So … what occurred?
How is it doable that this nation reelected Donald Trump after all the things he’s been convicted of doing, all the things he has stated he plans on doing, and all the things he did to that poor microphone?
The reply isn’t that deep: Nearly all of white girls on this nation need a male president — ideally white. That’s not me speaking; that’s practically a century of voting information talking.
When Barack Obama made historical past in 2008, he did so with much less assist from white girls than Al Gore had.
It’s uncomfortable, I do know.
The starvation to dig into the weeds of knowledge, to make the result about coverage and never id, speaks to our need to be united in these states.
Nonetheless, you’ll be able to’t discuss in regards to the outcomes of the 2024 normal election — particularly what Kamala Harris’ marketing campaign or Democrats did unsuitable — with out acknowledging the very fact a Black feminine candidate was going to face resistance. No state on this nation has even elected a Black lady to be governor.
Additionally: White girls didn’t assist Nikki Haley, Hillary Clinton, Carly Fiorina, Elizabeth Warren or Amy Klobuchar. The presence of Geraldine Ferraro on the 1984 Democratic ticket “made the South ours,” stated Edward Rollins, President Reagan’s political director.
I maintain listening to shock on the final result of Tuesday’s vote, at Harris’ resounding defeat. I can perceive being appalled, however not shocked.
We’re not higher than this. “This” — the racism, the sexism — has all the time been a serious a part of who we’re.
Roy Wilkins, a longtime govt director of the NAACP, as soon as wrote that Brown vs. Board of Schooling, the Supreme Court docket’s 1954 choice to finish segregation in faculties, was “a Second Emancipation Proclamation.” He additionally shared the nation’s response to that call: “I keep in mind selecting up the newspaper and studying an interview with a fourteen-year-old Dixie belle who stated, ‘I’d relatively develop as much as be an fool than go to a college with a n— in it.’ Anybody may see that she was nicely on the way in which to turning into that fool.” Wilkins added: “Just a little built-in education might need saved her from her destiny.”
And but right here we’re, after two “proclamations,” and actual emancipation nonetheless hasn’t come. Segregation remains to be the norm.
It’s lengthy been stated that Sunday morning is essentially the most segregated time in America, however Monday via Friday mornings aren’t significantly better. Over many years of federal redlining to maintain Black folks out of good neighborhoods, to the development of highways, to the white flight of the ‘50s and ‘60s, the demographics of in the present day’s native faculties replicate the ugliness of yesteryear.
Throughout her marketing campaign, Harris usually identified that simply 1% of all public school teachers are Black men. Black girls are lower than 5%. Latinos make up 7%. In accordance with Pew Analysis Middle, nearly 80% of white elementary and secondary public faculty college students went to a college the place at the least half the scholars had been additionally white. It might be simple for a white scholar to develop up in America’s faculties with out having a classmate of colour or seeing an individual of colour in a management position.
For this reason the general public who made Harris’ shortlist of VP candidates had been white males. To be able to give voters a level of consolation, she was anticipated to have somebody with the “look” of management on the ticket. And so regardless of having been elected a vice chairman, a senator and a state legal professional normal, Harris nonetheless apparently wanted a white man on the ticket to offer it gravitas within the eyes of voters.
Everyone knows it.
And that’s why explanations of the 2024 final result that dwell on the economic system or Gaza or different coverage issues are so disingenuous. Everyone knows the true cause Harris misplaced.
If a Black lady had cheated on all of her husbands and had three units of youngsters, I doubt she would have gotten the white evangelical vote as Trump did. And but when given an apparent selection — between a white man who might be heard on a recording pressuring officers to assist him steal the election and a Black lady whose most egregious offense was being towards fracking 5 years in the past — most white girls went where they’ve always gone.
