Over a year in advance, the Black Misleadership Class has kicked their efforts to corral Black people into the Democratic party, despite the Dems’ apathy toward Black politics or the concerns of Americans as a whole.
The Black misleadership class casts a very wide net. This group is not just composed of elected officials and organization heads. The misleaders have a media team too and they have already begun the process of herding Black voters into the Democratic Party wing of the duopoly and getting them to cast ballots for Joe Biden without any question or complaint.
The media misleaders are getting an early start on the 2024 presidential campaign season. Despite the fact that Biden has no competition from any democrat and the party has already said there will be no debates even if a competitor appears, Biden’s weak approval ratings and poor showing in polls vis a vis Donald Trump, have them running scared. They don’t know if Trump’s indictments will prevent him from running or if republican voters will choose him regardless of his legal complications.
What are the misleaders to do under these circumstances? They have to begin the indoctrination process in earnest. This year their work is especially important in light of Biden’s role as accessory to Israel’s killing of more than 20,000 people in Gaza. The outrage felt by millions of people impacted Biden, whose approval rating is now only at 37%, an indication of peril for a sitting president.
Not to worry though. Biden has help from Black pundits like Roland Martin, who in response to Arab-Americans declaring opposition to the man who is killing their people, raised the Trump specter right on cue. “Well @shadihamid @mehdirhasan, I totally get it, but Trump has made clear his Muslim ban goes into effect on day 1 and he will deport all Palestinians and immigrants who support them. His first time will look like recess compared to a 2nd one.”
Notice that Martin makes only a cursory attempt to acknowledge the justifiable anger in the Arab-American community. He claims to “totally get it” but then brings up Trump and thereby proves that he is dismissing the antipathy towards Biden. Martin is joined by Symone Sanders-Townsend, a former aide to Vice President Kamala Harris who predictably walked into a gig on MSNBC after leaving her political position.
MSNBC is the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party and Sanders-Townsend runs with the democrats’ playbook by frightening voters who want to vote for third party candidates. The graphic in a recent program reads, “Why voting for third party candidates could be a triumph for Trump in disguise.”
Donna Brazile is an operative from many presidential campaigns and is now a talking head on ABC news. She weighs in by telling Black voters that they must vote for Biden unless, you guessed it, they want Trump back in the white house. She amplifies Colbert King, a Black columnist at the Washington Post who fearmongers, “Trump won’t need more Black votes. He just needs Black voters to stay home again.”
It would be nice if there were more prominent Black journalists, instead of Democratic Party mouth pieces. A gig on a major newspaper or network does not make one a journalist. Voters need analysis which explains to them why Biden is in trouble, instead they get efforts to indoctrinate them into supporting him without asking any questions or daring to comment on his policies. Real journalists might actually speak to third party candidates or voters or discuss why there is so little enthusiasm for the incumbent. They would talk about what Black politics ought to be instead of reducing it to putting democrats in the white house. They would ask hard questions instead of repeating press releases verbatim and then claiming they were reporting the news.
Of course, major media in this country don’t really provide much in the way of journalism for anyone. While Gaza is making headlines, the Ukraine project that they all supported has gone south. Billions of dollars in public money has ended up with Ukraine on the verge of losing on the battlefield and Russia holding all the cards. None of the corporate media are bringing up this very important information. Of course if they did that it would be especially difficult to whip up any enthusiasm for Joe Biden, and that is their job, not impartially reporting on national and international events.
Corporate is the operative word. Media consolidation has killed off any semblance of journalistic independence. The Washington Post is owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and MSNBC is a subsidiary of Comcast. When Biden promised in 2020 that, “Nothing will fundamentally change,” he was also speaking to the media moguls who employ Brazile and Sanders-Townsend and the rest of the media misleaders.
If Biden wants Black votes, he needs to act like it and respond to Black people’s demands. Yes he predictably lost control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections, but he didn’t do very much when he had a congressional majority. What happened to the Voting Rights Act? Congress could have reaffirmed its original purpose and revived its enforcement capabilities with new legislation but they didn’t. They prefer to point fingers at the conservative controlled Supreme Court rather than lift a finger to do what they claim to want.
High profile Black media personalities have their positions because they will not advocate for Black people or their politics. Their job is to provide cover for the people who at best don’t want to hear from Black people or at worst actively work against them. They are on the television screen and have bylines in the right newspapers precisely because they have agreed to disappear Black people.
Be prepared for more bamboozlement under the guise of journalism. Understand that Black politics will not be part of any discussion. Making it so would create a problem for people whose goal is to win office while also excluding the people whose votes they need. Media are an important part of sham democracy. No one should expect anything more than, “But Trump!” between now and November 2024.
Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on the Twitter, Bluesky, and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley(at)blackagendareport.com.
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