204 online
 
Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 58 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing Summarizing
OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 2/26/16

Who Cares About Democratic Primary Results in South Carolina -- a State Democrats Will Lose in November?

By       (Page 1 of 1 pages)   4 comments

Dave Lindorff
Message Dave Lindorff
Become a Fan
  (89 fans)

By Dave Lindorff

In '63 Sanders was arrested protesting segregated housing, Hillary was a 'Goldwater Girl'
In '63 Sanders was arrested protesting segregated housing, Hillary was a 'Goldwater Girl'
(Image by ThisCantBeHappening!)
  Details   DMCA

I'll be the first to admit I'm no pollster or even political scientist, but when I read that Bernie Sanders is going to be crushed by Hillary Clinton in Saturday's primary in South Carolina, the state that fired the opening shots in the Civil War and that only last year took down a Confederate battle flag in front of the capitol building, I have to shake my head at the absurdity of it.

Yo! Pollsters! The reason Sanders is predicted to lose badly is because African Americans in that benighted state are telling your people that they favor Hillary Clinton by a margin variously calculated at 30-50%. Then you all put those numbers together with the fact that historically, 55% of the Democratic vote in South Carolina (where blacks represent 28 percent of the state population), are African American, and you say Bernie doesn't have a chance. Then you go on to say that is going to hurt Sanders in next week's Super Tuesday contests, which are all over the place, and on into the rest of the primaries.

But wait a minute. Why should Saturday's primary results matter? South Carolina is, along with Mississippi and Alabama, one of the most solidly Republican states in the country. It's not going to vote Democratic in November whoever wins the Democratic presidential primary.

Now if the black share of the vote in tomorrow's primary were representative of the sentiments of black voters all across the country -- urban, rural, southern, northern, eastern and western -- I could see why maybe there'd be some reason to pay attention, but that is not the case. Hardley.

What we have in South Carolina is a population of black people who have been exiled or marginalized from the state's political system since Reconstruction, or really since their ancestors were brought over in chains from Africa -- a population that despite constituting more than a quarter of the state's citizens has been living in what is effectively still an oppressive, crushing apartheid socio-political-econoomic system. That's a far cry from in the north or the far west, where concentrated African-American populations -- descendants of the great migration from the agrarian south -- have achieved plurality or even majority status in many cities, and have been able to take on, ameliorate or even overcome some of the oppressive conditions under which they and their forebears have lived. They've elected black mayors and black councilmembers, integrated police departments, and opened up hiring in municipal jobs, for example. They've even elected blacks to Congress, and in significant numbers. In places like that, who wins the presidency becomes less important an issue. But in a backward racist place like South Carolina, where it isn't even socially unacceptable for a white guy to admit he's in the Klan in some communities, it can seem crucial -- a matter of survival.

Over and over, black voters in South Carolina are telling pollsters that even though they may not trust Hillary Clinton, even though they know she and husband Bill passed legislation that hurt black people, like such incarceration policies as mandatory sentencing guidelines, an end to critical welfare programs, and cuts in other benefits, and even though they may be impressed with Bernie Sanders' record of support for civil rights and poverty relief dating back to when he was a college student in the early 1960s (at a time when Hillary Clinton was working for arch-right-winger and Civil Rights Act opponent Barry Goldwater), they think she has a better chance of defeating whoever should be the Republican presidential candidate this November. And so they plan to vote for her for the Democratic nomination.

When viewed in this light, the voting preference of the majority of black voters in South Carolina is completely rational and understandable. Blacks in South Carolina are living in a state where they have everything stacked against them -- segregated schools, murderous mostly white police, a completely biased state judicial system, a prison system that is little more than a modern plantation, and an economy that keeps them at the bottom -- so they can't afford to gamble on the electability of an "avowed socialist" as the media insist on referring to Sanders, even if his positions and program proposals would be much better for black and poor citizens. They see him as a long shot, and too big a risk, given the conditions of life they face in South Carolina.

There are some hints that Sanders, when the votes are all counted, may do significantly better than the pollsters are saying. If so, it will be because students and young people, black and white, came out in bigger than normal numbers for him, reducing the overall significance of the black Democratic vote, but it will also be because word's getting around that Sanders actually does better against the likely Republican nominee, Donald Trump, than Clinton does in one-on-one match-ups, according to those same pollsters who are reporting that Sanders is toast in South Carolina. It will be because black South Carolinians, after closing that curtain behind them in the voting both, and thinking about Hillary Clinton's financial backing from the for-profit prison industry and from the very banks that stole so many of their homes during the Fiscal Crisis and Great Recession, the pharmaceutical industry that makes their medications so unaffordable, and the military contractors who send their husbands and sons off to kill and die in pointless wars, they will change their mind and vote for a guy who's stood with them for as long as he's been politically involved,

In any case, even if Sanders bombs in South Carolina, it won't mean much in terms of how he'll do in future contests outside the Deep South, which of course is the Republican heartland.

DAVE LINDORFF is a member of ThisCantBeHappening!, the collectively-run, uncompromised, five-time Project Censored Award-winning online alternative news site. His work, and that of colleagues JOHN GRANT, JESS GUH, GARY LINDORFF, ALFREDO LOPEZ, LINN WASHINGTON, JR., and the late CHARLES M. YOUNG, can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net

(Article changed on February 26, 2016 at 16:41)

Must Read 1   Funny 1  
Rate It | View Ratings

Dave Lindorff Social Media Pages: Facebook Page       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Dave Lindorff, winner of a 2019 "Izzy" Award for Outstanding Independent Journalism from the Park Center for Independent Media in Ithaca, is a founding member of the collectively-owned, journalist-run online newspaper (more...)
 

Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

Israel's Gaza Atrocities Recall America's Atrocities in Vietnam

Looming climate catastrophe?: A Rapidly Warming Arctic Could Loose a Methane Climate Bomb Causing Extinction in 9 Years

Supreme Court Junket King Scalia Dies While Vacationing with Wealthy Patrons at Private West Texas Getaway

Something's happening here: Clinton's Crumbling, Bernie's Surging and a 'Political Revolution' May Be in the Offing

The Case for Impeachment of President Barack Obama

Barack Obama: Manchurian Candidate Version 2.0

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend