Why Black Voters Support Hillary Clinton

[CalvinballPro]

https://medium.com/marcushjohnson/why-black-voters-support-hillary-clinton-afcf7e6ff5bb#.n41ih48pi

The Clintons Built Relationships with Black Voters When It Wasn’t Popular To Do So
We should always remember the context of the time. As we talked about earlier, Republicans won five out of the next six Presidential elections after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Being associated with Black people was not popular politically at the time, in fact, Republicans had rode anti-Black sentiment to rousing success over the past several decades. Democratic Presidential candidates in 1984 and 1988 largely ignored Black voters and went for the white working class vote (it didn’t work out so well). The Clintons were in that political environment, and they still decided to build relationships with Black voters. The Clintons reached out to Black voters in ways that Presidential candidates simply hadn’t done before. President Clinton appointed the most diverse Cabinet in US history when it wasn’t popular to do so. Bill Clinton appointed seven Black Cabinet Secretaries. He appointed more Black people to federal judgeships than were appointed all of 16 years prior to his taking office. In fact, 14 percent of all Clinton appointees were Black — a number that was twice as high as any administration prior. Bill Clinton put Black people in positions of power when it hadn’t been done before, and when it wasn’t very popular with the white working class.

Hillary Clinton, in particular, took a strong policy stance in the Clinton Administration. Unlike almost every First Lady before her, she was dedicated to having a policy role and meaningfully supporting the legislative agenda. She played a significant part in most of the administration’s successes, and her effectiveness led to her being elected Senator and eventually serving as Secretary of State under President Obama.

Black voters aren’t stupid, they remember the Clintons fondly for a reason. The Clintons had near universal support from Black voters at the end of Bill Clinton’s Presidency, largely because their policies worked well.

I anticipate that a lot of DUers will reply without reading, because they think they already know the reasons why. Their loss. This article explains, in great detail, the kind of genuine progress that black Americans experienced during the Clinton Administration. Argumentatively, it cannot all be washed away by yelling "super-predator" over and over, although I suspect there will still be a few individuals too invested in that argument to abandon it. In fact, this article includes a nice bit of honest context about the 1994 Crime Bill:

Nobody’s hands are clean here — Joe Biden wrote the bill, the Clintons pushed it, and Bernie Sanders voted yes and bragged about being “tough on crime” for the next decade. Still, the bill only applied to the 10 percent of US prisoners in the federal system — the other 90 percent are held in state prison systems where the bill had no effect.

Honest outreach, consistent support, and concrete results. That's why many black voters have supported the Clintons in the past and why many are still solidly behind Hillary Clinton in this election.

The Clintons brought good economic times and a real increase in jobs and income for Black people. They fought against the NRA and won. The dramatic increase of the EITC program redistributed wealth to the working class. They built relationships with Black voters and put Black people in positions of power when it wasn’t popular to do so. All of those things are very progressive. Those are real achievements that positively impacted Black people. Black people remember the 1990s fondly for a reason.

[Cheese Sandwich]

1. This title should be why 3 out of 4 black voters prefer Clinton

Because you've got a whole lot of people in that other 1 out of 4. I'm sick of headlines and news stories being framed to make it seem like the two Democratic campaigns are racially segregated. Blaring headlines like Why Black People Support Clinton are exactly what I mean. It erases millions of people who do prefer Sanders, who do trust him more, who are sick of establishment politics. It's annoying to say the least.

[EndElectoral]

2. Obviously, you've not read The Nation article on Clinton's record for AA's.

http://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peoples-votes/

Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote
From the crime bill to welfare reform, policies Bill Clinton enacted—and Hillary Clinton supported—decimated black America.
By Michelle Alexander

 What have the Clintons done to earn such devotion? Did they take extreme political risks to defend the rights of African Americans? Did they courageously stand up to right-wing demagoguery about black communities? Did they help usher in a new era of hope and prosperity for neighborhoods devastated by deindustrialization, globalization, and the disappearance of work?

No. Quite the opposite.

* * *

When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, urban black communities across America were suffering from economic collapse. Hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs had vanished as factories moved overseas in search of cheaper labor, a new plantation. Globalization and deindustrialization affected workers of all colors but hit African Americans particularly hard. Unemployment rates among young black men had quadrupled as the rate of industrial employment plummeted. Crime rates spiked in inner-city communities that had been dependent on factory jobs, while hopelessness, despair, and crack addiction swept neighborhoods that had once been solidly working-class. Millions of black folks—many of whom had fled Jim Crow segregation in the South with the hope of obtaining decent work in Northern factories—were suddenly trapped in racially segregated, jobless ghettos.

On the campaign trail, Bill Clinton made the economy his top priority and argued persuasively that conservatives were using race to divide the nation and divert attention from the failed economy. In practice, however, he capitulated entirely to the right-wing backlash against the civil-rights movement and embraced former president Ronald Reagan’s agenda on race, crime, welfare, and taxes—ultimately doing more harm to black communities than Reagan ever did.

We should have seen it coming. Back then, Clinton was the standard-bearer for the New Democrats, a group that firmly believed the only way to win back the millions of white voters in the South who had defected to the Republican Party was to adopt the right-wing narrative that black communities ought to be disciplined with harsh punishment rather than coddled with welfare. Reagan had won the presidency by dog-whistling to poor and working-class whites with coded racial appeals: railing against “welfare queens” and criminal “predators” and condemning “big government.” Clinton aimed to win them back, vowing that he would never permit any Republican to be perceived as tougher on crime than he.

Just weeks before the critical New Hampshire primary, Clinton proved his toughness by flying back to Arkansas to oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a mentally impaired black man who had so little conception of what was about to happen to him that he asked for the dessert from his last meal to be saved for him for later. After the execution, Clinton remarked, “I can be nicked a lot, but no one can say I’m soft on crime.”

[CalvinballPro]

3. Long on hyperbole, short on facts. Alexander doesn't exactly cite a lot of numbers to back her claim

up, does she?

ultimately doing more harm to black communities than Reagan ever did.

Such as.......? Anything, Michelle? Anything at all to back up such a loaded claim? *crickets* Not even a chart or graph showing any metrics? *more crickets*

Unemployment rates among young black men had quadrupled as the rate of industrial employment plummeted.

My article cites how black unemployment fell under Bill Clinton.

It doesn't surprise me that you would reply without actually reading it, and then offer up Michelle Alexander's empty rhetoric as a response.

Edit: This post has been updated to correct the author's name.

[m-lekktor]

4. it's Michelle Alexander, not Goldberg

and she is the author of the book "The New Jim Crow".

[EndElectoral]

5. Thanks, beat me to it. btw..there's a few more facts cited if you actually read the article.

http://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peoples-votes/



An oft-repeated myth about the Clinton administration is that although it was overly tough on crime back in the 1990s, at least its policies were good for the economy and for black unemployment rates. The truth is more troubling. As unemployment rates sank to historically low levels for white Americans in the 1990s, the jobless rate among black men in their 20s who didn’t have a college degree rose to its highest level ever. This increase in joblessness was propelled by the skyrocketing incarceration rate.

Why is this not common knowledge? Because government statistics like poverty and unemployment rates do not include incarcerated people. As Harvard sociologist Bruce Western explains: “Much of the optimism about declines in racial inequality and the power of the US model of economic growth is misplaced once we account for the invisible poor, behind the walls of America’s prisons and jails.” When Clinton left office in 2001, the true jobless rate for young, non-college-educated black men (including those behind bars) was 42 percent. This figure was never reported. Instead, the media claimed that unemployment rates for African Americans had fallen to record lows, neglecting to mention that this miracle was possible only because incarceration rates were now at record highs. Young black men weren’t looking for work at high rates during the Clinton era because they were now behind bars—out of sight, out of mind, and no longer counted in poverty and unemployment statistics.

To make matters worse, the federal safety net for poor families was torn to shreds by the Clinton administration in its effort to “end welfare as we know it.” In his 1996 State of the Union address, given during his re-election campaign, Clinton declared that “the era of big government is over” and immediately sought to prove it by dismantling the federal welfare system known as Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC). The welfare-reform legislation that he signed—which Hillary Clinton ardently supported then and characterized as a success as recently as 2008—replaced the federal safety net with a block grant to the states, imposed a five-year lifetime limit on welfare assistance, added work requirements, barred undocumented immigrants from licensed professions, and slashed overall public welfare funding by $54 billion (some was later restored).

[m-lekktor]

7. yes, I read it when it first came out.

[CalvinballPro]

9. Why doesn't she actually include the "highest level ever" jobless rate? Seems sketchy...

Plus, what you quoted is just like what the other person did. A lot of jarring statements that inflame the passions, but don't offer any real evidence to back them up. the federal safety net for poor families was torn to shreds by the Clinton administration Based on action involving one program? Jeebus, the hysteria.

And again, the 1995 Crime Bill covered federal systems only, which accounted for 10% of the prison population. The other 90% were locked up by state governors, well outside the control of the Executive.

Which makes me wonder, just how much is Alexander not reporting when she grudgingly adds "some was later restored" towards the end there.

[CalvinballPro]

6. Apologies, my mind mixed up the two Michelles. nt

[m-lekktor]

8. it happens! nt

[Surya Gayatri]

10. K & R. Thanks for posting.