Over time, Donald Trump has moved the Republican Party from the upper crust of effete country-club exclusivism toward a more diverse and inclusive (!) blue-collar, working-class, salt-of-the-earth populism. Quite a shift away from the classical interests of the Bushes, James Bakers, Koch Brothers, George Wills, and the Bane Capitals of the Mitt Romneys. Concomitantly, farmers in Middle America have moved toward the GOP, as have union rank-and-file. Understand that politics is an almost-zero-sum game. For example, when a Democrat Party caters whole-hog to urban Black constituencies, then White rural voters realize they are abandoned, so move where they are appreciated. Put all your focus on New York and California, and you just may lose historic bonds in West Virginia, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Dixie.
When almost every Democrat DEI appointment is a specific “Two-Fer”— both Black and female, to click off two critical virtue-signaling boxes — the DEI assembly line of Karine Jean-Pierre, Kamala Harris, Ketanji Jackson, Linda Greenfield — not to mention Claudine Gay — may solidify the Black woman vote. But how are Black men impacted — and, yes, they are figuring it out — when they begin to realize that Democrats’ talk of “equality” does not apply to them because they check off only one box — color but not gender? The Democrats’ approach is that Black men can have their very own place in the NFL and the NBA, and share some entertainment glamour with the women. But that’s it. Sure, dutiful honor is paid to men like Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, and Al Sharpton because they deliver patronage and votes. But it’s all smoke and mirrors. Black men have been destroyed by Democrat progressivism. Put yourself in their shoes: Really, do they see their interests reflected in “The Squad”?
A close analysis of Democrats “caring for minorities” these past 60 years, since Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society,” reflects that Democrats have shunted aside the Black male in his family, in his household, as a father, as a son, as a breadwinner, as a person of social consequence or meaning. Bill Clinton offered Black young males “Midnight Basketball.” Remember? That’s the ticket? My boy at midnight, instead, was studying for the next day’s math or history exam — or both — with my encouragement (and gentle inducing). The Democrats’ “boys of entitlements” end up in prison because they are left without the paternal on-site parenting and role-modeling for success. The liberal government is more criminal than they. They need fathers at home for dinner, not basketball at midnight.
The Democrats neutralized the fathers by social welfare programs that pay “entitlements” as long as household income is not “too high.” Therefore, husbands came to realize that working as truck drivers or check-out clerks at minimum wage brought in just enough salary to lose the household’s “entitlements.” Accordingly, there seemed “no point” in working to bring in household revenue that merely nullified the “entitlement” threshold. Voluntarily unemployed husbands and fathers became alienated and were thrashed with lost respect and shattered self-respect within the family unit, so often drifted off. Their sons consequently grew up without the role model of an on-site father, a man who wakes up each morning at 6 or 7, gets dressed properly for work, perhaps recites some prayers, grabs a quick breakfast and cup of coffee, kisses the kids and wife goodbye, and is gone the next 10 or so hours working to support everyone. He comes home beat, and the kids pick up that Dad is OK with his job but not exactly fulfilled; yet, Dad’s fulfillment is that, as a man, he supports his children and proudly lays the groundwork for them to exceed his own life achievements. And then he is up at 6 or 7 the next day, and back to work.
It is as old as King David, after being told by the Prophet Nathan that it will not be David but his future son whom G-d has designated to build the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Apprised that the not-yet-born Solomon will exceed him in that regard, David does what a father — a man — does: he lays the groundwork for his son’s future success. He gathers all the supplies of gold, silver, brass, cedar wood, workers, and more that will be needed to erect that Beit HaMikdash, the House of G-d. His future son will need only to assemble the pieces (Divrei HaYomim Aleph / I Chronicles 22:14-17).
Boys need that role-modeling because their turn on the generational line will be called 10–15 years later. Will they understand and be prepared to assume their place in society, or will they have been abandoned to drift aimlesly, too? Boys who are denied the on-site, two-parent family role model often end up drifting into instant gratification, not buckling down for college prep or vocational guidance and training but instead getting themselves caught up with the wrong crowd and soon added to the incarceration statistics. Not all juveniles stained for life with criminal records are innocent. And sociologists studying the root causes will not get them what they have lost. History and math exams are better than midnight basketball and handouts — er, “entitlements.”
It’s all zero sum. By trying to buy off one demographic, the Democrats often ruin that entire group while also driving another body of people away. Politics is almost zero sum. If you curry too much with one demographic, you alienate another. An excessive one-way focus on advancing Black women sees Black men left behind. This is so obvious that the only reason no one says it out loud is that — well, society will shun those who say it. You just can’t say it.
“Oh, Ketanji Jackson? What a great choice! The finest legal mind in America. The next Oliver Wendell Holmes.” “What, Karine Jean-Pierre? So perfect for the role. Puts Dana Perino, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Jen Psaki, Kayleigh McEnany, Jay Carney, and Ari Fleischer to shame.” “Kamala Harris? She is such manifest presidential material that she does not need to compete for primary votes. She is the primary. Why hold press conferences when her mind is on other things?” “Claudine Gay? Finally, someone leading Harvard worthy of the role.”
Yet, in between the script forbidden to speak, Obama himself began to hint at the matter, the challenge of the absentee American Black father. Louis Farrakhan called for a “Million Man March.” Why specifically “M[e]n”? Because — well, why do you think? The Democrats have destroyed two generations of Black males … so far.
(Take it from a Jew. The secret to our success is not innate “smarts.” Look at how unbelievably stupid half the Jewish voters are. (By the way, the liberal-conservative Jewish divide is closer to 50–50, not 75–25. Look at the actual voting results in Jewish districts this November. The “polls” of “Jews” are bogus. They do not know how to poll Jews because they rely on inaccurate self-definitions, use incredibly small samples, have never focused on scientifically fine-tuning how to predict such a small demographic with accuracy, and such polls inevitably are conducted by left-wing unreliable interest groups like the “Jewish Democratic Council of America.” Waddya expect from them?) The secret to our success is simple: anti-Semitism! It is a gift — albeit really annoying like circumcision. Look at the voting forms and listen to the utility companies’ telephone language choices: a million languages, languages that no one speaks, but not Hebrew or Yiddish. No bilingual for us, so we had to learn English. They kept us out at Ellis Island unless we could prove we had a job or family covering our costs, so no “entitlements” — meaning we had to work. People wouldn’t employ us, so we had to create our own industries. Law firms would not hire us, so we had to start our own better law firms. We had no government safety net, so we became better acrobats and walked tightropes.
(That is our secret — not “smarts” but, as we see with Israel, no choice. You can’t wait for America; you have to create your own Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow II. The Ivy Leagues kept out all Jewish students except the very smartest — so we all had to become the very smartest. But not everyone could get in, so a generation of hard-studying geniuses ended up in Brooklyn College, City College, and the rest of CUNY. As a result, instead of the City University making us great, we ended up making them great. Now that we have moved on, compare the CUNY of the 1950s to today’s embarrassment. That’s the secret. Not “entitlements.”)
Politics is zero sum. In double-clicking DEI and “affirmative action” boxes for years, favoring Black women, the liberals and progressives have disdained and abandoned Black men. Also Latino and other Hispanic Americans of both genders. They all became afterthoughts. In the face of DEI, social justice, and equity — sounds nice, huh? — Asian Americans literally had to fight their way into the Supreme Court to get fair access to Harvard because great grades and academic achievement no longer were the ticket.
In reality, all things being equal, these abandoned groups should have jumped over to the GOP years ago. Black men, Hispanic families, and Asians do not fit in the Democrats’ pockets or mold. There is only one way to make sense of what has kept them in political dissonance for so long until Trump arrived to beckon them into the GOP. Consider: If you were a Black man, or Hispanic or Asian of either gender, would Mitt Romney and Bane Capital be the lure to motivate you to change teams?
Even so, the Democrats don’t want them anyway after the quadrennial election. It has taken Trump to say: “Well, come on over. What do you have to lose?”
As Democats race to advocate for kids to get sex-change operations over parents’ objections, traditional blue-collar working families take their cue. All kinds: White and Hispanic working-class families, Black men, married women with children. As Democrats support eighth-month and ninth-month abortion, traditional Catholic ethnic voters get the memo, too. Even Hispanics. Again, politics is zero sum. When you pander to an untouched constituency (like illegal immigrants), another realizes it has been abandoned and disenfranchised (like the people into whose communities those illegals have been dumped). They are people with feelings, too; they don’t need sports agents to switch teams. When Kamala Harris panders to discrete interests by sending hundreds of millions of dollars for illegals to have housing and free Medicare, and by pumping the Gazan–Hamas economy and the Lebanese–Hezbollah economy with nearly $200 million more, North Carolina citizens, buried under the worst hurricane imaginable, grasp that they are “so yesterday,” not part of the progressives’ brave new world.
By now, many historic loyalties have changed. Republicans are preferred by ethnic Catholic Midwestern Rust Belt union workers, and other abandoned constituencies: “fly-over” farm country, the deep South. Politics is almost zero sum. People who are abandoned as part of a progressive vote-getting strategy do not only cling to their guns and religion. Many also cling to their self-respect and their ballots.
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