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How Did a Racist Country Elect a Black Man Twice? [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-31
By the time the 2008 recession ended, the unemployment rate had peaked at 10%, 8.7 million jobs had been lost, and 3.9 million family homes had been foreclosed. It was the greatest economic disaster America had experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930s. A Republican did it. America had had a powerful taste of Republican bad medicine, and turned to some good Democratic medicine delivered by the most powerful orator of this century who also happened to be a black man.
From a Politico story on the the 2008 election:
“The economy is trumping racism,” said Kurt Schmoke, the dean of Howard University Law School and a former Baltimore mayor. “A lot of people who we might think wouldn’t vote their pocketbook because of race — now they are.”
“What you see is it’s perfectly possible to hold a negative view of at least one aspect of African-Americans and yet simultaneously prefer Obama,” said Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Racial feelings are not as cut and dried — not as black and white — as people often say.”
Anecdotes from across the battlegrounds suggest that there’s a significant minority of prejudiced white voters who will swallow hard and vote for the black man.
“I wouldn’t want a mixed marriage for my daughter, but I’m voting for Obama,” the wife of a retired Virginia coal miner, Sharon Fleming, told the Los Angeles Times ...
When its bad enough, the economy overwhelms racism.
Now consider the 2016 election and economy. When you search for information on the 2016 economy, here is what you get:
GDP Growth: The U.S. GDP grew at a slower pace than the previous year, with a 1.6% increase in 2016 compared to 2.6% in 2015. This growth was a five year minimum.
Uneven Growth: The economic expansion wasn't evenly distributed geographically. Many counties, especially those that voted for Trump, experienced slower growth or even GDP decline.
Oil Price Impact: A global drop in oil prices significantly affected energy producers and industries, leading to declines in business investment and manufacturing in certain regions.
Wage Growth: While unemployment was low, wage growth remained sluggish for many low and middle-income families. Even though unemployment was below 5% in 2016, and inflation was only 1.3% the lived experience of voters, especially Trump voters was disconnected from the economic data. Clinton got almost 3 million more votes than Trump, but the blue wall collapsed and Trump won. America was not going to reward a Democrat in 2016 by taking more Democratic medicine. In a way the 2020 election was similar to 2008. The Republican President blew up the economy and killed a huge number of Americans, some reports site over a million unnecessary deaths from a botched response to Covid. Bad Medicine. America threw out the Republican and elected a skilled Democratic politician in Biden, who most unfortunately was in failing health by the time of the 2024 election. Now for 2024. If you look at the top line data around the time of the 2024 election unemployment was around 4% and inflation was coming down, getting closer to 2%. But in some ways the 2024 election was like the 2016 election. Underneath the top line numbers there was trouble. There’s this from Quality Info of Oregon: As hours were cut back and employees laid off, more people turned to part-time employment. Of the 161.3 million people employed in the U.S. in 2024, 133.3 million (82.7%) were employed full time and 26 million (17.3%) were employed part time.
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