THE GANTT REPORT, by Lucius Gantt
My people still don’t get it. How long will African Americans continue to be the first to endorse, the first to contribute and the very last to benefit from being the most loyal base of voters in the United States of America’s history.
Hmmm? The answer is too long!
Stacey Abrams, Val Demings, Mandela Barnes, Cheryl Beasley and Raphael Warnock, for instance, should have all won by landslides but they lost miserably because none of them were strong enough to demand a diverse campaign team. At least two of the candidates mentioned had far more money than their opponents but still got beaten like Congo drums in an Afrobeat orchestra.
Most of the candidates you love, loved MAGA Democratic consultants far more than they love you.
Warnock, who will face Trump lover Hershel Walker in a run-off in early December, had over $200 million for his campaign to spend but probably can’t tell you one Black-owned company that had a million-dollar contract to turn out his strongest supporters to vote for him and do other political jobs.
Politics is not mainly a voter contest, in some cases, it is merely a money grab.
If Jesus Christ came back from Heaven as a Black political operative, even he would be considered inappropriate and unqualified to help Blacks and other candidates win elections.
Since TGR is always first, in the upcoming 2024 elections, the same losing advisors and consultants will be hired to lose again.
Don’t just take my word for it, if you look at exit polls taken after voters voted you’ll see young voters voted Democratic, single women voted Democratic and Black voters voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates.
However, white married voters of both parties voted Republican along with their conservative husbands.
The white vote is important because their vote is not necessarily about political partisanship. If large numbers of white voters had to choose between voting for Democracy, women’s rights, voter rights, and good government or voting for insurrections, sedition, white privilege, white nationalism and white supremacy, most white voters will choose the latter. Black, Latino and independent voters were very important in any Democratic wins.
You were encouraged to believe the “polls” that suggested Republicans would dominate the 2022 elections.
However, the “red wave” that polls predicted turned out to be no more than a pink puddle!
Political poll results, in most cases, say what the people that pay for the polls want the polls to say.
And, don’t act like you don’t know that Blacks like Ye, bashed Democrats and did all he could to support election deniers and Trump lovers but Ye wasn’t alone, at least one Democratic elected official in Georgia endorsed and supported Brian Kemp over Stacey Abrams.
Let me close this column out by saying a couple of more things that might show you how choices made by the party you love caused Black candidates to falter.
In Louisiana, there are over 900,000 registered Black voters in the state. In the race for U.S. Senate, a terrible incumbent Senator, John Kennedy, won reelection with a little more than 800,000 votes. Gary Chambers, a Black candidate, placed second in the race getting about 250,000 votes.
You can criticize me all you want, but tell me why are white consultants getting millions to advise Democrats how to turn out Black voters and those highly paid political pretenders can’t turnout 20% of Black voters in an important election?
There is more. States with large percentages of Black voters are called “access” states where non-white candidates that work hard and act smart can win more races. Look at registration numbers for Alabama, Mississippi and other Southern States where Democratic consultants fail over and over to turn out Black voters in higher numbers.
Fifty or sixty years ago, Malcolm X said Black voters were being misled.
Well, people say I talk about political money because I want some. No doubt, I do but not because I can’t live without it, I can because I do political work around the world.
I write about money because I’m writing in a capitalist country where money is the primary motivator.
Jaime Harrison is the DNC Chairman, made a recent comment on a news network that embarrassed me. He said the DNC spent $9 million nationwide, at the last minute of course, on a Democratic ground game. That’s laughable and ludicrous!
Multiply that number by 50 and it still wouldn’t be enough to generate sufficient non-white voter turnouts in national elections.
If your Black political leaders loved you, they would do more for you!
Remember, in 2020, Black voter support enabled Democrats to take over the Presidency, the House and the Senate in Washington. D.C.
Democrats controlled EVERY major committee in both Congressional chambers, but Democrats couldn’t deliver a John Lewis Voting Rights bill, a George Floyd justice bill or any other bill that was supported by a majority of African Americans.
Even if you still don’t get it, Malcolm was right, our people have been misled, Black candidates have been bamboozled, voting rights have been suppressed, hate has increased and gentrification has decimated historic Black neighborhoods.
Cracker Jack politics will never be tasty for Blacks that are hungry for equal opportunities in American politics.
God bless the Black candidates that spend money with their own kind like the non-Black candidates do!
Lucius is a contributing columnist to NNPA newspapers around the nation, and the author of “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing,” available on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere.