This is a bit of a leftover from yesterday, but it provides some good insight into why the Democrat establishment may hit the panic button over Karine Jean-Pierre’s new project. Set aside all of the nonsense hypocrisy of the Biden Conspiracy’s most prominent propagandist declaring her Independence from the party that basically made her what she is, or at least was. Having someone from inside the (White) House call to march out of the Democrat party reinforces a trend that apparently has already well begun.
Popular podcaster Charlamagne Tha God picked up on both aspects of KJP’s new project. “Nobody wants to hear from anyone who got up there and lied for the Biden administration,” Mr. Tha God remarks partway through the clip, in what may still be an understatement given Jean-Pierre’s Orwellian performance as press secretary for the last two years of that period. However, her point about loyalty to the party she served with that propaganda? Totes solid:
“I respect her being independent because I feel like if you black in this country, you shouldn’t be loyal to any party. You should only be voting your interests,” Charlamagne said. “You should only be voting for politicians who are implementing legislation and policies for your communities and your people. And if you ask me, none of these parties have done enough for us to be screaming we Republican or Democrat. So independent is the way to go.”
“We need to be willing to exercise the ability to think creatively and plan strategically,” Jean-Pierre’s press release stated. “We need to be clear-eyed and questioning rather than blindly loyal and obedient as we may have been in the past.”
“And that right there is the problem with Democrat supporters, especially black ones — just blindly loyal and obedient for no damn reason,” Charlamagne said after reading the quote.
This should send shock waves down Democrat spines everywhere. And it’s not just CTG and KJP saying this either — so is Stephen A. Smith, as the Dally Caller points out, and well before either of them. Last month, he told Chris Cuomo that Democrats have used both guilt and fear to keep black voters within the party, and that those days should be over:
“I think, for the longest time, black Americans have played the role of suckers to the Democratic Party,” Smith said. “They’ve guilted us into voting for them, making us feel as if we’re going to be ostracized, creating division within our own communities or what have you to get our vote, instead of saying to us, ‘Hey, this is what we will do for you. And it will work better than what they’re offering.’”
True enough — and not just for black voters, either. Kurt Schlicter has on more than one occasion noted that voters should treat politicians like Kleenex; you keep them around for as long as they’re useful, and then discard them as soon as they’re not. Political parties serve the same purpose, to some extent. They are not owed any loyalty beyond that for delivering actual results that address voter priorities. When that stops happening, we can discard them.
The reason that this may apply more to black voters is that this demographic is the only one that’s been nearly in lockstep with one party for any significant period. Even at the nadir of their relationship with the GOP, Latinos would still turn out for Republican candidates at the mid-30s, and are now shifting heavily toward the Right. Last November, it made news when Trump’s share of the black vote made it into double digits (13%). Democrats have kept them on the so-called ‘plantation’ just as Smith argued last month — by guilting them into that lockstep loyalty through social pressure, while scaring black voters with dire warnings that Republicans want to restore Jim Crow and “put y’all back in chains,” two claims made explicitly by the incompetent president whom Jean-Pierre served as chief propagandist.
The question will be whether KJP’s book will produce the kind of exodus from the Democrat Party that Charlamagne and Smith envision. It won’t be on the basis of book sales, certainly; Jean-Pierre’s Baghdad Bob routine will likely sour most potential readers, even Charlamagne, and her apparent desire to argue that Biden was fit for a second term will make it even less credible.
However, the premise of her argument for independence will begin a conversation on the Left and among black voters, and that’s why the Democrat establishment is coming out early and hard to remind everyone what a liar and incompetent Jean-Pierre is. They aren’t worried about book sales or even her personal influence. They are worried about losing that social pressure to remain on the plantation evaporating, and given the fragile state of the Democrat brand at the moment, they must be panicked at the thought of any significant social push to end that lockstep commitment.
If black voters leave the coalition in any significant number, it would prove disastrous for Democrats. Even if those voters don’t flip to the GOP outright, they will be much less likely to turn out and/or organize for the party, all the way down the ballot. To pander to this constituency, Democrats face a Sophie’s Choice. They could move more radically Left on issues like reparations and race-based policies and benefits, which will make them anathema to the rest of the electorate. Alternately, the party will need to move to the center and focus on effective working- and middle-class economic policies, which will make them anathema to the Marxist elites that currently drive the party.
Any direction they move, Democrats face electoral disaster — as long as they continue to obsess over identity and grievance rather than effective broad-based policies that appeal to more than 30% of the electorate. Maybe they should start here, with the latest Harvard-Harris CAPS Poll data on policy, and get to the majority positions on them. At least that approach has the benefit of novelty for Democrats.
