At the Washington Post a few days ago, reporter Aaron Blake noted that: "Black voters are hugely influential on the 2014 map. Six of the 16 states with the highest black populations are holding key Senate contests in 2014."
Black voters are the only consistent and reliable block in the Democrats' coalition. Single women have fallen out of love with Barack Obama, though Democrats will amp up the "War on Women" nonsense for the fall. Hispanic voters are showing disengagement with the Democrats as well. For that matter, so are black voters, but there is a difference.
Single women and Hispanic voters might increase their vote for Republicans in 2014. Black voters will not. Instead, if they are disaffected or disengaged, they will stay home. Democrat chances in close races in 2014 require a high black turnout.
In other words, Democrats have every incentive to demagogue, abuse and fear-monger race relations in the United States in the run up to November's election.
This is why Washington Post liberal columnist Dana Milbank went on Al Sharpton's television program and, with a straight face, said Republicans had been harder on Attorney General Eric Holder than Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. He is black, and she is white. Therefore, it is all about racism from the party of Lincoln.
It is also why Eric Holder would go to a conference held by Al Sharpton and suggest he had been treated worse by Congress than any other Attorney General in history. He is black and the Republicans hate him for it.
Over the past few months, Democrats and their friends in the media have trotted out and will keep trotting out stories designed to convince black voters that the Republicans are out to get them. Just last week the left-wing site Think Progress claimed that air pollution is actually a race issue. Apparently, clean air engages in white flight leaving dirty air in minority neighborhoods.
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Keeping up the "War on Women" front, this same group also claims parents give boys bigger allowances while making girls do more chores. Parents are, naturally, at war with their daughters and sexist to boot.
The Democrats will next claim that a repeal of Obamacare is really an attack on single black mothers and their children. Racist Republicans, they will claim, hate Obamacare because they hate the President and black mothers.
New York Magazine columnist Jonathan Chait recently wrote that, "America's unique brand of ideological anti-statism is historically inseparable ... from the legacy of slavery." Republicans supporting smaller government are racist because of it.
Once Democrats have had their fun with these claims, they will insist Republicans intend to impeach Barack Obama if the GOP takes back the Senate. If black voters do not stand by their man, the racist Republicans will throw him out of office.
Democrats have a vested interest in keeping the United States divided along racial lines. Black voters are their never-fail source of votes. Unfortunately for the Democrats, in 2010, despite pleas from the President himself, black voters did not turn out in large numbers. Democrats know this. They know black voting strength falls in off-year elections. They know some races in 2014 could be close.
Democrats must provide black voters a reason to turn out against Republicans beyond what has been tried before. Black voters may be less enchanted with Barack Obama than in past years, yet still overwhelmingly supporting him, but they need to fear what Republicans might do.
Despite calls for national conversations on race, despite expressing a desire to heal old wounds, Democrats benefit from a nation racially divided. They can play "us vs. them" between rich and poor, between men and women, between young and old, between singles and married couples, and most especially between black and white Americans.
Screaming racism and agitating black voters as never before will be the key to the Democrats mitigating their 2014 losses. They are playing for keeps, and the stakes are high.
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