CV NEWS FEED // Black voters are not likely to show the same level of support for Biden in the upcoming election as they have for the Democratic nominee in previous elections, argued an analyst in a recent op-ed for the Chicago Sun Times.
“Black voters are sick and tired of being ignored by the Republicans and taken for granted by the Democrats and are looking for ways, however imperfect, to express that frustration,” wrote David Cherry, president of the Chicago-based Leaders Network. He is also founder of the All Stars Project of Chicago and senior national organizer for the advocacy group Open Primaries.
“I’m a working-class Black man who has built a successful career in youth development and community organizing. But I’m neither a Democrat nor a Republican,” Cherry wrote. “I am an independent activist and community leader in Chicago who organizes based on my love for poor and working-class people, the vast majority of whom are struggling to survive in the richest nation on earth.”
Working Americans are personally experiencing strains caused by a struggling economy, Cherry wrote. He highlighted that many Americans work 70 to 80 hours a week, and over 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
However, more broadly, Cherry continued, “[t]he entire country is feeling the stress of our political leaders’ inability to make our streets safe from violent crime, find answers to the border crisis, talk honestly about inflation and our spiraling debt or articulate a coherent foreign policy.”
While it is possible that the majority of Black voters could vote for Biden in November, Cherry wrote, “the Democrats are severely underestimating the anger that is being expressed by the people who have been their most loyal voters and who feel locked out, left behind and abandoned.”
Cherry argued that both political parties this election fell short of giving voters the opportunity to choose who the candidates should be.
“At exactly the time we need more debate, more competition and more ideas about how we can develop solutions and move forward as a nation, the Democratic Party’s message to Black voters in 2024 is that you have to vote for Biden,” he wrote.
Political candidates need to inspire voters, he argued: “When a candidate inspires us, such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988 and Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, we enthusiastically go to the polls in huge numbers to vote.”
Cherry wrote that the frustration felt by working-class voters could result in many staying home from voting, or supporting a candidate other than Biden.
“The days of Black voters automatically voting Democratic are over,” he concluded: “And this growing independence offers new possibilities to create new coalitions which can create new solutions — for Black people and our entire country.”
