on Charlemagne the Radio Host’s Show. Much twittering about gaffes and presumption etc etc. If I remember right, TTBD said something like, the job of white people in this is to go vote for Biden. That is all.
different-church-lady
Everything sucks.
Just needed to say it out loud to someone other than myself.
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator:
Here’s what I don’t understand: back before World War II, some of the only white people in the US who were willing to agitate for civil rights in an organized way were Communists. That was the reason a lot of people associated with the CPUSA, to their detriment during the McCarthy era.
For some reason, once the civil-rights movement became mainstream, many American Marxists abandoned that focus, insisting that racial justice was a distraction from the class struggle and everything would be hunky dory after the revolution. Maybe just to stay contrarian? I’m not sure.
OGLiberal
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That incident did and does sound bad but sounds like Fetterman did a lot for Braddock, PA both before he was mayor, as mayor and after. Braddock is small but it’s about 67% African American and pretty poor-to-working class. Believe he still lives there, across from the steel plant.
FWIW the guy who he chased with the gun seems to have forgiven him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fetterman
UncleEbeneezer
Great post. Thank you for writing this.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator: Nobody else can thread a needle like that dude.
opiejeanne
@Kropacetic: I came to the conclusion that she was aiming at, citing him as an example of not working to connect with the AfAm community, but I did have to read that paragraph again. It was the them of her whole post, that not making an honest attempt to include them, or not even trying to connect is a problem that needs to be recognized.
Ok, my first sentence was poorly written.
Mike in NC
@eclare: I live in an area that is 99% old white people, many of whom would call the cops if they walked to their mailbox and saw a person walking down the street whose complexion was darker than a jar of mayonnaise.
Kropacetic
@OGLiberal: Northam and Fetterman are maybe good examples that we should judge people by the body of their work, not their worst day or their wildest idea in isolation.
Roger Moore
@Another Scott:
I’m not saying he was just a kid and didn’t know any better. I’m saying you’re better at judging what kind of governor he’ll be by his time as state senator and lieutenant governor than by what he did back in medical school. If we don’t allow people to move past their mistakes, we’ll have a very thin pool of people to choose from. That includes big mistakes.
The classic example for me is Robert Byrd. He was in the KKK for goodness sake! But he realized he was wrong and spent the rest of his career fixing the mistakes of his past. People were right to judge him by what he was doing today and was likely to do tomorrow rather than what he did in the more distant past.
ruemara
@OGLiberal: See, that’s why I said the one person or two is not indicative of the community. He’s not the people Fetterman needs to convince.
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: I was one of the few commenters who thought that Northam should not resign and was chewed out in the comments for that suggestion.
I have found myself increasingly at odds with the “progressive wing” (BS friendly wing) that dominates the lefty discourse in the media including Twitter and blogs like this one.
Starfish
@Lyrebird: I think one of my friends in Pennsylvania may like Kenyatta too. Winning the social media for out of state dollars is not the same as winning over the in-state voter pool.
eclare
@Mike in NC: I guess that is my neighborhood too.
Geminid
@Another Scott: If Ralph Northam is so conservative, and Northern Virginia so liberal, how is it that Northam beat Tom Perriello in Fairfax County by 60% to 40%? That was even better than his statewide margin of 11% (not 7% as I mistakenly said earlier).
I suspect that part of the reason was Northam’s staunchly liberal positions on gun safety and women’s reproductive freedom. Democrats may also have thought correctly that Northam had the better chance of pushing Medicaid expansion through a Republican controlled General Assembly. Which was another liberal policy that Northam effected.
eclare
@Roger Moore: He was one of the earliest Obama supporters.
zhena gogolia
@eclare: My neighborhood is diverse, but one Black family (with a beautiful, well-kept property) has to live next to a guy with giant Trump 2024 flags waving from his trashy house. The really nice touch is the Virgin Mary grotto in front. I’m sure she’s a big fan of TFG. I can’t even stand to walk by that guy’s house, so I don’t know how they can stand living next to him.
Ksmiami
@Yutsano: his gun stance will crater him here in TX… it’s sad and it sucks but the rural communities simply outvote the cities
eclare
@zhena gogolia: Oh my gawd, that is awful. And I have no doubt they do it on purpose for the Black neighbors
Thankfully nothing like that here.
Another Scott
@Geminid: It’s complicated, as you know. Ryan Lizza at the NewYorker:
Northam was a better fit for that election, and won handily. But that doesn’t mean I have to like him as much as you. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
eclare
@Ksmiami: I live in Tennessee. Same phenomenon here. Someone like Beto would carry Memphis but never win the state.
I wish he had stayed a rep.
eclare
@Another Scott: What was the Congo peace deal? There was one?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@eclare: I wish he, and a lot of other people, hadn’t run for President of Left Twitter
Another Scott
@eclare:
Periello speech from 2016.
HTH a little.
Cheers,
Scott.
Dan B
Thanks for a great post. Our neighbors on three sides are black and definitely less liberal than us. They have strong traditions in homophobic black churches. We have racist parts of psyches from our upbringing. None of the racism and homophobia are serious. They love us and we love them. It’s the society around us that is imperfect and we choose our battles. It’s tough to operate a coalition whose reason to work together is needing protection from wealthy straight white men. I have no answers except to keep plugging along and hope that voting rights gets passed in time.
eclare
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: So true. And you can be elected and have a good Twitter game. Ted Lieu is good, and Brian Schatz is too.
JMS
Hey, I was with you until the Fetterman thing. Fetterman is running for senate, not governor. If you’re going to criticize, talk about the right race. Also, while I’m not a Fetterman primary supporter per se, I think he’s well positioned in the race (both primary and general), and I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing him tower menacingly over some Republican senators. I’m still mad at Lamb for dissing Nancy Pelosi–he might as well have run for president with Tim Ryan and Seth Moulton–but he could probably win the general as well.
Regardless, the Democrats better not screw up this race. With the headwinds, it can’t be taken for granted, even if the Republicans are currently in utter disarray, much to my amusement (Dr. Oz? Good God) It is totally winnable, with a strong candidate.
Betty Cracker
Great post!
@Brachiator: IMO, any political theory that attributes all of the pathologies contained in this large, complex and diverse country to one thing (class, race, religion, whatever) is horseshit. The problems are multifaceted and intersectional, so the solutions have to be as well.
eclare
@Another Scott: That is very impressive. I hate that it did not get more press.
OGLiberal
@ruemara: I guess I was more focused on the fact that, while Braddock is certainly a small town, the residents of that town liked Fetterman enough for him to be the mayor for 14-years, leaving only after he became Lt. Governor. Braddock is one of those places where if you win the Dem primary you are going to be mayor…he did that, multiple times. If he could convince the voters of Braddock I have to think he could convince others. Note that I do not have strong feelings about the man at all and I haven’t been following his latest Senate campaign anywhere near close enough to know if he’s doing that or not.
Betty Cracker
In other news, I got my Moderna booster around 6 PM (in the grocery store! right in front of all the maskless rubes!), and my arm already feels like the Hulk punched it. Seems like it took until the next day to start hurting when I got the earlier shots.
Geminid
@eclare: Veronica Escobar now holds O’Rourke former El Paso seat, so he made room for another talented Democrat.
Escobar and O’Rourke have been allies since 2004. Escobar had worked as communications director for a liberal El Paso mayor. After he was defeated by a more conservative candidate, Escobar, businessman Beto O’Rourke, and activists Steve Gomez and Suzie Bird banded together to engineer economic development and political change for their community. They all went on to public office, Escobar holding the powerful office of El Paso County Judge before taking over O’Rourke’s Congressional seat in 2018. Local observers referred to the four as “the Progressives.”*
*From Wikipedia’s article on Congresswoman Escobar.
eclare
@Betty Cracker: My arm hurt pretty bad after the booster, but I didn’t have any other side effects, like flu symptoms. I hope you don’t either.
eclare
@Geminid: That is wonderful. But I think Beto could be more effective if he held elective office. Which he does not right now.
Geminid
@eclare: I would not count O’Rourke out as Texas’ next Governor. Voters in that state may be ready for a change. O’Rourke would be more effective in that role than he ever could be as a Congressman.
Cameron
@Geminid: If they do a rerun of freezing this winter and frying next summer – which is quite likely – he has a shot.
eclare
@Cameron: That is so true!
Geminid
@Geminid: And come 2024, Representative Veronica Escobar (D-El Paso) may go gunning for trifling Ted Cruz.
geg6
@ruemara:
Could not disagree more with your friends. Could not possibly disagree more. I won’t speak for any of the Black people here in Pa, except to say that his support from local Black groups and people I interact with seems to be mixed. But my perspective is from my own knowledge of Western and North Central PA. And he will do very, very well in both places. Kenyatta, who is almost identical (with a few exceptions) ideologically to Fetterman, has, unfortunately, a lot of strikes against him in those counties. I’d happily vote for either, though I know a lot more about Fetterman and like him a lot. But it’s a tough haul to get votes in most of these places for a Black man from Philly who is gay and leans very far left. Sad but true. And there simply are no female candidates, of any color, with statewide stature and funding who could beat him there. If there was one, I’d know who it could be. There just isn’t at the moment. Sad also, but true.
laura
Excellent post Ruemara- it rightfully demands much of the reader. You remind me that fall in love (in the primaries) and fall in line (in the general) is the foundation for winning elections, and that we ignore the most powerful/most reliable/most ignored voter block at electoral peril. I place my trust with those who vote as if their very lives depend upon the outcome and vote accordingly.
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
This is true, and also one of the reasons Marxists were so hated by conservatives and hounded by the FBI. They dared to defy the established racial order.
Actress and political activist Constance Webb, who was later married to black radical CLR James, wrote a very incisive memoir called “Not Without Love.” She writes about her early involvement with Marxists and how she became disillusioned with them when she saw how the leadership insisted on being condescending toward Mexican farm workers and black party members, and excluded them from key positions in the party. Blacks and Hispanics could not possibly understand their own oppression, nor could they have anything to teach whites who had mastered Marxism.
You also see this criticism of Marxists and other radicals in the work of Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison.
Jim Appleton
@Betty Cracker: Can’t you throw in some shit about mindless Southerners to make this a BC express?
Geminid
@geg6: The commenter said her friends thought Conor Lamb was “more likely” the better choice, and you say you could not disagree more. Yet you talk about Kenyatta and Fetterman, and the lack of a good woman candidate, but ignore Lamb, who by most accounts is running second in this race. Is Fetterman just too big to fail?
wonkie
@Starfish: I don’t face that dilemma but I thought about it. One of the many bully tactics of Republicans is to abuse the good manners and good nature of other people. SHow me a “no politics” family dinner and I will show you one where the Republicans say catty things the normal people try to smooth things over. I would not be willing to tolerate that.
randal m sexton
Brilliant stuff, thanks for helping dipshits like me understand.
ruemara
@geg6: I don’t really see Kenyatta as that far off from Fetterman and Lamb is polling second. It’s not my fight, I’m just saying that the black voters who are more engaged – which would be the people I know – are not thrilled about Fetterman and prefer Lamb. But they aren’t everyone. We’ll have to see as the race tightens up, but the issue is not that people have different preferences, the issue is that people aren’t understanding their candidates don’t have a strong track record with Black people. That’s it. This isn’t about a specific candidate and I’m really tired of having to go back and reiterate the point. Stop taking black voters for granted and start paying attention to who they seem to gravitate to
I love you all, but some of you are talking to the points you want to make and not the whole concept of faves who are not engaging with minority voters except as an afterthought.
wonkie
@eclare: Jesus H Christ. If I lived there, I think I’d offer to shadow her grandson by bicycle ( I couldn’t hope to keep up with a jogger any other way.) What an awful thing to have to do. I hope her neighbors speak up and offer help for his safety.
mvr
This is a good and useful post. Nothing to add but Thanks!
Dan B
@ruemara: Proably a dead thread but I noticed a few details that might be key to and shed some light on what seem like we are talking past each other. Fetterman seems to many whites that he’s done a lot of good for a majority black city, to the point of being elected Mayor many times. He also seems to have reacted with serious, deep seated prejudice to a black male jogger. And he has not impressed the black influencers in PA that he is a good soul. I’ve been given the cold shoulder in social justice organizations. It felt like I was viewed as a source of money to be tolerated but not liked. Another friend i recruited who did yeoman’s work to assist black led initiatives felt the same level of being unwelcome. I wanted to feel welcome even if had racial blind spots. I wanted to be better and that made me a burden. I felt I could bring resources that would compensate for whatever drag I created.
So it feels like the imperfect Fetterman is like the Biden whose record includes brutalizing Anita Hill and elevating Clarence Thomas, and, in addition, turbo charging the mass incarceration of young black men. Fetterman may be a klan member when you scratch the surface but to crazed racists he is a race traitor for marrying a Brazilian woman and sireing the evil of “mixed race” children. It feels like there are elements of the perfect being of the enemy of the good and your very important point that there is a candidate that would bring more joy and enthusiasm to black people.
We’re hoping to avoid a descent into fascism and to drag this country a couple inches out of the swamp our overlords desire for those of us who are trouble to them.
AJ
“may be a klan member but…”
Ok, was not expecting to read that in a comment here.
@ruemara just wanted to comment to say thanks. Powerful post.
Geminid
@Dan B: I think John Fetterman still would have gone after the jogger if he had been a white man. But I am white and I can see how some Black people see this event differently.
Fetterman’s justifications seem disingenuous to me, though. He claimed that he was alarmed that the jogger he thought had fired shots was running towards a school, and this was a few weeks after the terrible Sandy Hook school shooting. This makes a dubious act seem heroic. Fetterman left out the fact that this was on a Saturday and the school was empty. He knew this because he took his school age son inside before grabbing his shotgun and driving off after the jogger. This may be one reason Fetterman has declared that he will not dicuss this matter further.
Aside from questioning Fetterman’s act and his story, his detractors raise a pragmatic point: this event will be used against him by Republicans if he is the nominee. Presumably in advertising on Pennsylvania radio stations with large audiences of Black people. Republicans would also use it on a national basis to charge Democrats with hypocrisy on the issue of vigilantism.
I will admit bias against John Fetterman. While his supporters see “a different kind of politician,” I see a Kennedy School of Government graduate who chose to start his political career in a small* majority-Black township, then built a carefully curated profile as a working class hero. That, and his support of Senator Sanders in 2016 and 2020, created a national fan base that has made him a prodigious fundraiser. His improvements to his town, and even (by Fetterman’s own admission) his living, were subsidized by a wealthy father. But Fetterman wears work clothes, not a coat and tie, so he is not readily identifiable as a political careerist and a gentrifying real estate investor.
*Braddock is small enough that Fetterman won his first race for Mayor with 149 votes. Not by 149 votes, with 149 votes. The second place finisher had 148. Fetterman was unopposed his last race, and garnered a little over 250 votes. That is a very small sample on which to base a claim that he is a proven vote-winner among Black Pennsylvanians, but this does not keep Fetterman’s admirers from making the claim.
Miss Bianca
Great post, ruemara.
That is all, thank you.
Ben Cisco
@Lyrebird: Don’t know if you’ll see this (been on the road and didn’t see this until now), but I appreciate your kind words. Many thanks.