Group votes have a history of shifting

Up until the Great Mississippi River flood of 1927, Negroes voted as a block for Republicans. Since then the history up until now is that they vote 90% of so for Democrats. And the Jewish vote has in the past 50 years tended to be Democrat. And the so called Southern strategy by the Republicans has been given credit for turning the politicians in the South from Democrats to Republicans. All the aforementioned suggests campaign planners hired by politicians have confidence that they have some groups in the bag. All they have to do is say the right things to get the group’s votes. Then they can focus on more volatile voters. Boy have the times changed, though some still do not know it yet.

Being born and brought up one way is powerful when it comes to politics and family. I have too many relatives and friends whom I respect a lot who say they were brought up Democratic, and they will always vote that way. This is an attention gainer, especially when I hear some older relatives and friends express frustration at the leftist tilt of the Democratic party today. The frustration I hear is that they have not changed, but their party has changed. This principle is pretty simple. Sometimes the Party leaves the people vice the alternative. And then the group shifts its votes.

In the Negro vote shift after the 1927 massive floods, the principle is also simple. The Democrats had a better way for the government to help people wiped out by mother nature. The alternative by the Republicans used the status quo, which planned to use private enterprise to recover and at all means avoid creating a dependency on the government. While one can argue the merits of both ideas, the voters voted, and the Democrats had a Negro block vote they counted on for decades, and long after the effects of the flood were taken care of. Now today we have a Democratic candidate using southern drawl and black talk to speak to one of her perceived block audiences in the country, who speak American with an American accent as if she believes that all people of this block speak her other way. Pardon me, but I am offended at this blatantly racist display of condescension. Our Country needs a national leader, not a block vote panderer. And Negroes, finally as equal citizens, have issues like education of children and protection from crime from low lifes that is up for competitive electioneering by the two main parties.

The reasons for the Jewish vote consistently being Democratic is still beyond me. After all, look at the positions of the two parties. On domestic issues, one might concede a Democratic tilt. On foreign issues and Israel being an ally, it is all Republican, it seems. Just listen to what the Democratic candidates are saying in the so called debates to make up your own mind. Of course the issue still is how does the Jewish vote goes, and is it a block vote?

And now on to the so called Southern strategy allegedly used by Republicans to change representatives from Democrats to Republicans. This strategy suggests Southern white threatened and poorly educated voters will vote as a block. First, there is no such group, and second, people vote local. And local issues are not block issues. There is no anti-negro vote, for example. One might even suggest that the well intentioned gerrymandering efforts of the Democrats and the Courts that created mostly Negro districts have had more to do with reducing the effect of the Negro vote than any racist scheme. Some call this the law of unintended consequences. One of the unintended consequences is that Negroes in the now majority white districts also demand representation, and this idea alone is breaking up the old block vote. Suddenly the issues are less race than those of urban vs. country, rich vs. poor, and of course control of public education. In the latter, the friction becomes more local, as in high standards for teachers and kids vs. the status quo. If one lives in the South, for example, one knows that all private and public schools are not created equal, and the difference is in leadership at the local level. If this sounds like the rest of the country, it is because it is the same.

Many communities are also impacted by immigration, often illegal and from south of the border. What seems amazing to me is the apparent competition for the votes of this new potential class of citizens, and the assumption this new class will vote as a block. I suggest the law of unintended consequences will assert itself, once again.

So is the political business of the last 50 years still as usual today? Are the hired political managers suggesting their candidate say the right things to get a block vote correct? Many don’t think so.