Speaker 1: Welcome to Crash Course, the podcast about business, political, and
Speaker 1: social disruption and what we can learn from it. I'm
Speaker 1: Tim O'Brien. Today's Crash Course. Black voters versus the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four election. When last we visited, we talked about
Speaker 1: the central role Latina voters could play in the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four election. The same, of course, is true of
Speaker 1: the black community. Joe Biden secured a victory in the
Speaker 1: Democratic primary in twenty twenty after Representative Jim Clyburn through
Speaker 1: his support and that of his black constituents in South
Speaker 1: Carolina behind the candidate. Biden went on to take the
Speaker 1: presidency away from Donald Trump, and the pair now seems
Speaker 1: headed for a rematch. Black voters and young black voters
Speaker 1: in particular, appear to be much less enthusiastic about Biden
Speaker 1: these days. They're the most unenthusiastic they've been about a
Speaker 1: Democratic president in decades. Multiple polls suggest as much. Some
Speaker 1: of this is due to the Democratic Party deploying policy
Speaker 1: drive bys during elections. Promises made are too frequently unkept.
Speaker 1: Black voters, who represent more than twelve percent of total
Speaker 1: eligible voters in the US, have come to expect it
Speaker 1: Republicans have also intentionally thrown roadblocks in front of efforts
Speaker 1: to mobilize the full power of the black vote. Think
Speaker 1: jerry mandering, voter id laws, and the like. Most local
Speaker 1: legislatures won't be addressing it anytime soon, and the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court has empowered states to do as they please around
Speaker 1: voting access. Joining us today is Nia Malika Henderson, a
Speaker 1: political columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and a savant when it
Speaker 1: comes to decoding the forces royaling the American political landscape.
Speaker 1: That was Nia laughing at my description of her, because
Speaker 1: she just doesn't apparently know the highest theme in which
Speaker 1: I hold her.
Speaker 2: This care will too.
Speaker 1: By the end of this conversation, because she's a smarty Henia.
Speaker 3: Hey there, I love that inagury deduction, and I've gotta
Speaker 3: I'm gonna let my mom hear this.
Speaker 1: I'll record it for her. Yeah, So let's just jump
Speaker 1: into it, you know, in a very broad way. What's
Speaker 1: at stake for black voters in this election.
Speaker 3: Well, listen, I think if you think about the state
Speaker 3: in which African Americans were living under a Trump presidency,
Speaker 3: the sort of psychic toll, the emotional toll of living
Speaker 3: in a country led by someone who really engages in
Speaker 3: the kind of bigotry and race bating that he engaged in,
Speaker 3: you know, in the lead up to his election, where
Speaker 3: he was talking about Barack Obama and the whole Birtherism thing,
Speaker 3: and just the rhetoric he employed throughout his presidency, calling
Speaker 3: African nations shithold countries, and any number of incidents that
Speaker 3: just showed, I think, to African Americans and listen to
Speaker 3: other groups as well, sort of gave a feeling that
Speaker 3: Black Americans were other that he was perfectly fine using
Speaker 3: race and blackness as a kind of wedge issue. So
Speaker 3: that's part of the conversation that I think African Americans
Speaker 3: are having, and part of the conversations with somebody like
Speaker 3: Jim Kleibern is having too, is he goes around to
Speaker 3: African American communities, particularly in South Carolina, and talks to
Speaker 3: them about white supremacy, about what it was like to
Speaker 3: live in a country that was led by Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: So that's sort of the sort of emotional tool that
Speaker 3: I think was at play in Trump's administration and is
Speaker 3: part of what I think people are calculating as they
Speaker 3: think about who they're going to vote for moving forward.
Speaker 1: Don't forget. Also, when he was calling majority black countries shitholes,
Speaker 1: he was also waking up new names for countries in Africa,
Speaker 1: like Nambia, which doesn't exist right, right, And he's never
Speaker 1: been very good at like finding things on maps, but yeah,
Speaker 1: but he was inventing, you know, African country's whole cloth,
Speaker 1: which was yes, I don't think any press has done that.
Speaker 3: I think that's right. And so you think about the
Speaker 3: assaults on democracy, the assaults on freedom, whether it's the
Speaker 3: literal assault on democracy that we saw on January sixth,
Speaker 3: and just the continued undermining of institutions, and then issues
Speaker 3: like abortion, which get it sort of freedom and liberty.
Speaker 3: And so if you think about the way in which Biden,
Speaker 3: some of his surrogates, somebody like Vice President Harris, is
Speaker 3: trying to frame these issues to African American voters, it
Speaker 3: is about white supremacy. It is about the economy, it
Speaker 3: is about freedom, It is about this idea of do
Speaker 3: you want to return to the days of living in
Speaker 3: a country led by such an erratic And some people
Speaker 3: would obviously say racist president.
Speaker 1: Well, and we'll get into some of those issues, but
Speaker 1: I am perplexed given that Trump is an overtly hostile
Speaker 1: person to people of color, right, and he doesn't really
Speaker 1: hide it, and he's also enabled other people to be
Speaker 1: openly hostile. Our civic dialogue has degraded. It's translated into
Speaker 1: pow to see positions that I don't think are in
Speaker 1: the interests of communities of color. And yet all of
Speaker 1: the kind of polling around turnout suggests that a lot
Speaker 1: of black voters are thinking of just staying home, that
Speaker 1: they're not going to turn out. So you would think
Speaker 1: if Trump was that bleak of a prospect, that that
Speaker 1: would translate into more enthusiasm for Biden. And there's quite
Speaker 1: a bit. I think Iden got ninety two percent of
Speaker 1: the black vote in twenty twenty, more or less, and
Speaker 1: then Trump got eight percent, and it's still black voters
Speaker 1: prefer the Democratic Party. I've got no doubt that Biden
Speaker 1: will get a big majority of black voters again. But
Speaker 1: it's really important, actually in swing states that black voters engage.
Speaker 1: And there appears, I think, and I'm always a little
Speaker 1: bit tentative with polls, right, but it appears that there's
Speaker 1: this lack of enthusiasm, and I think that that could
Speaker 1: actually have a destructive impact on the interests of black
Speaker 1: voters if they don't turn out. So why is that,
Speaker 1: Why is there lack of enthusiasm?
Speaker 3: Well, listen, I think there was never a huge enthusiasm
Speaker 3: for Biden, right, There was always an enthusiasm for kicking
Speaker 3: Trump out of office. So we of course remember when
Speaker 3: it was finally declared that there was a President Biden,
Speaker 3: that he had won, there was dancing in the street, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was like a dictator had fallen. People
Speaker 3: were so kind of relieved to see him lose. And
Speaker 3: so you think about the polls now, and I think
Speaker 3: about Cornell Belcher, who's this great after American pollster.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you're familiar with.
Speaker 3: He is a polster, he does focus groups, but he's
Speaker 3: also very mindful of the fact that the campaign has
Speaker 3: just begun. Right. Campaigns are built to persuade voters, to
Speaker 3: make them enthusiastic, to give them a binary choice, and
Speaker 3: that is what's happening now. I talked to some folks
Speaker 3: at the Biden campaign, and listen, they are very aware
Speaker 3: of what the polls showed.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: They're very aware of what you mentioned, which is that
Speaker 3: historically it's been like sols to the polls. You know,
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks before November, not a lot of
Speaker 3: money put into GOTV efforts, And they're doing something very
Speaker 3: differently this go around. They're putting a lot of money
Speaker 3: in early and seeing those voters as voters they have
Speaker 3: to persuade and mobilize, not just the voters who are
Speaker 3: going to automatically show up. I will say this, I
Speaker 3: do think that the polling and I hate to be
Speaker 3: sort of a polling truther, but the polling has been
Speaker 3: really off.
Speaker 2: In terms of African American voters, and off for quite
Speaker 2: a while.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Like, if you think about the lead up to
Speaker 3: twenty twenty to twenty eighteen, there's all these like, oh
Speaker 3: my gosh, Republicans are going to get twenty percent of
Speaker 3: African American voters, and it just it hasn't really materialized.
Speaker 3: I think there obviously has been a shift, very very minimally,
Speaker 3: but it is not as much as the polls suggest.
Speaker 3: But again, we talk about these swing states, places like Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona,
Speaker 3: those margins manager Georgia. Yeah, exactly all of this is
Speaker 3: going to matter. But listen it's ramping up now. I'm
Speaker 3: actually going to South Carolina in the lead up to
Speaker 3: the Democratic primary, where Biden, of course will win. Kamala
Speaker 3: Harris will be there. She's going to an HBCU South
Speaker 3: Carolina state in Orangeburg, and so it'll be interesting to
Speaker 3: see what her message is to those voters in particular, right,
Speaker 3: young educated African American voters who have lots of discontent
Speaker 3: with Joe Biden. And again, they were never huge Joe
Speaker 3: Biden fans, right, there were Obamocrats, right, There is no
Speaker 3: parallel to that when it comes to Biden supporters. Older
Speaker 3: members of the African American community love Biden. My mom
Speaker 3: is one of those folks. She's eighty six, eighty five,
Speaker 3: and she'll be pulling the lever for Joe Biden as
Speaker 3: well all of her church friends. But then there is
Speaker 3: this other, younger, more working class population of African Americans
Speaker 3: that have some you know, skepticism, and they're going to
Speaker 3: need to be convinced and mobilized.
Speaker 1: And you know, you just invoked the secret weapon of
Speaker 1: Barack Obama, right, which has not been activated yet by Democrats,
Speaker 1: and you know, marching Barack Obama with his myriad gifts
Speaker 1: as an orator and a truth teller and a very
Speaker 1: unusually charismatic politician. In all those states, maybe he would
Speaker 1: campaign with Taylor Swift, and you could just have like
Speaker 1: this twin engine, like a jet engine of voter enthusiasm push.
Speaker 1: So it'll be interesting to see how and when and
Speaker 1: where Obama gets activated, because I can't imagine he won't be.
Speaker 1: But I want to come back and even within the
Speaker 1: flaw of the polls about the percentage of votes Republicans
Speaker 1: might or might not get, that data point concerns me
Speaker 1: less than turnout does. And I just want to turn
Speaker 1: to this in a second, because I think of twenty sixteen, right, like,
Speaker 1: obviously Obama turns out black voters like no candidate has
Speaker 1: I think ever, at least since in the post World
Speaker 1: War two era. And then in twenty sixteen, you know,
Speaker 1: black voters did not really turn out for Hillary Clinton.
Speaker 1: And you could pinpoint the states in which that created
Speaker 1: tipping points Michigan, Wisconsin, et cetera, et cetera. I was
Speaker 1: in both states in twenty twenty talking to black voters,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that came up repeatedly in
Speaker 1: conversations I had with them is you know, Hillary flew
Speaker 1: in here at the last minute, like she didn't come
Speaker 1: to Detroit until the last week of October or something
Speaker 1: like that, and they all said, we just didn't feel
Speaker 1: we felt taken for granted. And in fact, that's how
Speaker 1: her campaign ruled. They thought they were going to flip Texas,
Speaker 1: Georgia and Florida, and they didn't campaign in Michigan, Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: and Pennsylvania. And I just you know, this is possibly
Speaker 1: this election this year, the twenty twenty four election will
Speaker 1: turn on a knife's edge in terms of pluralities, is
Speaker 1: in a handful of states, and so I wonder less
Speaker 1: about the total vote going to the Republicans and more
Speaker 1: about just people showing up for Democrats.
Speaker 3: I think it's a huge concern. Democrats obviously mindful of it.
Speaker 3: And sort of add to that, you do have Republicans
Speaker 3: campaigning for black.
Speaker 2: Voters in a way that they haven't before.
Speaker 3: I mean, some of it is sort of cynical, and
Speaker 3: the ultimate goal is to have black voters stay home
Speaker 3: not necessarily vote for Republican candidates, but you do have
Speaker 3: some real efforts. I think it was Matt Gates, So
Speaker 3: I hate to quote, but here I am said that,
Speaker 3: you know, for every maybe college educated white person that
Speaker 3: a Republican might lose, they would gain a jamal Or
Speaker 3: I think you said.
Speaker 1: Jose because he's such a sensitive person.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, and this is true, right. I mean, there
Speaker 3: is this resorting of the parties, right, and some of
Speaker 3: this is along class lines and some of it is
Speaker 3: along racial lines as well. Sort of the sorting, particularly
Speaker 3: among Hispanics, is much more noticeable going from the Democratic
Speaker 3: Party to the Republican Party. It isn't is noticeable yet
Speaker 3: among African Americans, particularly African American working class men. But
Speaker 3: that is what's going on. And to me, I mean
Speaker 3: sort of the argument that you hear Donald Trump making
Speaker 3: is one I think that is in some ways wrapped
Speaker 3: up in his masculinity, right, in his strength.
Speaker 2: He gave some speech recently where he was.
Speaker 3: Like, you know, a country needs a strong man, and
Speaker 3: I think he meant it in both ways, right, and
Speaker 3: that does I think resonate with young men, particularly young
Speaker 3: working class men, who have also been sort of told
Speaker 3: that their masculinity is you know, under assault. That there's
Speaker 3: sort of feminization. I mean, listen, if you watch ESPN,
Speaker 3: there are all these commercials about this generation of men
Speaker 3: having the lowest testosterone ever. I would know, but you know,
Speaker 3: those are the kind of messages that I think could
Speaker 3: resonate with any number of groups and lead either to
Speaker 3: kind of low turnout among those groups who are Democrats,
Speaker 3: or actually some of these groups that have traditionally been
Speaker 3: voting for Democrats voting for Republicans, particularly Donald Trump, not
Speaker 3: necessarily sort of down ballot, but just seeing in Donald
Speaker 3: Trump somebody who they admire, the strength, the pretty wife,
Speaker 3: the beautiful kids, whatever it is, and obviously a billionaire status, right,
Speaker 3: I mean that is all.
Speaker 1: Live in the dream exactly, dream, yeah, rolling like he
Speaker 1: wants to jet like exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And you know, I know you're a hip hop fan, tim,
Speaker 3: and Donald Trump was hugely popular in hip hop in
Speaker 3: the nineties and in two thousand, just as a symbol
Speaker 3: of bling and success and sort of the lavish life.
Speaker 3: And so some of that stuff still resonates.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Russell Simmons said to me once that he called
Speaker 1: Trump the bling, bling white man.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know they were welcome at marl Lago and
Speaker 1: they'd be in the steam room and Donald show up
Speaker 1: with a tray of orange juice. In his red tie
Speaker 1: and blue suit, even the steam room. That's not a
Speaker 1: subject for our discussion today. Yeah, but you know, it
Speaker 1: is interesting that that sector of the black community venerates them.
Speaker 1: But I think it's because of celebrity and wealth. Right,
Speaker 1: it's not really about politics, right, policy at all, But
Speaker 1: it's this image, and I think that has a lot
Speaker 1: of attraction with working class white voters too.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. I mean this kids to the personality,
Speaker 3: the cult of personality built up around Donald Trump, which
Speaker 3: has been so effective. You know, the idea that he's
Speaker 3: a successful millionaire, a billionaire. Excuse me, he's not, even
Speaker 3: though he probably is only just a millionaire. But listen,
Speaker 3: you know this success of him and sort of the
Speaker 3: lavishness and the gold toilets and the supermodel wife who
Speaker 3: isn't really a supermodel, nor does she speak seven languages,
Speaker 3: but never mind.
Speaker 1: And she's an immigrant, by the way, which is point
Speaker 1: out he married an immigrant. Yes, yes, and some of
Speaker 1: them are nice people. But on this issue again of
Speaker 1: turn out. You know, just in the statistics, black voters
Speaker 1: about twelve percent of eligible voters in twenty twenty, they
Speaker 1: maybe fourteen percent and twenty four white voters are about
Speaker 1: sixty eight percent of eligible voters, but end up being
Speaker 1: seventy five percent of the voters who cast balance. Those
Speaker 1: numbers are always so fascinating to me because they speak
Speaker 1: to people's sense of how their vote empowers them or not.
Speaker 1: It sometimes pains me to see that the black community
Speaker 1: doesn't have as much faith in the power of their
Speaker 1: vote as clearly the white community does. I think we
Speaker 1: know the reasons for some of those things, but it's
Speaker 1: undoubtedly at work in this election too.
Speaker 3: I think that's right. You think back to two thousand
Speaker 3: and eight and all of the joy and pride among
Speaker 3: African Americans that the country had elected a black man,
Speaker 3: a black man named Barack who say Obama, And there
Speaker 3: was a lot of hope, right. There was some just
Speaker 3: silly hope about, you know, a post racial America, but
Speaker 3: then there was real hope about conditions in black communities
Speaker 3: being changed because of Obama being in office. And I
Speaker 3: think you look around and that didn't really happen, right,
Speaker 3: And even I think some of the discontent among say
Speaker 3: thirty something black folks forty something black folks, there is
Speaker 3: kind of looking back at Barack Obama with some disappointment, right,
Speaker 3: that we put so much, African Americans will say into
Speaker 3: having him in office, but what do we get in return?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: And so then Hillary comes and obviously Trump gets in office,
Speaker 3: and then Biden and there's obviously some discontent, specific discontent
Speaker 3: right about promises not met, whether it's around voting rights
Speaker 3: or student loans. So, you know, and now I think
Speaker 3: a real sort of animating conversation for this group of voters,
Speaker 3: young African Americans is what's going on with the Palestinians
Speaker 3: and the idea. You know, Joe Biden has gone to
Speaker 3: some events and there will be people and some of
Speaker 3: these are African Americans who are standing upholding signs and
Speaker 3: calling him genocide Joe. So this is a a real
Speaker 3: kind of animating force and animating conversation that's going on,
Speaker 3: and not in a good way for Joe Biden's re
Speaker 3: election prospects among young African Americans.
Speaker 1: On that note, I want to take a quick break
Speaker 1: so we can hear from our sponsor, and then we
Speaker 1: will come right back to this conversation. I'm back with
Speaker 1: Nia Malika Henderson, a political columnist with Bloomberg Opinion. Nia,
Speaker 1: we were just talking about black voters disappointment with Biden,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to just dig into some of the
Speaker 1: highlight policy issues, the things that are most important to
Speaker 1: the black community, and from a policy perspective, the things
Speaker 1: that are fueling some of their disappointment. Voting rights and
Speaker 1: the enforcement of voting rights and the access to the
Speaker 1: voting booth seems to me to be something well worth
Speaker 1: focusing on in this But you can dissuade me if
Speaker 1: it's not.
Speaker 3: No, I think that's right. This is something that Joe
Speaker 3: Biden campaigned on. This is something that people believed that
Speaker 3: a needed to get done and could get done right,
Speaker 3: particularly in the aftermath of George Floyd. Right, you remember
Speaker 3: those sort of hidy days of the racial recogning and
Speaker 3: this idea that the country and companies wanted to get
Speaker 3: right in terms of race, and so what happened.
Speaker 2: For police reform.
Speaker 3: I think that's exactly right. And so there were conversations
Speaker 3: around that. But one of the big hopes around that
Speaker 3: was that there would be some sort of voting rights bill.
Speaker 3: So there was one that went to senate, it past
Speaker 3: the House and it failed, right, it failed.
Speaker 1: And there was also the John L.
Speaker 3: Lewis Voting yeah, there were two separate ones, right, and
Speaker 3: ultimately failed because Democrats. Two Democrats in particular who I
Speaker 3: don't think will be in the Senate going forward, Christen
Speaker 3: Cinema and Joe Manchin.
Speaker 2: They were too, they really democrats, right.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, And so you know, there's an
Speaker 3: idea that maybe they could scuttle the philibuster just for
Speaker 3: this bill to pass, and it turns out that they
Speaker 3: didn't want to do that. And of course we know
Speaker 3: the philibuster has been used to scuttle lots of civil
Speaker 3: rights legislation historically. That's sort of the point of it. Yes,
Speaker 3: and so that history repeating itself. So sure, there's that
Speaker 3: lack of movement on that. And listen, you're gonna hear
Speaker 3: from Biden on this again, right, You're going to hear
Speaker 3: from Kamala Harris on this again. I'm sure when there's
Speaker 3: another anniversary of the Bloody Sunday in March, right, they'll
Speaker 3: make a big deal about pushing for this and voting rights.
Speaker 3: But the fact of the matter is it didn't get done.
Speaker 3: Nothing really has been done on police reform.
Speaker 1: Voting rights. Yeah, black community blame the Biden White House
Speaker 1: for not getting legislation through a Senate that has repeatedly
Speaker 1: torpedoed any legislation that would be helpful to Biden politically.
Speaker 1: We're in the middle of this right now. In immigration,
Speaker 1: a bipartisan tax bill didn't get through Chuck Grassley and
Speaker 1: I owe Republicans said, yeah, might be a good bill,
Speaker 1: but it would help Biden in the election. So reason
Speaker 1: to do this? Yeah? Yeah? And and voting rights. Are
Speaker 1: black voters seeing past the fact and maybe the answer
Speaker 1: to this is obvious, but are they seeing past the
Speaker 1: fact that this is something they do and should care
Speaker 1: deeply about, and the fact that the White House might
Speaker 1: be sort of handcuffed because they have a racalcia tren Congress.
Speaker 3: Right, you know, listen, I think sure, I mean, I
Speaker 3: think there is some recognition that there is a huge
Speaker 3: roadblock in the Republican Party in terms of advancing any
Speaker 3: number of you know, democratic causes, progressive causes. And that'll
Speaker 3: be part of what Biden talks about, right, and Harris
Speaker 3: talks about when they go before these audiences, when they
Speaker 3: talk about abortion, for instance, the idea that they need
Speaker 3: a more democratic House and democratic Senate, so send more
Speaker 3: Democrats and he can get things done. But there is
Speaker 3: I think, and this isn't specific to the Black community.
Speaker 3: I think there is a sense among average voters that
Speaker 3: presidents are sort of all powerful, right. It is the
Speaker 3: office that most people are familiar with. They don't necessarily
Speaker 3: pay attention to who their local congress person is or
Speaker 3: their senators. But there is a sense, I think among
Speaker 3: just average voters that presidents, through their power of persuasion
Speaker 3: and we voted for you, that you should be able
Speaker 3: to deliver on these issues, and if you don't, it
Speaker 3: is demoralizing. It could be a failing on your part,
Speaker 3: and it could mean that we stay home because I
Speaker 3: haven't seen.
Speaker 2: Any deliverables for giving you my vote.
Speaker 3: So you know, this is a conversation that is going
Speaker 3: to have to be had in all sorts of ways,
Speaker 3: sort of the traditional ways of campaigning, but then on
Speaker 3: Facebook and TikTok and the Gram and all of those
Speaker 3: social media platforms and the View and Charlemagne the God
Speaker 3: places like that where we're African Americans, particularly young African Americans,
Speaker 3: are very tuned into those sites and those folks.
Speaker 1: He wrote a great column about Nikki Haley and her
Speaker 1: effort to sort of I guess disappear slavery as a
Speaker 1: factor in the Civil War. We are in the midst
Speaker 1: of this, I think, literal whitewashing of African American history
Speaker 1: and the Civil War perpetrated by the Republicans and the
Speaker 1: right for political reasons, and white supremacy, white nationalism, racism,
Speaker 1: and discrimination are also a paramount issue for the black community.
Speaker 1: Do black voters see Biden in light of all of that,
Speaker 1: acting as a you know, an agent of change and protection?
Speaker 3: You know, listen, I'm just going to be blunt here.
Speaker 3: Biden is eighty one. I think she isn't someone I
Speaker 3: think that average Black people, average people right looked to
Speaker 3: as a pillar of strength. He's older, and some of
Speaker 3: that is literally his age, and some of that is
Speaker 3: probably just the burdens of the presidency and grief, quite frankly,
Speaker 3: because he's had so many losses in his life. I
Speaker 3: definitely think to a certain segment of African Americans, older
Speaker 3: African Americans, sort of the church going set of African Americans,
Speaker 3: they see by not necessarily as a sort of protector,
Speaker 3: but as a good, decent human being. And that sort
Speaker 3: of sounds, you know, not like high praise, but it
Speaker 3: is high praise to just ordinary folks that he just
Speaker 3: has a core goodness to him and a decency. You know,
Speaker 3: there is a video that's circulating online now of him
Speaker 3: comforting one of the families of one of the soldiers
Speaker 3: that was just killed, and this was a black family
Speaker 3: in Georgia, I believe, And just the humanity and the
Speaker 3: connection and the sense of heart and under standing in
Speaker 3: empathy that he displays almost more than any politician I
Speaker 3: can think of in recent history. It's almost pastoral. I
Speaker 3: think that goes a long way with African Americans. It
Speaker 3: isn't that he's going to sort of stand between Donald Trump,
Speaker 3: stand between the racists and protect African Americans, but there
Speaker 3: is a sense I think that African Americans do feel
Speaker 3: like his heart is in the right place, that he
Speaker 3: understands African Americans and that he's on the side of
Speaker 3: African Americans. And he's trying to go to South Carolina
Speaker 3: and say you had my back back in twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: and I'm going to have your back as well. So
Speaker 3: I do think that goes a long way. And also
Speaker 3: I think they're going to remind people that he was
Speaker 3: Obama's vice president, right he was loyal to Obama. I
Speaker 3: remember in twenty twenty hearing so many black people talk
Speaker 3: about that, right, the idea that here he was the
Speaker 3: right hand man to America's first black president, and it
Speaker 3: was you were loyal to Obama. We're going to stand
Speaker 3: by you and be loyal to you, Joe Biden. So
Speaker 3: list before I came on with you today, I was thinking,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe they should give some sort of joint
Speaker 3: care of view in sixty minutes, right, it's sort.
Speaker 1: Of a you know, I'm sure they will do something
Speaker 1: or joint appearances. It's just I think that's a strength
Speaker 1: they both can play to. And he was a model
Speaker 1: vice president for Obama. You know, he filled the role
Speaker 1: the way you'd want a vice president to fill it.
Speaker 1: They I think developed a friendship unexpectedly during that presidency
Speaker 1: because there was hostility in the beginning. You know, one
Speaker 1: other sort of broad category, and I think of this
Speaker 1: as you know, a democratic problem more generally and not
Speaker 1: Biden specifically, but is you know the idea of broad
Speaker 1: investment in black communities, whether it's education or infrastructure or
Speaker 1: small business loans, healthcare, an array of different investments that
Speaker 1: will make communities independent and thriving. And when I sometimes
Speaker 1: think of this issue of promises broken or promises not kept,
Speaker 1: it is the historical legacy of the Democrats that they
Speaker 1: had tried to deliver some of those solutions to black communities.
Speaker 1: And is that a thing that hangs over this as
Speaker 1: well for the black community or do you think there's
Speaker 1: other things that are front of mind for black.
Speaker 3: Voters, meaning the failure to deliver or at least this
Speaker 3: sort of effort to deliver. I think that's right. I
Speaker 3: think that's yes. And this will also be a way
Speaker 3: that I think Republicans will try to dissuade black people
Speaker 3: from voting or actually have Black people vote for Republicans.
Speaker 3: The idea that listen, you've been giving your votes to
Speaker 3: Democrats for all these generations in many ways, and what
Speaker 3: have they done. What do your schools look like, what
Speaker 3: do your communities look like? There's still under investment in
Speaker 3: education and infrastructure, And so I think, yes, that is
Speaker 3: something that you hear. But then I think there's a
Speaker 3: choice here, Right, Democrats say they want to do better,
Speaker 3: Oftentimes they can't for any number of reasons. Often that
Speaker 3: is Republicans being obstructionists, and then they're Republicans, right, who
Speaker 3: don't even really have any ideas for improvement and investment
Speaker 3: in these African American communities. What does Biden always say,
Speaker 3: don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative.
Speaker 3: And so I think that's the argument they'll make. But
Speaker 3: listen again, I think it goes back to some of
Speaker 3: that discontent around Obama. There's so much hope invested in Obama,
Speaker 3: so much hope invested in Joe Biden, and then when
Speaker 3: you get down to it, materially, a lot of these
Speaker 3: communities haven't changed, even though listen at, the unemployment rate
Speaker 3: is record low among African Americans, child poverty is on
Speaker 3: the decline, more investments in HBCUs, so they do have
Speaker 3: something to talk about, and listen. I live in a
Speaker 3: fairly diverse, working class ish area in Washington, DC. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and sometimes I'm like, you know, I go into Marshalls
Speaker 3: and Target. It's packed, right, It's packed with folks who
Speaker 3: are buying all sorts of things they don't need, particularly
Speaker 3: from Marshalls. And I do think there is a sense
Speaker 3: that and you see some of this in the consumer
Speaker 3: confidence number, is that the economy is people are starting
Speaker 3: to sort of feel it and that it's better than
Speaker 3: they thought, and so those things I think will matter
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take another quick break right there, Nia,
Speaker 1: and then we will come back and continue this very
Speaker 1: interesting conversation. I'm back in having a great conversation with
Speaker 1: Nia Malika Henderson, a political columnist with Bloomberg Opinion. We're
Speaker 1: talking about black voters and the twenty twenty four election.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about mobilizing. We've touched on it
Speaker 1: on and off. I was intrigued both by Ohio and
Speaker 1: Virginia this year, where similar you know, there were differences,
Speaker 1: but issues came up before voters around abortion, access to
Speaker 1: reproductive healthcare, reproductive rights. Governors of both of those states
Speaker 1: were trying to impose much more restrictive measures around abortion,
Speaker 1: and black votevoters got busy and they really got activated
Speaker 1: around that issue. And we're pivotal in both states and
Speaker 1: not only turning back those policies, but in Virginia's case,
Speaker 1: actually establishing a majority in the state legislature. Clearly people
Speaker 1: were paying attention to the issue. Clearly people got around
Speaker 1: those voters and made it happen. And it does offer
Speaker 1: an example of what can be done at this microcosmic
Speaker 1: local level with the right issue and the right organization,
Speaker 1: and you get both great policy results and you get
Speaker 1: a good political outcome if you're a Democrat. Is that
Speaker 1: something that Democrats could mobilize nationally between now in November,
Speaker 1: finding those themes and turning the voters out.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And obviously abortion is going to be a huge issue.
Speaker 3: You have Kamala Harris taking the lead on that, framing
Speaker 3: it as a matter of rights and freedom and equality.
Speaker 3: And we've seen every time it's either sort of the
Speaker 3: pro choice or pro life movement in these different states.
Speaker 3: In some red states as you mentioned Ohio for instance,
Speaker 3: the pro choice side has won. So you've got some
Speaker 3: efforts by Democratic activists, women's rights activists trying to put
Speaker 3: some of these ballot measures in states to galvanize voters.
Speaker 3: You know, Democrats didn't want to talk about abortion for
Speaker 3: years and years and years, and now they found their
Speaker 3: voice on it. A lot of that has to do
Speaker 3: with Kama Harris, as I mentioned, and just this idea,
Speaker 3: you know, she gave a speech two weeks ago, this
Speaker 3: idea that who do these people think they are right?
Speaker 3: There's a kind of anger and righteous indignation. I think
Speaker 3: that African Americans women in particular, feel this idea that
Speaker 3: America now is less free because of the fall of
Speaker 3: Row and some of these states that have very restrictive
Speaker 3: abortion laws anti abortion laws, that America is less free
Speaker 3: now than it was in the Roe v. Wade era. So,
Speaker 3: you know, you look at that, and I think for
Speaker 3: African Americans who have been on the front lines expanding rights,
Speaker 3: this idea that you're going backwards in terms of the
Speaker 3: kind of rights in Americans enjoy. It is an issue
Speaker 3: that I think is going to come up a lot,
Speaker 3: and it will be effective for Democrats to argue around that,
Speaker 3: and I think it's going to be the centerpiece of
Speaker 3: what Democrats do in terms of mobilizing voters.
Speaker 1: You know, in the context of all that, I just
Speaker 1: want to like briefly touch on your own journey, because
Speaker 1: I find it both I'll embarrass you, but I find
Speaker 1: it both admirable and inspiring. Your native of South Carolina.
Speaker 1: You went to Duke, you graduated cum laude, You got
Speaker 1: graduate degrees from Yale and Columbia, and then a string
Speaker 1: of high profile journalism jobs Politico, The Washington Post, CNN,
Speaker 1: and now you're stuck with me, and you wrote, I'll
Speaker 1: embarrass you further by reading your own words to you.
Speaker 1: But you wrote a beautiful column about Black History Month.
Speaker 1: And you're also a mother, I should add, because that's
Speaker 1: relevant to that. You know, you're a successful black woman,
Speaker 1: you're a successful mother, you're a successful professional in a
Speaker 1: world that can line up against that in so many
Speaker 1: different ways. And you're writing about the relevancy and utility
Speaker 1: of Black History Month, and you wrote across the country
Speaker 1: at colleges and corporations, diversity and inclusion initiatives are being targeted,
Speaker 1: as are black academics. Black books are among the most banned.
Speaker 1: The post George Floyd racial reckoning faced a huge backlash
Speaker 1: and never quite materialized for any sustained period of time. Sure,
Speaker 1: there are now bandages that match the skin of black people.
Speaker 1: Imagine that. And Auntchemima and Uncle Ben are no more.
Speaker 1: But is that all? And then you go on in
Speaker 1: this very poignant, beautifully written column to talk about, well,
Speaker 1: you look at your daughter and you look at her
Speaker 1: world compared to yours, and that there's things in her
Speaker 1: world you didn't have growing up, and you had things
Speaker 1: your mother didn't have, and you have some optimism baked
Speaker 1: into that. I wonder do you think that that optimism
Speaker 1: translates into the political process for enough Black voters these days.
Speaker 3: That's an excellent question, listen. I think optimism is at
Speaker 3: the core of the African American experience, right, this imagining
Speaker 3: of a world that didn't exist and fighting for that world.
Speaker 3: You know, it's our heritage. I mean, I grew up
Speaker 3: with parents who my father in particular, as a young man,
Speaker 3: marched with doctor King. It wasn't you know, there were
Speaker 3: a series of marches around Bloody Sunday. I think there
Speaker 3: were three up together. He was at the second one.
Speaker 3: So on Martin Luther King Day, I was able to
Speaker 3: show my daughter a picture of her grandfather, who is
Speaker 3: no longer with us, standing on the steps of Brown
Speaker 3: Am Chapel with Martin Luther King sort of over his shoulder.
Speaker 3: And I'm also, obviously, I'm a woman, I'm black. I'm
Speaker 3: also a lesbian, right and so to see the trajectory
Speaker 3: of the country go from being very hostile to same
Speaker 3: sex marriage to myself being married to a woman and
Speaker 3: having a beautiful daughter, I am definitely somebody who I'm
Speaker 3: a prisoner of hope for lack of a better phrase,
Speaker 3: and sometimes I feel, you know, naive. After I wrote
Speaker 3: that column, I was sort of thinking of my academic
Speaker 3: friends that were like, Oh, they're going to read this
Speaker 3: and be like, Oh, she's very naive. But in so
Speaker 3: many ways, I kind of wrote that for my mom,
Speaker 3: right somebody who she was born in nineteen thirty eight.
Speaker 3: She was born in Chicago, saw the civil rights movement,
Speaker 3: Women's rights movement, had four kids, and really tried to
Speaker 3: create a black world right and black pride in her
Speaker 3: kids and did it in the best way she could,
Speaker 3: but she also wanted it for my friends and neighbors
Speaker 3: who lived in houses nearby. And the black books she
Speaker 3: had she would often go and read to kids at school.
Speaker 3: And so now here I am very easily being able
Speaker 3: to kind of cultivate a black life for my kid
Speaker 3: with black books and the Black History Museum, which she's
Speaker 3: gone to a couple of times already, and black dolls
Speaker 3: and black panther And it really is amazing to see
Speaker 3: that that kind of journey just in my own life.
Speaker 3: And partly I think we have to be optimistic to
Speaker 3: honor people who have fought for where we are now
Speaker 3: right to sort of discount the progress is to discount
Speaker 3: the movement, discount the activists who pushed for this reality
Speaker 3: we live in now.
Speaker 2: Listen.
Speaker 3: Are things perfect? Absolutely not. Is there more work to
Speaker 3: be done? Absolutely? But I myself can just say someone
Speaker 3: who is closeted in college and in high school and
Speaker 3: who's now living as an openly gay black woman and
Speaker 3: working in what is really my dream job?
Speaker 2: Tim, I think I told you that.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy that it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, this idea in kind of political discourse,
Speaker 3: people often kind of think of African Americans as not
Speaker 3: being patriotic, right, And often I see black people have
Speaker 3: pushed this country to really live up to its ideals, right,
Speaker 3: And so in that way, you know, politically, I think
Speaker 3: if you're somebody like Joe Biden, you're the Dems, you're
Speaker 3: trying to connect that struggle.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: He goes to Mother Emmanuel as one of his first speeches,
Speaker 3: where those nine African Americans were killed by white supremacists,
Speaker 3: and talks about that history, talks about white supremacy, and
Speaker 3: then talks about advancement too, and some of the deliverables
Speaker 3: of his administration, and this idea that you know, just
Speaker 3: the struggle continues. So listen, we'll see what African Americans
Speaker 3: do in terms of coming out to vote. I will
Speaker 3: also say this, I think every cycle Life covered it
Speaker 3: is the exact same story. Black voters. Are they going
Speaker 3: to turn out based? I mean literally even Obama right, Obama,
Speaker 3: by the time he was standing for reelection, had come
Speaker 3: out for same sex marriage, and all these stories about
Speaker 3: is this going to hamper his ability to get African
Speaker 3: American voters to turn out for him?
Speaker 2: Obviously it did not.
Speaker 3: And so this is listen, if you go back every election,
Speaker 3: there is this question, and we'll just see how it
Speaker 3: turns out.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Kamala he earlier. You mentioned Biden talking directly
Speaker 1: to Black voters and the aspirations and dreams you've had
Speaker 1: as a person. And I always think in these elections
Speaker 1: about connecting hopes and dreams to the practical battle on
Speaker 1: the streets of the hard work of winning votes. And
Speaker 1: we could do a whole episode about Kamala Harris, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to avoid that here because we'd go on
Speaker 1: and on, but only in the context of whether or
Speaker 1: not the Democratic Party is good at recruiting, training, and
Speaker 1: getting exposure for candidates of color, black candidates or any
Speaker 1: candidate of color. And I think one of the mysteries
Speaker 1: to me is I think the Republicans are very good
Speaker 1: structurally at messaging, recruitment, and talent development. I think some
Speaker 1: of the talents they develop have become a freak show,
Speaker 1: but that's the direction they chose to do some of
Speaker 1: their talent development. But is the Democratic Party structured in
Speaker 1: a way now where it is recruiting bright prospects and
Speaker 1: getting them the training and exposure they need to be
Speaker 1: great candidates.
Speaker 3: Assuming you're meaning African American candidates, right, listen. I think
Speaker 3: the big barrier to that is America.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: It's sort of the anti blackness that is part of
Speaker 3: our heritage as Americans. It is incredibly hard for an
Speaker 3: African American mayor in Birmingham, Alabama or Tuskegee, Alabama to
Speaker 3: go on and win that state statewide, right because of racism.
Speaker 3: Quite frankly, there have been moments I remember post Obama, Gweneifel,
Speaker 3: who I'm sure you knew, wrote a great book that
Speaker 3: really was this idea that there were going to be
Speaker 3: these other candidates in the wake of Obama that would
Speaker 3: reach heights in American politics. Kama Harris was one of them.
Speaker 3: I think check mark the prediction there was a good one.
Speaker 3: But a lot of those folks in that book just
Speaker 3: couldn't break through, right, breakthrough from going to Congress to
Speaker 3: the House to the Senate, for instance, from a mayoral
Speaker 3: position to a higher position. So I don't even know
Speaker 3: that it's the Democratic Party's fault. I think the Democratic
Speaker 3: Party is faced with the reality that it's just hard
Speaker 3: to break through these kind of barriers that limit black
Speaker 3: aspiration in other areas. Do the same thing in the
Speaker 3: political arena, you know. Now you think about the mayor
Speaker 3: or the governor, I should say, of Maryland, Wes Moore,
Speaker 3: can he go anywhere? Right beyond that? Is there a
Speaker 3: next Obama? For instance? I think that's sort of at
Speaker 3: the root of it, right Who is the next Obama?
Speaker 3: I wrote a story years ago when I was at
Speaker 3: the Washington Post, and the title is something like, who
Speaker 3: is the next Obama? Nobody because of just the cynicism
Speaker 3: I think around, how do you get a black candidate
Speaker 3: who's able to be as gifted as somebody as Obama was,
Speaker 3: who can resonate with white voters and black voters and
Speaker 3: Latino voters listen. I would amend that now, and I
Speaker 3: would say I think one of the most gifted black
Speaker 3: politicians on the scene now is Raphael Warnock in Georgia,
Speaker 3: the Senator of Georgia, who's able to do this amazing
Speaker 3: thing which has become Senator of Georgia over and over again.
Speaker 3: And so I think he has this real great combination
Speaker 3: of just being able to relate to regular folks of
Speaker 3: all stripes in Georgia and then the sort.
Speaker 2: Of power of his oration.
Speaker 3: He obviously has a background in divinity and preaching.
Speaker 1: So we'll see in watching this election, this election cycle
Speaker 1: this year, what are you learning that you didn't know before?
Speaker 1: What has the big aha ben for you?
Speaker 2: Thus far?
Speaker 3: I am constantly amazed at how engaged voters are. I mean,
Speaker 3: in some ways this sounds like a cliche, but I
Speaker 3: think voters are catching all on to the stakes, right,
Speaker 3: And I think part of that was what they saw
Speaker 3: in twenty sixteen, right. And so you see this sort
Speaker 3: of level of engagement with the candidates with policy in
Speaker 3: a way that I think always surprises me. And talking
Speaker 3: to voters. I did listen to a focus group of
Speaker 3: Trump to Biden voters and they had been paying attention
Speaker 3: not only to the sort of gaffes of Donald Trump
Speaker 3: or Joe Biden, but you know, kind of policy issues, right,
Speaker 3: And so I think it's partly because people saw what
Speaker 3: happened with Donald Trump. People saw what that meant for
Speaker 3: foreign policy, for the Supreme Court, for any number of
Speaker 3: policy issues, and so now they're engaged in a way
Speaker 3: that they weren't before. I think the Georgia elections also
Speaker 3: showed that. And so you know, when I hear people say, oh,
Speaker 3: voters might stay home and they're not going to be enthused,
Speaker 3: I tend to think they will be. Given the past
Speaker 3: couple of elections that we've seen the past few cycles
Speaker 3: post to twenty sixteen, you do see I think a
Speaker 3: level of engagement and if not enthusiasm, but at least
Speaker 3: a recognition that every vote counts, because we've seen many
Speaker 3: elections where it's come down to the very very margins,
Speaker 3: and I think twenty twenty four is going to be
Speaker 3: the exact same way.
Speaker 1: We're out of time. Nia, thank you for joining me today.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Tim, This was great.
Speaker 1: Nia. Malika Henderson is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. You
Speaker 1: can find her columns on the Bloomberg Opinion website and
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Terminal. You can also find her on Twitter
Speaker 1: at Nia Malika h Here at crash Course, we believe
Speaker 1: that collisions can be messy, impressive, challenging, surprising, and always instructive.
Speaker 1: In today's crash Course, I learned that there might be
Speaker 1: more hope for black turnout in the twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: election than I previously believe. But I'm also a cynic,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to adopt a weight and see attitude.
Speaker 1: What did you learn? We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can tweet at the Bloomberg Opinion handle at Opinion
Speaker 1: or me at Tim O'Brien using the hashtag Bloomberg Crash Course.
Speaker 1: You can also subscribe to our show wherever you're listening
Speaker 1: right now and leave us a review. It helps more
Speaker 1: people find the show. This episode was produced by the
Speaker 1: indispensable and highly motivated Ana Mazarakis and me. Our supervising
Speaker 1: producer is Magnus Hendrickson, and we had editing help from Sagebauman,
Speaker 1: Jeff Grocott, Mike Nizza, and Christine Benden. Bilard Blake Maples
Speaker 1: is our sound engineering and our original theme song was
Speaker 1: composed by Luis Gara. I'm Tim O'Brien. We'll be back
Speaker 1: next week with another crash course.