What's Up with Black Voters?

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Thomas Frank made a splash a decade ago with a bestseller called "What's the Matter With Kansas?" In his book Frank attempted to answer the question: why do so many Americans -- working-class Americans -- vote against their economic and social interests -- i.e., Republican?

I've been thinking about Frank a lot lately. Beginning with the Southern states on Super Tuesday and continuing through Tuesday's important New York primary, the crucial support of black voters has created a "firewall" for Hillary Clinton against the insurgent candidacy of Bernie Sanders in the Democratic race for president. Yet Sanders is far more liberal than Clinton, and has a far better record on black issues than she does.

What's going on? Why are so many black Americans voting against their own interests -- i.e., for a Democrat in Name Only?

Sanders, the liberal radical, in the race, carries white states. Clinton, the conservative incrementalist, carries those that are more ethnically diverse. In New York this week, the pattern continued (though there's strong evidence the primary was stolen by Clintonista-Cuomoite henchmen, but that's another story). According to exit polls, Hillary carried 75% of African-Americans in New York, compared to 49% of whites. Because it's uncomfortable for liberals to talk about, no one much does. But the data is clear.

There is a glaring racial divide within the Democratic Party.

This appears to be new. On November 7, 1984, posters went up in my old neighborhood, the Manhattan Valley section of upper Manhattan. They were printed by the city Democratic Party, thanking residents for voting for Walter Mondale over Ronald Reagan at the highest rate in the United States. Then as now, the area was diverse: predominantly Latino, with many blacks and, due to nascent gentrification, a growing white presence. We were all -- young white people like me, young people of color, middle-aged people of color, old people of color -- on the same page politically: as far left as allowed by law. If there'd been a Bernie Sanders on the ballot in 1984, he would have gotten 99% of Manhattan Valley.

Things have changed over the last 32 years. It's hard to tell when or how or why. Howard Dean and John Edwards (both insurgent liberals who had trouble attracting black votes) included, Democratic Party politics hasn't seen any major candidate as left or progressive as Bernie Sanders during that period (really, since George McGovern in 1972). Until now, it's been hard to clearly perceive the race gap.

Privately, many of Sanders' supporters are paraphrasing Thomas Frank: what, they wonder, is going on with black people? If the Democratic primary campaign were based on the issues and the candidates' personal histories, we'd expect blacks to be a key voting bloc for Bernie, not Hillary.

On racial justice issues, Bernie is a zillion times better than Hillary.

During the Civil Rights movement in 1963, Bernie Sanders got arrested to protest housing segregation and traveled to the March on Washington to hear Dr. Martin Luther King speak. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was an "active young Republican and, later, a Goldwater girl." Barry Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act.

Sanders has consistently championed racial equality and fought poverty and income disparity, two economic scourges that hurt blacks worse than anyone else. As First Lady, Clinton pushed her husband's 1994 crime bill, which accelerated mass incarceration of blacks. (Though she and Bill now admit it went too far, neither have proposed actually doing something to fix it, like letting those sentenced under the law out of prison.) She also backed "welfare reform," which drastically increased extreme poverty, especially among blacks. And while running for president in 2008, she was the only candidate who said she wouldn't end the crack and powder cocaine sentencing disparity. Hillary is essentially a Republican.

Since when do blacks vote Republican?

One possible answer is name recognition. Hillary Clinton has been a boldface name in politics since 1993. As recently as September, 38% of all Americans had never heard of Bernie Sanders. But that doesn't explain the race gap. Sanders was an obscure figure to whites and blacks alike.

Another is class. Influenced by Marx, Old Left Democrats like Sanders see racism, sexism and other forms of oppression as subsets of class warfare by ruling elites against the rest of us. Today's Democrats have abandoned class analysis in favor of identity politics.

So even though she's wealthy, devotees of identity politics see Hillary Clinton as a victim of oppression because she's a woman. Even though he's Jewish and middle-class, identitarians consider Bernie Sanders a privileged white male. Perhaps this is why some black voters relate to her more than the old guy.