It’s a good question, and there are some obvious possibilities:
Shouty Old White Man Syndrome. I’ve heard black Bernie Sanders supporters admit that, although it’s not fair, his Shouty Old White Man attitude is hard for them to take, and that they like to read his words rather than watch video of him for this reason.
Community Building. Sanders tends to think that his proposals stand on their own; Clinton tends to build ties to other people. (These are very wide generalizations, of course). If Clinton has built more ties to black leaders, that’s gonna show.
Pragmatism. Plenty of folks, white and black, think that Clinton has a better chance of enacting a progressive platform than Sanders does, despite the fact that Sanders wants a more progressive platform than Clinton does.
There are plenty of reasons that a particular black American might support Clinton over Sanders. Some are good and some are bad.
May not be anything more complicated than pessimism. Feel much the same myself, I would be tickled to believe that America has advanced to the point that Bernie is a viable candidate, but I’m not at all sure that I do. I don’t like Hillary much, but the burgeoning fanaticism of the right has me worried.
If I were black, I might very well be worried that if Bernie could, in fact, cobble together a winning coalition without Hillary’s reliance on black voters, that the concerns of black voters would recede into the background. And, of course, they have every reason to worry that if the Trog Right is ascendant, that will be bad for America in general, but much worse for them. And they have a point.
Lefty white, I am infuriated and outraged by things like Ferguson. But, of course. I am not frightened by them, not directly. It is less likely that I or mine will be staring down the barrel of police racism. A step forward is better for all of us, but a step backward would be worse for them.
Okay the mainstream media are reporting on polling, they aren’t inventing the monstrous polling discrepancies. As for “why”, dig into some of the polling. Hillary leads tremendously among all Democratic voters who answer in the affirmative that they “want to see a continuation of President Obama’s policies”, and President Obama has a 90% approval rating among black voters. Clinton also served in President Obama’s cabinet, and to be frank Obama has essentially endorsed Hillary as of late. That may be all the explanation that is really necessary.
Bill has said he views the sentencing changes as a mistake, and as First Lady only a small “portion” of the blame for those things is going to “stick” to Hillary. Almost no one is going to blame Hillary for Bill’s policies. If she defends Bill’s policies they will, but with Bill repudiating the stricter sentencing passed down during his administration that situation isn’t occurring.
I think when people are doing polls asking who you’re going to vote for for President, including ones within the last week in states like Georgia, and where Sanders is behind like 25-30% because of black voters, then yes–they are talking about Presidential politics. “Lack of awareness” is a harder explanation at this point, Bernie has been very heavily in the national media for about 4 weeks now.
Bernie doesn’t have associations with leadership in the black community. The black electorate is much more amenable to being swayed by swaying community leaders. Prominent ministers, prominent political advocates, prominent local community organizers etc. This is very different from diffuse white voters who don’t generally line up behind their pastor or local community center leaders.
Because he’s not a traditional politician who knows how to woo people like black political leaders. Hillary can do that better than Bernie with both eyes closed and both hands tied behind her back.
Racial identity is relevant in politics.
He hasn’t among blacks.
Too much focus on blasting Wall Street–an issue that blacks do not care about. Too many supporters of his are angry white “kids” (aged 18-35) who want to yell at you and say you’d have to be an IDIOT not to support Bernie. That pitch doesn’t work with the black demographic.
Bernie can win black votes, but not the way he’s won votes so far.
You might have something resembling a point if it wasn’t for the fact this effect is real, measured by polling, and continues despite Bernie’s increased public standing.
I don’t think he’s a racist but I don’t think he’s given deep thought about race. I know he marched with MLK or whatever, but he was a young man then and race hasn’t informed his political career.
In one instance when confronted with the question of how to address structural racism, he just responded with his stump speech essentially–economic inequality, with the assumption that fixing economic inequality would “fix black problems.” It might fix a lot of them actually, but that’s not the message you want to use, it makes it sound to the black voter like their problems are not at all related to race but are just related to economic inequality in general. It ignores the continued, real, disadvantage that comes with being black in this country.
They had switched harder and faster by this point, and the only reason they weren’t behind Obama is he was a dark horse at the beginning of 2008’s primary season. He had a tiny bit of name recognition but his relatively brief Senate career and his unremarkable career in the Illinois legislature made him seem like a light weight. People didn’t take him seriously. Then they did. Bernie has been taken seriously since mid-December and we’ve not seen a large shift in minority preferences yet.
The John Lewis endorsement is likely a game changer. And now we will see if things get ugly on the part of Sanders supporters. I hope not, but I fear otherwise.
If the response to a black leader endorsing Hillary is getting nasty with the black electorate, then Bernie has no chance of winning the nomination.
The anger Bernie supporters direct at undecideds and Hillary supporters in general is a big turn off in my opinion. I’ve disclosed (and maybe my reputation establishes) I’m a conservative, more centrist these days than the Republican party (my views aside from on a few issues haven’t changed dramatically since the 80s, but the party is vastly more reactionary/conservative now–there were Pro-Choice Republicans back when I affiliated with the GOP), so idealogically I prefer Hillary to Bernie straight up.
But even if I wasn’t a disaffected conservative who is pro-Hillary for anti-GOP reasons, and was more left leaning, the tactics being used by Bernie supporters would turn me off. It’s not “evil or wrong” to support Hillary Clinton, and I think Bernie supporters would do well to remember this is a Democratic Primary campaign, not a battle against the bourgeoisie in Weimar Germany.
Wow. That’s a biggie. I just watched his interview from back in 08 describing how tough it was to flip to Obama from Clinton (“harder than the Selma march”). I believe he will go all in with this endorsement - I don’t think this is just ticking a box for him.
Social media is a mess on this. Some of those Bernie fans HAVE to be careful here. It’s one thing to go all on the offensive against Hillary Clinton, it is quite another thing to do so against John Lewis. There is literally no one still living that is more connected to the Civil Rights Movement than Lewis, and African-Americans have insane amounts of respect for the guy (maybe even more than they have for President Obama).
As for Bernie fans whitesplaining to black voters, Democrats have taught liberals to richsplain that Democratic policies are in poor voters’ interests and that they should stop voting for Republicans, so why wouldn’t they carry the practice over to black voters? If poor white voters don’t know what’s good for them, in Democrats’ eyes, why would black voters be any better?
Yeah, it’s so terrible that the media is biased against George Paul. Don’t they know that Ron McGovern is the future? I’m sure his support is broad and deep and will take him all the way to the White House, where Congress will listen to all of his policies and fall all over themselves to implement them, just like his supporters know they will. Yes, the President sure wields awesome and unchallenged power in our system of government.
That’s not how the rules work. I’m one of those voters who is supposed to vote Democrat, so I’ve been splained to and I get to be mad. Sorry, it’s a whole new concept, the latest frontier in political correctness, so forgive me if I don’t fully understand it yet.
As a Democrat myself, I think adaher has a point. All the “What’s a Matter with Kansas” stuff just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth - you aren’t going to get people to vote for you by calling them dumb and explaining they aren’t voting for their real interests which only we know. It’s a Sanders-like fallacy that economic concerns are the only ones that matter.