No matter how the election ultimately shakes out, Democrats have reason to be worried about the dramatic erosion of support among minority voters. Defying most expectations, early data shows that President Trump not only suffered no great backlash from non-whites, but actually earned more of their votes this time around. Indeed, it seems he won more minority votes than any Republican in 60 years.
According to exit polls, while Trump’s white male support dipped by five percent, it rose among women and minorities of both sexes. 17% of black men broke for Trump, as opposed to 13% in 2016. His support among black women doubled from 4% to 8%. Latino men and women both rose by 3%. This dynamic is the opposite of what you’d expect from one of the most racist presidents in history, as Biden and the rest of the Democrat Party have dubbed him.
So why is it happening? Different theories are being bandied about on the Left, though none of them seem to be grounded in any sort of honest self-reflection. We are being told that people of color must hate themselves if they vote for Trump. Other leftist analysts have suggested that “toxic masculinity” among black men might be to blame. These answers strike me as, for one thing, tremendously racist. Also, they miss the mark by a thousand miles.
Here are several alternative theories. A combination of some or all of these, I suspect, may explain why “the most racist president” did better with minority voters than any candidate in his party for the past half century:
1. Nobody likes to feel taken for granted.
When Biden infamously shouted that “you ain’t black” if you don’t vote Democrat, he was only verbalizing the attitude that has been quite apparent for many years. Democrats believe that they are owed the votes of every racial and ethnic minority in the country. A board member for Latinos for Trump told NBC News precisely this. He credited Trump for showing up, campaigning, listening, and not taking his community’s vote for granted. Democrats may campaign for minority votes, but they do so with the assumption that those votes are coming to them, and should come to them, regardless.
2. Nobody likes to be patronized.
Trump campaigned for the votes of these communities, but he also spoke to them and treated them the same as he treats everyone else. Love Trump or hate him, he doesn’t pander or patronize. The media will often accuse him of sexism when he gets into a heated back and forth with a female reporter, but he has those kinds of exchanges with reporters of any and all types. If you insult him, he’ll insult you. If you compliment him, he’ll compliment you. Say what you will about that approach, it’s not nearly as degrading as Hillary Clinton changing her inflection when speaking at black churches, or Joe Biden presenting a separate “plan” for every possible category and sub-category of Americans, as if we don’t all want the same things fundamentally. Democrats will tend to break people into groups, segregate them by type, and speak to them differently, according to their category. Trump doesn’t do that. Or at least, doesn’t do it nearly as much.
3. Black people are not the same as Black Lives Matter.
This is the most important point. Ever since the inception of the Black Lives Matter, Democrats have thrown the “racism” charge at anyone who criticized it. In their minds, there is no meaningful distinction between BLM and the demographic group it purports to represent. But of course there is quite a stark distinction. BLM is a radical political organization with professed goals that include “disrupting the nuclear family,” pushing “trans rights,” and combatting so-called “heteronormative thinking.” These are not the priorities or concerns of average black families, any more than they are the priorities or concerns of average white families. The decision by Democrats to treat racial minorities as if they are all far-left political activists has proven to be catastrophically misguided.
Overall, the Democrat Party has charged headlong into the far-left and set up shop on its fringes. Its rhetoric now appeals mostly to a coalition of media pundits, college professors, white girls with unnaturally colored hair, and BLM rioters. President Trump’s political rhetoric and policy positions, by contrast, are decidedly not radical (even when I’d like them to be), despite how the situation is portrayed by the media. Biden may still win the election, but he will not get the landslide that Democrats predicted, the anti-Trump repudiation they wanted, or the overwhelming mandate from voters that they needed. And this is why.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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