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