Commentary

I have a routine of setting aside single-subject material in an effort to provide you with the broadest view of a subject when I decide to comment on that topic.

BEFORE I BEGIN with that topic, the news that the Washington Post leftist columnist David Ignatius has opined in the Post that “I don’t think Biden and Vice President Harris should run for reelection,” is stunning.  And the fact that he appeared on the leftist MSNBC Morning Joe show to make his stand, even more incredible.

Although David Ignatius is no Walter Cronkite, I am reminded of Lyndon Johnson announcing his intention not to seek reelection just weeks after stating “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”

Now to the two recent headlines triggering this commentary on the minority vote in 2024: “Democrats are Winning White Voters, but Losing Others,” in Ben Domenech’s Transom online, and “Getting black people not to vote for Biden,” from Don Surber’s Substack piece.

President Biden has to know that minorities are souring on him.  He continues to put his arms around blacks when he’s making one of those union appearances.

I recently wrote about his MLK Day meeting, during which civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton was given preferential seating over Martin Luther King III and his wife.

Did you notice that Biden created a national monument for Emmett Till and his mother, the activist Mamie Till-Mobley to memorialize the black teen who was lynched in 1955? This monument will be placed not in a single location, but in three locations significant to the Till family, the Chicago church where the teen’s funeral was held, the Sumner, Mississippi, where his killers were tried and acquitted, and the site near Glendora, Mississippi, where it is believed his body was found.

Biden is underperforming among nonwhite voters according to the New York Times/Siena College poll, and still leads Donald Trump among registered nonwhite voters, but a chart produced by the Roper Center reveals a downward trend in nonwhite voters since 2012.

Regular readers will recall my journalistic admiration for Salena Zito, a true grassroots reporter, who writes for the New York Post and Washington Examiner.  In Surber’s report, he quoted Zito, who had just completed one of her neighborhood walks in Duquesne, a suburb of Pittsburg: “Democrats beware: These black voters are fed up, and looking for a political home.”

Local resident Ardell Martin told her the Democrat Party “has taken black voters for granted for too long and no longer represents middle-class black people.”  While she is unhappy with Biden, she has no interest in Trump.

Winifred Washington told Zito she “voted for Mr. Biden,” but is she happy about it? “No,” she said, “It’s just sad, he’s too old and is out of touch.”

Suber notes that Biden is the choice of 52 percent of black Democrat voters, down from the 82 percent when he took office, and writes that the 27 percent for Trump is delusional.  Yet that would suit Trump, who won just 12 percent in 2020.

While the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week that 267,000 of 300,000 who lost their jobs in recent months were blacks, it confirms that widespread layoffs in technology and the service industries have hit blacks harder.  With that, Surber reminds that black unemployment was at its lowest in Trump’s first year.

Black Wall Street Journal columnist Jason L. Riley, in his column, “Liberals Can’t Comprehend Black Economic Progress,” looks back on President Trump’s watch pre-pandemic, when black and Hispanic poverty rates dipped to record lows, and black wages rose at a faster rate than white wages.

Unfortunately, Riley writes that “the story got little attention in the mainstream media, because the media was focused on taking down the president at the time.” If Trump is the GOP nominee in 2024, don’t expect the media to remind minorities what the did for them during his time in office.

As for Hispanics/Latinos

Two of the three columns I saved, forecasting how Hispanics are looking at 2024, were seemingly positive toward chances for GOP, however, the sources are highly suspect.

In Gabriel R. Sanchez’s commentary for the leftist Brookings Institute, he headlined his piece with, “Will Latino voters lead the GOP to victory in 2024?” however, he began with “it is likely that President Biden will garner a similar share of Latino voters as in 2022, thus helping him win another term of office?” I wondered why I should consider reading further.  I did.

But when I read that “Latinos overall, and particularly Latino voters under 30 are highly supportive of the progressive policy agenda that the Biden administration will embrace in 2024,” citing their having “a very clear majority view on tax policy, health care, abortion, gun safety, climate change and immigration,” the Brookings smell was too much.

The headline, “Latino Voters Who Sat Out Midterms Provide Opportunity for GOP in 2024,” over Amy Walter’s piece in the left-leaning Cook Political Report, gave me some hope for positive news.

After wading through the findings of a study by the progressive organization Equis, in which they painted a positive picture for the Democrats in battleground states, they reported a concern over Latino drop-off voters (those who voted in 2020, but not in 2018 or 2022), who are “much more open to supporting Republicans in 2024.”

It also reported that if Trump is the nominee, he will perform “significantly better” with Latinos in the swing states than he did in 2020. 

In the Equis survey, Republicans have a 13-point advantage on the issue of dealing with inflation and cost of living issues.

And finally, the headline, “The Hispanic vote is a growing opportunity for the GOP in 2024,” in Vox Media got my attention.

It reports “loyalty to Democrats waning” while noting the Axios-Ipsos poll that the Hispanic community is “taking a step back in their support for Democrats.”

Republicans will have to run a campaign that targets the Latino vote, it notes, because 32 percent of the 34 million Hispanics above to vote believe that neither Democrats nor Republicans care about Latinos.

While it is said that Latinos disapprove of the Biden administration’s open-door policy at our southern border, showing no concern for Latinos who have been awaiting legal citizenship, while millions freely disappear across the country, I have yet to read anything to lead me to believe it will be a major issue in 2024.

May God continue to bless the United States of America.