It is truly amazing what assumptions about race do to basic logic.
Case in point: The Associated Press has published an analysis of the midterm election by Jennifer Agiesta, which is headlined:
“Exitpolls: White voters turn away from Democrats”.
That\’s pretty plain, isn\’t it? But just in case it isn\’t, here are a couple of key paragraphs from Ms. Agiesta\’s analysis:
Exitpolling shows racial polarization of the electorate has begun tocross party lines, with whites less likely to back Democraticcandidates than they have been in the past. Across 21 states whereSenate races were exit polled, whites broke for the Republican by asignificant margin in all but four – Michigan, Minnesota, NewHampshire and Oregon. None of those four states has backed a GOPcandidate for president in the post-Reagan era except when NewHampshire went for George W. Bush by 1 point in 2000.
TheSenate seats on the ballot this year were last up for re-election in2008, a presidential year. Democrats typically rely on greaterturnout among their core voters when the presidential race tops theticket. But still, Democratic Senate candidates lost ground amongwhite voters by an average of 10 points compared with 2008. Whitevoters abandoned Democrats in droves in places with heated contestsas well as those without much action. The exceptions were Minnesotaand Oregon – where Democratic incumbents improved their overallsupport across the board – and Mississippi – where Travis Childersmanaged to grow the Democratic share of the white vote from 8 percentto 16 percent.
There you have it. Racial polarization equals White people voting more Republican.
Or does it?
Uh, Ms. Agiesta…….here is a question for you: what is the key reason you can isolate White voters as the ones whose votes have shifted from one party to the other?
Let me help you out.
The reason is that, in this election – as has uniformly been true for the past half century or so – virtually every Black vote was Democrat.
Let me say that again, so it sinks in. Virtually every Black vote was Democrat.
Therefore, the only way voting patterns can move is if White people do the moving.
See, if White votes shifted away from Democrats in this election, it is because they were more strongly with Democrats in last election. Got it? White people, as a group, sometimes vote this way and sometimes vote that way.
But the constant is that Black votes, virtually all of them, always vote the same way. There is no this and that from election to election, there is only Democrat.
And from this, you conclude that the racial polarization is not that Black people, as a group, vote almost monolithically for one party, but that White votes vary from election to election????????
Maybe, Ms. Agiesta, you should think a little more about this.
And maybe a great many Black voters, who have gotten the shaft from President Obama and his administration for 6 years, should do the same.
