With two weeks until Election Day, media pundits and worried Democratic strategists are agonizing over the notion that Black male voters — who will likely make up less than 7 percent of the total voting population this season — are turning their backs on Kamala Harris in numbers that could cost Democrats the White House. Worried Democrats should quit scolding and start doing what political parties were created to do: quickly cut whatever deals are necessary to satisfy a key constituency that has, justifiably, felt ignored in recent years.
The first hint of the problem seems to have been an August poll by the NAACP that found “only” 63 percent of Black voters planned to support Harris, which is more than quadruple the 13 percent supporting Trump but considerably shy of the 90-plus percent support Democrats grew accustomed to during the years Barack Obama led the ticket. Strategists noticed, with rising panic, that 26 percent of younger Black men (under 50 years old) said they plan to vote for Trump, compared with 49 percent for Harris.
“We have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running. I also want to say that that seems to be more pronounced with the brothers,” Obama said in an odd, imperious scolding of Black men at a Pittsburgh office of the Harris-Walz campaign. “And you’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses. Part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”
Not so fast, Mr. President. Obama’s history-making candidacy captured........