Part One:
SURPRISING RESULTS FROM SURVEY OF YOUNG BLACK VOTERS
We speak with Sam Fulwood III, Faculty Fellow at the Center for Congressional & Presidential Studies (CCPS) at American University. CCPS recently published a survey of Black voters in six “battleground” swing states, with an emphasis on younger Black voters who could be a key demographic in the 2020 elections. The results should be a wake-up call to the Democratic Party.
African-American voters are often taken for granted. The assumption (by all observers) is that they will vote for the Democratic candidate no matter what, because the Republican candidate is almost always a lot worse. This may be true for older Black voters – older than 60 – 80% of whom said they would vote for Biden and feel comfortable with the Democratic Party.
But the new generation of Black voters – those under 30 years of age – are skeptical of all elected officials, even Democrats, and don’t trust the political system in general. A shocking 21% of the young Black voters in the survey said they did not plan to vote at all in November. Fewer than half (47%) said they plan to vote for Biden. 7% plan to vote for Trump. Another 12% said they would vote for someone else, and 12% weren’t sure.
The message from young African-American voters seems to be: “We may lean one way politically, but don’t take our vote for granted, or expect us to support you or your party if all we get is lip service and no real change to the status quo.”
Young African-Americans want a candidate who will stand up and say “you folks are an important part of the movement I want to build. Your issues are important to me, a central part of my campaign, and I will advocate for them vigorously.”
Interestingly, this is just what Trump does for the 30% of the country that form his core constituency. Young Black voters are looking for a candidate and a party that will stand up for them, strongly and consistently – including follow-through once the election is over.
Part Two:
THE REPUBLICAN “SHORT ROPE” APPROACH TO GOVERNING
We speak with Harold Meyerson, Editor-at-Large at The American Prospect. He describes the way Republicans view governing as the “short rope” approach. A person is drowning in the ocean, 50 feet away. The Republicans would throw him a rope that is 30 feet long and say: “We went more than half way.”
The Republicans have, for at least 100 years, taken the position that government should not interfere in the free market. Even if ordinary people are vulnerable and need help, government should not regulate corporations or limit financial transactions because businesses’ profits must be protected at all costs. As classical economist Adam Smith wrote in “The Wealth of Nations” in 1776, the “invisible hand” of the free market will make such an approach achieve the best results for everyone. Or, as some people put it nowadays: “A rising tide will lift all boats”; wealth will “trickle down” from the top 1% and eventually reach all of us at the bottom.
We also discussed workplace safety during the COVID-19 pandemic. Who should decide when it’s safe to return to work. Meyerson points to the work of Lichtenstein and other economists, concluding that it is the workers who should make such safety decisions as their very lives are at stake. Although labor unions are nowhere near as powerful as they used to be, there are some (teachers unions, for example) that may have a real impact on whether it is safe to reopen schools next month.
Other alternative methods – such as “workers’ councils” – are possible too. In Germany and other countries, both management and workers have been participating in cooperative joint workplace management systems that have been quite successful.
