Democrats worry that Black Americans won’t turn out in 2024. It’s the same issue every election though. Democrats fail to address the needs of Black voters and then get all these warnings in advance and eventually fail to address most of those issues until it’s too late. This is a serious dem issue, it’s called engagement execution. Dems don’t have it, right wingers do. Dems always appear late to the party. After each election they take a nice long break while right wingers are already planning and executing for the next election years away. When dems are confronted with details they are told to pay attention to, they squander that opportunity or wait too long hoping the issues will go away.
Right wingers however look at every issue before them and address it right then and there. They also know how to execute, and they know what issues that their base reacts to and in turn helps them. It doesn’t always get them to win, but it sure does show that they know how to get things moving. This article below tells the same sad tale that dems are accused of over and over. Messaging to their base is their core problem. They ramp up all this outrage about right wing lunatics thinking that people will be so outraged by this performative theater on the right, that they will get out and vote to keep those people out. Problem is, addressing the core issues in this article is more of an issue that dems thought they already solved, which is by delivering a great economy, and almost full employment for anyone who wants a job.
However, that being said, wages are stagnant across the board. You may have full employment, but wages are so low that no one can keep up with rent, utilities and food, much less growth opportunities. It’s one thing to hail changing wages for uber type drivers in New York city to 17.50 an hour, but no one can survive on 17.50 an hour in New York city either. So, what was there to hail?
The same can be said of wages around the country. People in Colorado for instance who make 30.00 dollars an hour, are only able to afford a roommate situation instead of being in their own homes. Rents have increased post pandemic to levels that few ever imagined. Pre-Pandemic you could rent a 3-bedroom home for 1500.00 a month and just make it. Today, that same 3 bedroom is 3000.00 per month, and there are lines out the door competing for it. When people are forced out of their rental homes they face an even greater problem, getting another place. Fees to apply for a place are around 250.00 dollars, which is non-refundable. Then you have to pay first last and a security deposit. Some places are now asking for 2+2’s, first, last and 2 security deposits, making getting into a place over 10,000.00 USD. It’s literally impossible for people facing being thrown out of their current places because rents have doubled or tripled, only to find that they have to pretty much junk everything they own and live on the street for months at a time just to save up the money to get another place.
These are the issues that dems are literally blind to. So far, none of them have ever addressed this growing problem. It’s almost as if they are willfully ignoring it. It’s not just Black Americans, it’s across the board, affecting pretty much everyone. Where are dems on these problems? Nowhere. This article doesn’t cover that either. It only says that people they are covering in it want only to have safe neighborhoods and that’s pretty much it. So, you can have full employment, but right now you’d need two or three jobs or a mix of full time and part time jobs, along with a few side gigs you can do on weekends to cover the bills. What that ends up doing to people, relationships, and families, dems are also absent on. This is not to say that right wingers are addressing it either, because they aren’t. In their situation they don’t care about poor or struggling people, they only want them confined to homeless shelters where you can’t see them.
@mattgilbert89 #stitch with @jeywoods I’m going to never be able to buy a house. #CloroxMistChallenge #LinkBudsNeverOff #rent #rental #apartment #millennial #socal
All in all, voter apathy happens when you fail to address the core problems that voters care about the most. Not to be both siding things, but right now there is a huge disconnect between politicians on both sides who are thinking that as long as they continue to foment outrageous statements on the right, and driving people on the left to outrage over it, then that will be enough to get a win for one side or the other. Problem is that this is a losing strategy and only allows for a dark horse candidate to come in and start addressing those core issues to get elected or worse, voter apathy.
@spycelord #therentistoodamnhigh #rent #landlords #apartmenthunting #costofliving #houseless #usa
People are in a large way sick and tired of being sick and tired. They are tired of the Trump won lies just as much as they are tired of the antics of Boebert and MTG and Matt Gaetz. People are sick to death of these wannabe lunatic congressional celebrities who are not in it for the people they represent, but only in it for the money they can raise for themselves and the status points they will gain from it from the media. This is why if you held the election today, voter turnout would be at an all-time low. Because when you only have two sides of the same coin to vote for, you often just sit that one out instead.
Story below:
W. Mondale Robinson, founder of the Black Male Voter Project, shared a dire assessment of Democrats’ potential turnout problems with Black men. In many of the battleground states, he said many Black men are “sporadic or non-voters,” meaning they are registered, but have voted in one or none of the past three presidential elections. Robinson said Democrats spend too much time focused on converting “conservative-leaning White women” in the suburbs who they see as swing voters. Instead, he said, they should focus more on turning out Black men, viewing them as swing voters who are debating whether to vote or stay home.
“The Democratic Party has been failing epically at reaching this demographic of Black men — and that’s sad to say,” Robinson said. “Black men are your second-most stable base overwhelmingly, and yet you can’t reach them in a way that makes your work easier.”
“We have to meet them where they are and we have to show them why the political process matters and what we have accomplished that benefits them,” said Cedric L. Richmond, a former Biden adviser who is now a senior adviser at the Democratic National Committee. He said there will be a clear focus on making Black voters aware of how they have benefited from Biden administration policies, learning from the errors of past Democratic efforts that fell short.
“We will not make the mistake that others made of not drawing all the connections,” he said.
Black voter advocates say the challenge is particularly acute among Black men, many of whom say they feel alienated from the political process and were hurt by policies pushed by both parties that led to increased incarceration and a decline in manufacturing jobs decades ago. Many say their lives haven’t improved regardless of which party was in power, and are dispirited after the country elected Trump, life was upended by a global pandemic and violence worsened in urban areas.
Terrance Woodbury, chief executive of HIT Strategies, a polling firm focused on young, non-White voters, has been shopping around a PowerPoint presentation to liberal groups warning of the need to act soon to convince Black voters that they have benefited from Biden’s time in office.
A Washington Post/Ipsos poll of Black Americans in May found a tepid reaction to Biden’s reelection. Just 17 percent said they would be enthusiastic if he wins another term, 48 percent said they’d be satisfied but not enthusiastic, 25 percent said they’d be dissatisfied but not angry and 8 percent said they’d be angry about another Biden term. The poll also found that nearly 8 in 10 Black Americans say they would not consider voting for Trump over Biden and that 54 percent would be “angry” if Trump were to become president again.
“When you think about election cycle to election cycle, [Black voters] have been telling us for a long time what matters,” Smith added. “They want to put food on the table, a roof over their head, send kids to good schools, live in neighborhoods that are safe. I don’t think the issues are new, it’s the way we talk about them and the way we’re centering the voice of the people who live in these communities.”
Some Republicans say they see an opportunity to siphon off some of those disenchanted Black voters in next year’s presidential election with messaging on some key issues. Jay Williams, a longtime GOP strategist in Georgia and founder of the Stoneridge Group, a Republican firm, said school choice and transgender and LGBTQ+ issues, especially as they relate to children and schools, could harm Democrats among their reliable base.
Williams acknowledged any growth in support among Black voters could be harder for the GOP if Trump is the nominee — and there will be many other groups, including suburban White women, that the party will have to worry about in that case. He added that he expects Republicans to have a better return on investment with other minority voting blocs, such as Latinos and Asian Americans, “because I don’t think they’re as in lockstep with the Democrats as the Black voter bloc is.”
Meanwhile, Democrats say they are significantly more worried that Black voters will sit it out rather than defect to the Republicans.
“Ultimately, the Democratic Party is in the right place substantively on all of those issues,” he said. “But we’ve got to understand that people don’t just know that. We have to message to people so that they know where we are, and being better than the Republicans is not always enough to get people motivated to vote.”
In Detroit, liberal organizers targeting Black turnout have made education about how politics work a centerpiece of their pitch, along with concrete examples of policies that have benefited people from state and federal legislation.
“There is a slow leaking of Black men from the base because the issues that they care about aren’t being addressed,” said Branden Snyder, executive director of Detroit Action, whose organizers tell people the exercise is more like writing a Yelp review to spur change. “We have politics that were created by both Democrats and Republicans that don’t get to the heart of what our community cares about.”
But Malcolm Kenyatta, a Black Pennsylvania state representative who is an official surrogate for the Biden reelection campaign, said that Black voters will come out for Biden next year if Democrats can articulate Biden’s successes.
Many advocates say that work needs to start early and be consistent. Cliff Albright, co-founder and executive director of Black Votes Matter, said the resources needed to successfully mobilize Black voters and fight voter suppression in key states were too little and came too late in 2022. He pointed to places like North Carolina and Wisconsin, which had Black Democratic Senate candidates, but said the party didn’t prioritize investments there.
“Everybody knows that there’s no path, whether it’s President Biden or any other Democrat, federal or state, there’s no path to win that does not involve massive turnout from Black voters,” Albright said. “But they can’t just think that it’s just going to happen on its own. They’ve got to invest in making that happen.”
It’s a message also stressed by Mandela Barnes, the first Black lieutenant governor in Wisconsin, who ran for the Senate in 2022 and lost by only 26,000 votes, much of which could be attributed to depressed turnout in the heavily Black city of Milwaukee. Barnes is president of Power to the Polls Wisconsin, a new organization dedicated to working year-round to boost engagement and turnout among Black voters in the state. He’s also trying to support diverse candidates who might be overlooked by the national Democratic establishment.
“In a swing state like Wisconsin, we could very well be the tipping point … If we show up, we win,” Barnes said. “This country, and that power, is in the hands of Black voters, and we have to take that power seriously.”
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/31/democrats-black-voters-2024-election-biden/