Yesterday, Michelle Obama — the Democrats’ Break-Glass-in-Case-of-Emergency candidate — sounded off on Joe Biden.
Here’s what she said:
Those are the things that keep me up because you don’t have control over them and you wonder where are we in this, where are our hearts? What’s gonna happen in this next election? I am terrified about what could happen because our leaders matter, who we select, who speaks for us, who holds that bully pulpit. It affects us in ways that I think sometimes people take for granted.
So yesterday, Biden visited the Mother Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina. What was he doing there?
He was speaking about the evils of white supremacy and the magic of diversity, equity, and inclusion, of course.
Why?
Because it’s election time, and Biden knows the only way he’s going to win reelection is if he has heavy black turnout at the ballot box. That’s been the secret sauce to Democratic electoral victory in recent elections. In 2000, just 53.5% of black voters showed up to vote. In 2008, when Barack Obama was on the ballot, that number jumped to 60.8%, and in 2012, it spiked to a record 62%. Then, in 2016, the percentage dropped back down to 55.9%. But in 2020, when Joe Biden won, it rebounded to 58.7%. Black voters went for Biden at a 92% clip. And voters of color overall represented four in 10 of his votes.
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The black vote for Biden is going to be especially important because unlike other voters, who voted disproportionately by mail in 2020 — and who probably won’t this time — black voters were the subgroup most likely to show up and vote in person, which means their turnout may not drop as much as that of other groups.
Now, it’s back to the old playbook: racial polarization. And Biden knows how to play that game. Remember that time he said Mitt Romney — yes, that Mitt Romney — was going to put black Americans “back in chains” during the 2012 race?
So, it was time to head to a historically black church victimized by white violence and proclaim he’s going to stand up against all the evil white Americans who might vote for Donald Trump.
Statistics show that between 2001 and 2013, the percentage of whites and blacks who thought race relations were good stayed steady. Then, after Black Lives Matter appeared on the scene in 2014, those percentages plummeted. They have continued to do so.
Why? Because the more you talk about the polarization between races and the more you pretend that is the source of American conflict, the worse things get.
And our political leadership, particularly Democrats, have a heavy stock in doing just that.