Biden Ain’t Black
Controversy erupted when the white Democrat nominee demanded black fealty.
Presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden just reminded us all why his candidacy so terrifies his party’s poobahs. “I tell you,” said Biden Friday to Charlamagne tha God, cohost of a nationally syndicated radio show called “The Breakfast Club,” “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”
Biden’s comment, which came at the end of the interview, was dripping with condescension and paternalism, and it clearly stunned both his host and his audience, which seemed to make it clear that their votes aren’t necessarily the property of the Democrat Party.
The post-interview fallout was swift and severe, and it came from across the media spectrum — except for CNN, which, of course, tried mightily to pretend it never happened.
“I’d say I’m surprised,” asserted South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who happens to be black, “but it’s sadly par for the course for Democrats to take the black community for granted and brow beat those that don’t agree.” Conservative commentator and Blexit co-founder Candace Owens put Biden’s sentiment more succinctly: “If you don’t do the bidding for wealthy white Democrats ‘YOU AIN’T BLACK.’”
Of course, this wasn’t the first time Biden has stepped in it with a black audience. During Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, he let the race-baiting mask slip before a gathering that included many African Americans at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville, Virginia. “They’re gonna put y'all back in chains!” he thundered, referring to those two notorious “white supremacists,” Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. And that’s just one example.
Biden’s blunder lays bare an issue that blacks have begun to recognize in ever greater numbers: The Democrat Party takes them and their votes for granted. Our Willie Richardson wrote about this in February, while noting some of the concrete steps the Trump administration has taken to help the black community — such as criminal-justice reform, funding for historically black colleges and universities, and job-creating opportunity zones.
Is the Democrats’ four-year act finally wearing thin with black Americans? If recent polling is any indication, maybe so. And this possibility terrifies the Left. Why? Because if blacks do decide that it’s time to reexamine their allegiance and look more closely at the Republican Party — if Trump can move the needle on the black vote even from, say, 8% (his share of the black vote in 2016) to 16% — Democrats will have a hard time in swing states such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. And they’ll have an even harder time retaking the White House.
We’ll find out in November.
Just for fun, comedian Steve Martin explains: