The electability argument is specious and fear-based

[emmaverybo]

38. Biden has been supporting civil rights for decades. He went toe to toe with George Schultz over

apartheid in South Africa. He has devoted time and energy to his strong relationships with black
leaders and communities across the nation. He does not, however, take his support among the AA electorate for granted. He knows he must earn this support.

Warren and Sanders have not, similarly, invested as much of their political careers in paying attention to civil rights, but have focused more on progressive ideas they assume appeal to a broad spectrum of black voters, but which show they are still out of step with the base, more in tune with very liberal white voters.

When the most basic social services and programs are threatened or underfunded, foreclosures are
decimating communities of color, meals on wheels for goodness sake is going under, why oh why call for trillions to be invested in canceling student debt? Not just for more needy people, but for 95 to 100 percent?

Total amnesty would help me, sure, but I would settle for an incremental interest cut or just give relief to those in need. M4All, GND? These are white progressive pet plans, pie in the sky policy proposals seeking to restructure economics and politics in one fell swoop. The black electorate as a whole is pragmatic.

Making ACA work as Obama had intended would be a better pitch to the base than all these transformative plans that are untested, re-invent the wheel, and seem to appeal to a limited demography from which these candidates get lots of enthusiasm, but which will not win us the EC.

The strategy is paying off, in an echo chamber. This fact is not lost on the majority of AA voters, whose goal is to beat Trump, not “the system.”

Harris is on much more solid ground from which to increase her support among black voters. Although I am not a fan of her debate tactic against Biden, I can appreciate her sensible approach.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/why-black-voters-will-vote-biden/592573/

The piece is actually not at all proposing that black voters will vote Biden, but more about the “rightness” of Harris’s approach and an analysis of African American voting behavior.