US Elections 2020

[Stavros]

These are choices made by each individual POTUS that I can't answer. As far as congress is concerned, I would say that in part, it's due to the mis-information that many Black Americans have.
But remember, whether you agree or disagree with the current POTUS, the Prison Reform Act and restoration of funding has greatly helped Black Americans - and to be brutally honest, it amazes me that the Obama administration did NOT implement Prison Reform.

Now here's the kicker.

Under the Obama Administration, the LGBTQ and Hispanic communities definitely benefitted WAY MORE than they have under the Trump administration.

HOWEVER...

Under the Trump Administration, the Black community has benefitted more than they did under the Obama administration.

Now let's let's plug in the Black Church - which has been a huge framework within the Black community (despite MANY people on this forum mocking religion - if you want to understand Black America, then you have to understand the role of the Black Church within Black America)

And finally to conclude, more food for thought.
This video represent an aspect of Black America that you will not see via Democrat dominated mainstream media - and thus I'll continue to say that unfortunately, the result continues to be that folks like you continue to get as skewed and slanted view of the Black American community...

As "blackchubby38" said..."we are not monolithic" - And I'll we continually are portrayed as monolithic and that simply isn't the case.

I hope I have not given the impression I think Black Americans are all the same, it is has not been my intention to say so. I can't really discuss Black Churches other than to wonder if 'their' Christianity is different from the kind represented by say, Pastor Jeffress and Pastor White. I was raised in a Christian household and don't understand where these people are coming from, let alone where they are going to. As 'Malcolm X' might argue, many if not most West African slaves might have been Muslims, but did they need to believe in the salvation of Jesus Christ and the Resurretion as the only hope they had of living a better life? This is what Malcolm would probably dismiss as being another form of slavery, an emotional one. It is a bit odd to refer to it, perhaps, but in Eastern Nigeria after the devastation of the Biafran secession, there was a surge in the number of people, not just Igbo who embraced an eschatological vision of Christianity, as if the reality of life on Earth in the here and now was too bleak to contemplate -or change.

Thereagain, when Jeremiah Wright from the pulpit chanted 'God Damn America' it was because he believed that by ignoring the scriptures, America had lost its way, that it was not truly a nation of faith. But how would any politician implement the scriptures when they are part of a pick'n mix menu and Pastors of any colour choose the cherries that make their pie taste the best? I am not longer a practising Christian, but I wouldn't eat an American pie that offers bait and switch rather than a purity of faith that can not be realised in everyday life outside of various legal measures to ban Abortion, Homosexuality and anything 'transgendered' as well as Divorce; laws that insist the Government can and indeed, must control your body and your mind. Does this mean Black Christians in America are homophobic because of their Christian faith? Not being monolithic, I guess some are, some aren't.

I don't know enough about prison reform to comment, but I assume it was a rare example these days of bi-partisan co-operation in Congress, and doubt the President even read the Act, but was given an A4 precis with photos and bullet points prepared by Under-President Kushner.

Under the Trump Administration, the Black community has benefitted more than they did under the Obama administration.
-How? Not being a community in the first place, according to you, what benefits have disabled Black Americans received from an administration that is taking the axe to the Americans with Disabilities Act? By your own meaure, the advances made for all LGBTQ Americans must also include the Black Transgendered Americans whose rights are being taken away, not protected or extended. As for health care, how many Black Americans are either losing their access to health care, or can't get it because of -pre-existing' conditions, and how many are mired in debt because of the costs of health care for members of their families? Your Government gives away trillions of dollars in relief, in loans, in compensation for jobs lost to tariffs on China -with that kind of money it could probaby have paid off every debt owed by Black Americans, but has not -the priority has been to help the rich.

The first video is a good one, but I recall some of the Feminists in the 1960s went way beyond campaigning for wage equality or reasonable issues that most people could identify with and support, and I think in the US there are extremes in social movements that do make mistakes, as the speaker identiifies -incidentally, I had no idea there was a statue of Lenin in the USA, so that was a revelation. Even odder, one of my closest friends met Che Guevara in Cuba, but that's a long story.

As for Malcolm X, I don't know how many Black Americans admire him, the film by Spike Lee was poor not because of its attempt to elevate Malcolm's status to hero, but because I saw the fillm after reading Manning Marable's brilliant biography (I reviewed it in this section some years ago)- Lee left out a lot of details that did not fit with his image of Malcolm. He was a complex man, a sensational speaker, and touches a lot of nerves, but in the end is he not just one among many Black Americans across the decades who reject the USA and seek a form of autonomous existence within America so great is their alienation and lack of trust in 'White America'? It must have some emotional appeal, but I don't see it as being in its details soemthing that appeals to a majority. But then neither do Libertarian ideas attact anyone other than those who want a Utopia to replace the unacceptable reality that makes them so discontented.

[Stavros]

That would be the war on drugs

Major issue that you raise, one that ought never to be ignored.

[MrFanti]

Stavros,

- Biased speculation and no proof that POTUS didn't read the Act
- Prior to COVID-19, Black unemployment hit the LOWEST that it's ever been in US history
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/06/econo...ate/index.html
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...k-unemployment
- Trump's policy moves have actually helped out the MIDDLE CLASS but again, the Democrat biased media will have you believing that only the rich are gaining under Trump.

- Yes, like I said earlier, Transgender rights were better under the Obama Administration than the Trump administration - no argument from me here.

Now, I leave you more food for thought - this video is from 2013
I ask myself what happened to Don Lemon now? - Because IMHO, back in 2013, Lemon was SPOT ON in a number of key areas.

[MrFanti]

Stavros

One last religious point that I forgot to make.
In some aspects, the Hispanic Catholic community and the Black Church are somewhat similar in terms of importance towards each group - with a few individuals lingering as Independents. The far left atheist/agnostic Democrats IMHO need to be a bit careful because if they push too far and alienate religion, then Democrats will lose a significant amount of Black and Hispanic votes from within their respective religious communities.

[filghy2]

- Prior to COVID-19, Black unemployment hit the LOWEST that it's ever been in US history
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/06/econo...ate/index.html
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...k-unemployment
- Trump's policy moves have actually helped out the MIDDLE CLASS but again, the Democrat biased media will have you believing that only the rich are gaining under Trump.

How many of the economic gains from the past 3 years will survive the current recession though? I don't see how you can give Trump the credit for the previous expansion (which was essentially an extension of what was already happening under Obama) but absolve him of any responsibility for the current downturn which is clearly being exacerbated by his dereliction of duty on the coronavirus.

I'm not sure what policies you are referring to, but the vast majority of benefits from the 2017 tax package go to people on higher incomes, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Taxes on low-to-middle income earners will actually rise in the long run. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Cu...bs_Act_of_2017

[Stavros]

One last religious point that I forgot to make.
In some aspects, the Hispanic Catholic community and the Black Church are somewhat similar in terms of importance towards each group - with a few individuals lingering as Independents. The far left atheist/agnostic Democrats IMHO need to be a bit careful because if they push too far and alienate religion, then Democrats will lose a significant amount of Black and Hispanic votes from within their respective religious communities.

I don't know enough about this, but it seems to me that just as there has been a transformation in the US with regard to its attitudes to the Roman Catholic church, I do wonder what impact churches might have on issues such as abortion, divorce and same-sex relationships. The assumption must be that people of 'faith' are more conservative than they are liberal. So your point about a cleavage between Christians and the Democrats must be taken seriously, with the question being on social policy, can the 45th President with his rhetoric of insult, abuse and hate really present himself as an authetic champion of 'Christian values' when he has none for himself?

[Stavros]

- Biased speculation and no proof that POTUS didn't read the Act
- Prior to COVID-19, Black unemployment hit the LOWEST that it's ever been in US history
- Trump's policy moves have actually helped out the MIDDLE CLASS but again, the Democrat biased media will have you believing that only the rich are gaining under Trump.
- Yes, like I said earlier, Transgender rights were better under the Obama Administration than the Trump administration - no argument from me here.
Now, I leave you more food for thought - this video is from 2013
I ask myself what happened to Don Lemon now? - Because IMHO, back in 2013, Lemon was SPOT ON in a number of key areas.

Your post is loaded with dodgy arguments.

-My biased views on the President are based on the various accounts I have read, in three books now, which all make it clear he cannot read let alone absorb complex literature; that he has complained he cannot understand the language of the Constitution, that he can only absorb material presented to him on one or two sheets of paper with illustrations rather than text. One doesn't need to ridicule so a semi-literate a man, he does it for himself in his 'tweets' with their infanitle language and spelling mistakes.

-The attempt to depict 'the Black Family' as a unique problem is not new, Daniel Moynihan did it in the 1970s, Charles Murray has made a career out of it, and as for Bill O'Reilly, the man is a preposterous fool. I have his book 'The Closing of the Muslim Mind', a book that is intellectually weak, historically inaccurate and politically offensive. He has not one original idea, and like Lemon is determined to avoid asking real questions and replace them with a narrative made up of stereotypes which soothe his pained ego. Moreover, it does rather sound like the 'Black Family' presents Black Americans as a monolithic block, shaped by single-parenthood, drugs, gangs, bad language and so on, but where is the context for all of this, and where is the Black Middle Class in all of this?

As a Libertarian I am sure what disappoints you is the appparent lack of individual ambition, of the kind I suspect you have and many other Black people do. The Moynihan-Murray arguments thus revolve around welfare creating a lack of incentive to work, thus undermining the very kind of individual ambition that could lead to young men leading better lives and being more socially mobile and responsible.

But where is the context provided by Capitalism in the US since the 1960s, when changes to production technology began to change the nature of the workforce; when heavy industry owing to over-capacity and automation meant Black 'Blue Collar' workers were in the front line for redundancy and unemployment? If you extend these changes to production, you can, I argue, see how the urban environment has changed too, with high-volume jobs on medium pay being replaced by low-volume jobs and low-pay.
Indeed, what proportion of all those jobs reducing Black unemployment pay more than the minimum wage? Moreover, it is possible that Black Urban dwelling youth can become caught in a trap where their income on welfare is higher than the income they would get from flipping burgers, or stacking shelves in a grocery store. Yes, this creates a problem if the dignity of work is replaced by the stigma of unemployment, but is there not an argument to be made that charts the phenomenal rise in the consumption of recreational and addictive narcotics since the 1980s, and how distortions in job-poor neighborhood economies are created by high risk/high reward dealing in drugs? If Black youth sees no credible route out of urban poverty other than through dealing, the business argument is a winner, as ironically, it is only because these drugs are illegal that means these young Black Entrepreneurs are more likely to end up in Prison than the Forbes 100.

Capitalism has narrowed opportunities in urban environments, and just as I believe the majority of Black Americans work in the public sector, so, as with the sons of working class English people who were the first in the family to go to university who also work in the public sector, their political loyalty is owed to a Labour/Democrat party that is perceived to protect public sector jobs most likely to be cut by Conservatives.

The Democrats have been accused of losing touch with their Blue Collar base, but the Blue Collars jobs are not there in volume any more, whereas public sector jobs, or jobs for firms on Government contacts -Federal, State, County- are abundant. This, surely, is the new base on which the Democrats are based? But is it enough to win elections, and is it not the case that with under-funded urban public schools, a lack of local facilities, that young Black people leave school not as attractive job candidates, but as marginalized citizens with 'attitude' and poor employment prospects?

Markets have failed, and in this new wave Capitalism where Governments make market decisions, it is easy for Democrats to claim to protect 'the Middle Class', as they constantly do, leaving behind those least able to make their way on their own, abandoned by a party too scared to spend real money on tackling urban poverty, poor education, and crime. And the Middle Class that has suffered in recent decades, with stagnant wages and increased costs in health and education.
How easy it is to sneer at the hip hop brigades of 21st century youth rather than tackle their problems; and can there be any advance on gangs and shootings if no effort is made, no serious effort to either repeal the 2nd Amendment, or pass laws that take away the guns? Paticularly when guns in themselves become symbols of power the powerless need to feel important?

There is a cowardice in the Democrat Party on policy, and the Republicans have thus become the party of change, but change that is destructive rather than creative, that reverses existing policies rather than proposing new ones; that appears to be a party of division, indeed, of punishment, rather than one that at least opines 'if it ain' hurtin' it ain't workin''. It seems to me the last 3+ years exhibit a moral vacuum at the heart of American government. Nice 'n easy Joe Biden may win votes just because he is not a pompous, self-obsessed foul-mouthed incompetent who has said, twice now, that Americans are 'total scum, they are Human Scum' the sort of thing, along with with description of Hillary Clinton as a 'skank' that would have been top of the hour news, where now it passed under the bridge, a turd in the water with intelligent men and women shrugging their shoulders and explaining 'well, that's Donald', as if there were nothing more to say. But does Biden have the bottle to propose real change, and not just 'change that you can believe in'?

Publc Health now joins Climate Change and issues around work to become the most urgent policy issues we need to have addressed, but I see no sign of radical action being proposed by the Democrats, just as in the UK we have the same set of problems with the addition of Brexit in the next 6 months rumbling away like an angry volcano.
We may just be rumbling along, or there may be eruptions, who knows? But are we not capable of finding creative solutions, rather than sneeering and jeering at people less fortunate than ourselves?

[broncofan]

I don't see how you can give Trump the credit for the previous expansion (which was essentially an extension of what was already happening under Obama) but absolve him of any responsibility for the current downturn which is clearly being exacerbated by his dereliction of duty on the coronavirus.-middle income earners will actually rise in the long run.

He either takes responsibility for the economy or the excess death toll and in my view most fair if it's both. We were told that we were going to tolerate more deaths because the economy is important. Everyone rational told him that the economy would tank even worse if he allowed outbreaks to get out of control.

People want to know what he could have done differently, the truth is everything. Every stupid thing that came out of his mouth, from his claim that 99% of people have no complications when the hospitalization rate is 20% to his refusal to wear a mask to his insistence that the cure is worse than the disease. His job was to inform people because maybe it's not so easy for everyone to digest what's going on....well apparently his cognitive difficulties are worse than most people's. Also consider his nauseating and disingenuous populism about how opening the economy was for the common man, who apparently would prefer to be ventilated in order to get a paycheck than to have the government provide reasonable assistance and subsidies.

He was so focused on number of cases but if there's a relevant scoreboard it's for deaths. And those people have family members who mourn them. And a large percent of those who died would not have died if our response was competent.

We talk about how us Democrats should want to nominate someone with an inspiring agenda. I completely agree. But as Trish said, we know the alternative. This guy is the alternative. Nearly started a catastrophic war with Iran. Made nuclear threats to North Korea on twitter. And has run the most incompetent, corrupt administration ever.

[MrFanti]

Your post is loaded with dodgy arguments.

We are through then since your obvious bias has clouded your ability to look at this based on facts.
Note that I've given credit where due to BOTH Obama and Trump.

That being said, I do hope that you've learned a bit more about our Black American community than what's been shown to you.

[MrFanti]

We talk about how us Democrats should want to nominate someone with an inspiring agenda. I

And that person IMHO, like I said earlier was Tulsi Gabbard.