Thinking Citizen Blog — “Inside the Rise of the Multiracial Right” (Yale Professor Daniel Martinez HoSang, NYT)
Thinking Citizen Blog — Sunday is Political Process Reform, Campaign Strategy, and Candidate Selection Day
Today’s Topic: “Inside the Rise of the Multiracial Right” (Yale Professor Daniel Martinez HoSang, NYT)
The lead article in the Opinion Section of today’s Sunday New York Times is by a professor of American Studies and political science at Yale, Daniel Martinez HoSang. Why has Donald Trump nearly doubled his support among Black voters between 2020 and 2024? why is he getting roughly 40% of the Asian vote, and almost 50% of the Latino vote? “For decades the dominant assumption has been that people of color in the United States would find their natural political home within the Democratic party, with its commitment to racial liberalism. The nation’s growing racial and ethnic diversity seemed to ensure the left’s future.” What happened? How much greater could Democratic defections by voters of color be?
If you were running the Democratic party what would you do to stop the hemorrhaging? Which of the policies of the Democratic Party have hurt rather than helped the black community over the last 60 years? Top one? Top three?
Are you familiar with the work of black conservative economists such as Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams? How about that of the extremist Candace Owens? Should you be? Which of their arguments are valid? which not? who cares? who should?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
THE TRADITIONAL PILLARS OF THE COMMUNITIES OF COLOR HAVE ERODED
1. Churches.
2. Labor unions.
3. Community newspapers.
“AN ESTIMATED 80% OF VOTERS OF COLOR CAST THEIR BALLOTS FOR MR. OBAMA IN 2012 AS THE SHARE OF WHITE VOTERS DECLINED IN ALL 50 STATES FROOM 2000 TO 2018" — what happened?
1. “A lot of Black people heard the promises from the Democrats, and nothing was delivered.” (Orlando Owens, above, minister, activist, Milwaukee).
2. Rising homelessness. Rising crime.
3. Small business particularly hurt.
NB: “I was an Obama voter. I was fooled by his rhetoric. I grew up in San Francisco. That’s the place I love. It just turned downhill. Homelessness, and the feces, and the needles, and the drug use, and all the politicians not doing anything about it, and just throwing money. I don’t know where that money is actually going. People automatically assume people of color should be Democrats. They need to open their eyes to what’s really happening in this country.” (Allen Chin, 51).
“MY OPINION STARTED TURNING WHEN I USED TO WORK FOR 7-ELEVEN. I BECAME A FRANCHISEE, AND THAT’S WHEN I STARTED TO FEEL THERE’S SOMETHING GOING ON. IN 2014, A LAW PASSED CALLED PROPOSITION 47" (Tammy Li, 50)
1. “If people steal less than $950, you can’t really prosecute them as felons.”
2. “We got impacted almost right away.”
3. “The crime goes up: we got shoplifted left and right. When we try to call the police, a lot of times we’re told, “Well, there’s not much to do.”
NB: “It took me a while, but this time I supported Trump. We may not know that Trump can really turn everything around. We just don’t want Democrats to continue.”
Opinion | Obama Won Record Numbers of Nonwhite Voters. This Is How the Democrats Lost Them.
Walter E. Williams — Wikipedia
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to political process or campaign strategy or 2020 candidate selection or anything else for that matter.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day or change their thinking. Or to consolidate in your own memory something worth remembering that might otherwise be lost. Or to clarify or deepen your own understanding of something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.
