Black voters disappointed by President Barack Obama may stay at home in next years’ presidential election or even vote Republican and escort the GOP into the White House.
The disappointment among blacks towards President Obama is similar to Middle East Muslims’ frustration with the President two years after his “reaching us to Muslims” speech in Cairo, except that American blacks have not reacted with the type of violent Arab Spring rebellions that turned to ashes whatever stability that existed in several Middle East countries.
Americans are more apathetic and simply “turn off,” but recent riots in Ferguson and Baltimore have brought back unwanted memories of the race riots of 1967.
American blacks were ecstatic in 2008 after the election of the first black president in the United States. Even Condoleezza Rice, a black, an avowed Republican and Secretary of State in the Bush administration, said she was proud when Americans voted Obama into the White House. Obama was liked by blacks not just because of his color but also because of his personality and style that showed a confident understanding and identity with the man on the street.
The Washington Post’s Robert Samuels, under the headline “Is it even worth backing Clinton?” wrote on Tuesday of one Florida voter’s feeling today after more than six years of Obama:
What was the point? We made history, but I don’t see change….“We got the president his job, but did he help us get any good jobs? I still need a raise.”
Samuels wrote, “Even a black president was unable to heal places still gripped by violence, drugs and joblessness.”
What has changed for blacks since 2008? The Tampa Tribune reported in 2013:
Blacks’ median income has fallen 11.1% under Obama, more than twice as much as whites. The disparity in wealth between whites and blacks nearly doubled during Obama’s tenure. According to CNN, the median net worth of the average white person is now 22 times as much as the average black person’s wealth, $110,729 to $4,995. The disparity between white and Hispanic wealth increased to a 15 to 1 ratio.
The identification by color with President Obama is indicated in the same report, which reported, “Despite these facts, a recent Pew survey found that the number of blacks who thought they were better off now than they were five years earlier almost doubled since 2007.”
Clinton can talk and promise all she wants, but she can’t change her color, except when she gets red-face in anger.
The only black candidate running for president is a Republican, retired Florida surgeon and political novice Dr. Ben Carson.
The Democratic front-runner is Hillary Clinton, who is the spitting image of the WASP do-good, limousine liberal aristocracy. Her most senior competition is Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a socialist and a Jew, the latter adjective far from being a magnet for enthusiasm among blacks.
Clinton faces a high hurdle among blacks because, as Samuels wrote, “If Obama’s presidency didn’t do more to help African Americans, then how could hers? She has promised “real reforms”,” but it is questionable if voters will buy promises.
A Washington Post-ABC poll shows that Clinton has 75 percent among African Americans who thought that Clinton understood the problems of “people like you,”, but that still is far below the 91 percent approval that Obama received. In addition, lack of enthusiasm will keep a significant number of the 75 percent at home on election day, even if does not rain.