Which POTUS was it who gave a speech to Africans and accidentally referred to them as “African Americans”? My google fu is failing me entirely. I had a feeling it was Obama but it seems more like something Bush would do.
He should have the biggliest and the most beautiful fork stuck in him.
I’ll buy and sharpen a pitchfork, just for him.
I have no doubt this this will in no way endanger Mitch’s chances for reelection to his Senate seat (which he was just reelected to a six-year term) or his hold on the Minority Leader post. Which is a shame – it was just 20 years ago that Senate Republicans defenestrated Trent Lott as Minority Leader for some ill-considered comments he made at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party. But Lott never had half the hold over his caucus that McConnell does.
If it’s true that African Americans vote as much as other Americans, that’s even more impressive. When I vote in my mostly white and Asian upper middle class suburb, I have waited as long as 10 minutes. If I had to wait several hours, like many African Americans have to, I definitely wouldn’t bother.
So, kudos to African Americans for working so much harder to make democracy work than I ever would! Maybe we should reward them by passing some voting rights bills that make it easier, rather than still harder, for them to vote.
Also, McConnell can get fucked. On the fork idea, you’ll need a pretty serious fork to get through the turtle shell.
Serious fork.
You’d have to have it silvered first.
Dammit, beat me by 7 minutes.
My version was “this is an excellent opportunity to get out the good silver.”
This is how Mitch’s argument uses statistics to obscure the facts – African Americans do not turn out as much as “other” Americans, but for the last few elections they have turned out at about the same rate as Americans overall. That’s because whites turn out at substantially higher rates than African Americans, who turn out at higher rates than Hispanics. Essentially the Republican argument is that because policies that make it harder for people of color to vote suppress the national average, African Americans are doing just fine.
Ah. Well, it’s on me for thinking anything he said wouldn’t be misleading bullshit.
If anyone does decide to fork Moscow Mitch, please use this fork.
“Substantially” is incorrect. The difference between white and AA turnout tends to be very small (to negative). Setting the record straight on Black voter turnout (brookings.edu)
Furthermore, if you normalize for income/education level, I would guess that AA turnout is substantially higher than white turnout - this, based on the fact that the racial difference are small as above, and the impact of income is substantial. Voting and Income | Econofact
Refusing to act on a Supreme Court nomination = helping destroy our system of government
Omitting the word ‘other’ in a public statement = nothingburger
Lies, damn lies and statistics, I suppose. According to the article, the only years in which African American turnout was close to white turnout was 2008 and 2012 (wonder why that could have been 
). AA turnout in 2016 was six points lower than whites, which I would consider substantial. In 2020, white/non-Hispanic turnout was 71% compared to 63% for African Americans and 58% for non-white voters generally.
But the underlying message of Mitch’s comment – that there’s no problem with African American voting since they turn out at the national average – ignores that low turnout rates among communities of color (abetted by policies that make it more difficult for them to vote) drag down that average.
Does it matter that the statement was made to justify disenfranchising black voters?
I confess the timing and context of when he said that cast it into a much worse light. But in the big picture, this is likely to prove hardly a mosquito bite to his political career. As others have noted, many of his supporters agree with the statement. As sins go, Moscow Mitch has committed far greater.
I don’t understand your claim here. Those statements are mathematically equivalent. If X% of all Americans vote and X% of Black Americans vote then X% of other (meaning not-Black) Americans vote.
Is that what it was doing? I think it was claiming that they were not disenfranchising Black voters. After all, if they vote at the same rates, they’re not disenfranchised (not saying I agree with the argument, just stating it).
A claim justifying disenfranchising Black voters would be something like “Black voters vote for bad candidates, so it’s good that it’s harder for them to vote” (again, I’m not making this argument, just stating it as an example).
“We’ve done X, Y and Z to prevent African Americans from voting and they still vote as much as other Americans. Therefore we should not be prevented from doing those things”
Again, their argument is that they didn’t do those things to prevent African Americans from voting, and also that it didn’t have that effect.
Well, they’re Republicans, so statistically, an a priori assumption that their argument is a lie needs to be given an appropriate amount of weight in the analysis.