Senator Joe Biden 1993 Crime Bill speech warns of "predators on our streets" who are "beyond the pale." (Image: C-Span)
“...when I talk about our political institutions, there is no reason for any American to continue to be victimized by what we still refer to as the Republican and Democratic parties…We don’t have to be at the mercy of these sordid political machines. It is possible to create a third party, you know.” - James Baldwin from his essay, We Can Change the Country (1963)
In their rejection of classifying “extreme racism” vis a vis white “supremacy” as a mental health condition, administrators of the American Psychiatric Association confirmed that racial animus against non white people is entrenched in society, “The association's officials rejected the recommendation [to classify extreme racism as a mental health condition], arguing that because so many Americans are racist, even extreme racism in this country is normative—a cultural problem rather than an indication of psychopathology.” Psychiatry professor Alvin P. Poussaint took umbrage with this rejection in a 2002 piece he wrote for the Western Journal of Medicine where he notes, “To continue perceiving extreme racism as normative and not pathologic is to lend it legitimacy.” Poussaint adds, “Clearly, anyone who scapegoats a whole group of people and seeks to eliminate them to resolve his or her internal conflicts meets criteria for a delusional disorder, a major psychiatric illness.”
Black Alliance for Peace founder and current Director of the North South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights, Ajamu Baraka agrees with Poussaint as indicated in his characterization of what he refers to as the psychopathology of white “supremacy,” which he describes as, “a racialized, narcissistic cognitive disorder embedded in the ideological and institutional architecture of Western power.” Further, “...it can affect anyone socialized within the ideological and cultural mechanisms of the Pan-European colonial project.” Yet it’s Baraka’s assertion of the praxis of this psychopathology that forms the basis of this piece, “It ensures that Western decision-makers repeatedly construct strategies that are counterproductive even to their own long-term interests when dealing with non-European peoples.” To this end, Baraka may as well be speaking about the Democrat Party who are showing the nation and the world this election cycle its internal white supremacist psychopathology and its transition from de facto racism to full spectrum de jure racism.
This should come as no surprise to the masses. Many of our ancestors articulated the latent racism and white “supremacy” ensconced in the Democrat Party. For instance, Kwame Ture, during an interview he gave towards the end of his life, referred to the Democrats as “racist and capitalist to the core.” El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X) was far less diplomatic in his discussion of the Democrats during his epochal 1964 speech, The Ballot or the Bullet, “Anytime you throw your weight behind a political party that controls two-thirds of the government, and that party can't keep the promise that it made to you during election time, and you're dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that party, you are not only a chump, but you're a traitor to your race.”
Democrats were certainly more outwardly racist at the time El Hajj Malik delivered these remarks - after all, in 1964 the party included the likes of Alabama governor George Wallce, Georgia senator Richard Russell, and even South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond who were all profound white supremacists and segregationists. Democrats understood that, in order to maintain the electoral loyalty of Black folk that was demonstrated in the 1964 presidential election of Lyndon B. Johnson, overt racism would not be tolerated, which necessitated a transition to a de jure exercise and iteration of racism. This became even more necessary when the Democrats lost many of its white supporters following the launch of the so-called Southern Strategy that delivered people like Thurmond to the Republican Party.
The de jure racism of the Democrats was in full sight just one year after President Johnson won re-election and signed the Civil Rights Act when his Assistant Secretary of Labor, Patrick Moynihan, released the 1965 report, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. Therein, Moynihan essentially places the blame for the plight of Black folk in the U.S. on the structure of the Black family, “In essence, the Negro community has been forced into a matriarchal structure which, because it is so out of line with the rest of the American society, seriously retards the progress of the group as a whole, and imposes a crushing burden on the Negro male and, in consequence, on a great many Negro women as well.”
In pointing out the litany of myopia and de jure racism contained in this portion of what became to be known as “The Moynihan Report,” writer Melissa Brown notes in a piece she wrote The Moynihan Report and Black Feminist Thought, “The Moynihan Report decidedly frames Black family structures as inherently pathological and the primary barrier to Black men’s progress in particular, rather than structural racism and economic exclusion.” She continues, “Instead, it blames Black women-headed households for the unequal outcomes Black families face in U.S. society.” To this day Moynihan enjoys the status of that of a legend in Democrat Party circles with New York City’s main interstate train terminal, Penn Station, carrying his name at the Moynihan Trail Hall.
During the 1990s we saw even more elements of pronounced de jure racism by the Democrat Party when the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), made famous by the ascension of President Bill Clinton, pulled the party to the right with its brand of “Third Way” politics that pushed for balanced budgets, free trade, tough-on-crime policies, and welfare reform, much to the chagrin of more “progressive” wing of the Democrats, as well as the “backbone” of the party - Black folk. President Clinton along with then Senator Joe Biden proceeded to follow through on DLC’s policy platform with a piece of legislation that epitomizes the meaning of de jure racism, the ignominious 1994 “Crime Bill” that continues to adversely and disproportionately impact Black people, Black families, and Black communities.
The bill itself was bad enough, but the language utilized by Hillary Clinton and Biden when pushing for its passage to describe the Black people it continues to harm the most - “unsocialized,” “single parent products,” and the infamous, “super predator” was an exemplar of full spectrum de facto racism. It should be noted that the majority of the Congressional Black Caucus voted for the 1994 Crime Bill, thereby vindicating Baraka’s assertion that the praxis of the psychopathology of white “supremacy,” can be exercised by anyone regardless of their race or ethnicity.
The Democrats certainly obfuscated their image as a racist party following the damage done to Black communities under Clinton by nominating and electing the nation’s first Black president, Barack Obama. But during the campaign, many prominent Democrats who supported his primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, resorted to racially insensitive tropes and, in some cases, flat out racist remarks. For instance, while working for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2008 former Vice Presidential Candidate and Democrat Party elder Geraldine Ferraro remarked, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” suggesting that his complexion was the only reason why his campaign was successful. Ferraro left Clinton’s campaign shortly after she made those remarks that represented a larger issue in the Democrat Party that included a strategy of questions and tactics from Obama’s then rival campaigns and high-profile party figures that commentators and critics characterized as, “racially insensitive or relying on racial undertones.”
Nearly 20 years after Obama’s election, the Democrats, their pundits, and their corporate consultant class have commenced an initiative to once again move the party rightward, largely in reaction to the electoral shellacking it experienced in 2024. For example, this past April, the Democrat party aligned consultant group Third Way released a memo entitled Was it Something I Said? Therein, Third Way argues, “…to please the few, we have alienated the many - especially on culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty and arrogant.” The memo then includes a list of 45 words/phrases that Democrats should not use including “privilege,” “othering,” “cultural appropriation,” “systems of oppression,” “food insecurity,” “BIPOC,” “allyship” and “incarcerated people.”
Third Way included no polling to vindicate its banned words memo. The consultant group’s Executive Vice President of Public Affairs, Matt Bennett, claims that they are doing their best, “to get Democrats to talk like normal people…”
By this logic, speaking about anything that may be primarily associated with the material conditions of non white people isn’t “normal” language, which is to say language that doesn’t appeal to and center whiteness. Third Way is essentially telling the Democrats they should not speak about issues that disproportionately and adversely impact their non white voting base because this may turn off or upset white voters. Moreover, Third Way is sending the message that there’s no need to use language or propose policies that center non white voters as they will vote for Democrat Party candidates regardless of their language and policies, even those like the 1994 Crime Bill. Ironically, in a round about way, Third Way is essentially agreeing with El Hajj Malik in characterizing Black and other non white Democrat Party voters and supporters as “chumps.”
But Third Way is not alone in its suggestion that the Democrats do nothing more than the bare minimum to appeal to Black and other non white voters. Long time Democrat Party insider, adviser, and operative James Carville recently suggested that if the Democrats nominate two white males in 2028, “no one will give a sh*t,” as long as they can make Black people “sway and hum” at churches and South Carolina fish fries. Carville seems to believe that Black people care less about policies that address their material conditions and more about lawmakers, regardless of their race, who can shuck and jive enough to beguile them into voting for Democrats whether it’s playing the saxophone on Arsenio Hall’s former program in the case of Bill Clinton, or quoting hip hop songs in the case of Barack Obama. While Carville and Third Way set the stage for the Democrat party’s slide from the de facto to de jure variety of racism, it was a recent election that confirmed the transition.
By all accounts, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is little more than a populist, FDR-style progressive Democrat. He is an avowed capitalist and a quick comparison of his policy positions and those of Democrats like Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MI) reveal little to no differences. Both Dr. El-Sayed and Senator Warren have expressed concerns about the direction of their party and its establishment wing, they both support a major transformation of the U.S. healthcare industry via “Medicare for All,” and both have characterized the State of Israel’s actions against Palestinian people as a genocide. The major difference between the two is that whereas Warren experienced overt instances of racism and bigotry, from Republicans like President Trump who commonly refers to her as Poachontas , much of the racism and bigotry El-Sayed is experiencing is coming from his own party.
Dr. El-Sayed recently emerged as the Democrat Party’s nominee to represent Michigan in the U.S. Senate after a bruising primary against Representative Haley Stevens. The Democrats’ Michigan primary was the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history largely due to the influx of money, approximately $32 million, from the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) who supported Stevens. The AIPAC-aligned United Democracy Project (UDP) ran commercials during the Michigan primary baselessly accusing Dr. El-Sayed of expressing sympathy for terrorists and mailed fliers to Michiganders alleging the same. Even Black folk took part in the Islamophobic tropes as Angie Smith, a Black elected official, suggested that El-Sayed should stop speaking Arabic and playing Arabic music at his rallies - something he doesn’t even do. And while the primaries have concluded, the attacks against Dr. El-Sayed from Democrats has not.
Just hours after Dr. El-Sayed secured his victory, the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus released a statement that refers to “concerned Jewish Democrats across Michigan” who hold, “…frustration, anxiety, and deep disappointment” associated with El-Sayed because his, “…foreign policy record and campaign rhetoric do not represent the values of the consensus majority of Michigan Jewry.” Then there was the article, written by Representative Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) for the right-wing news outlet, The Free Press. Therein, Gottheimer refers to Dr. El-Sayed’s victory as, “the latest evidence that my party is being overrun by antisemitism and suggests that Dr. El-Sayed win had nothing to do with a focus on lowering costs for families and more to do with, “…making the U.S.-Israel relationship the villain of his campaign.” This is a peculiar charge as Dr. El-Sayed’s campaign slogan - Money Out of Politics, Money in Your Pocket, and Medicare for All - makes no mention of the zionist ethnostate and literally calls for increasing financial resources for poor and working class people.
The Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus and Democrats like Gottheimer are fanning flames that could cost Dr. El-Sayed the election and the Democrats’ chance to flip the Senate. According to the outlet Jewish Insider, “Several Jewish Democrats in the battleground state are now indicating that they will break with a party line they have long called home and instead vote for the Republican nominee.” The piece goes on to cite people like Hanna Lis, identified as a Democratic fundraiser and Jewish leader who said before the primary that he would vote for Dr. El-Sayed’s Republican opponent if he defeated Stevens, further noting that he knows “many” Jewish Democrats who plan to do the same.
It’s ironic and pathetic at once that Democrats seem to be willing to give latitude to white Jewish people who are openly calling for Dr. El-Sayed’s defeat. Where was this same understanding in 2024 when many Arab people refused to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for their role in aiding, abetting, and funding a live-streamed genocide of Arab people? In fact, many Democrats continue to blame Harris’s loss on Arab people who didn’t vote for her in Michigan and link Dr. El-Sayed to these folks even though he clearly endorsed Harris during the general election. So the question becomes, why is Dr. El-Sayed being treated differently than Democrats like Senator Warren and recent primary election victors like Brad Lander who defeated a Jewish candidate in New York City in large part due to his anti-genocide stance? The answer is quite simple - Jewish people in Michigan threatening to vote for the Republicans are viewed as white people and Dr. El-Sayed is viewed as a non white Muslim.
The treatment of Dr. El-Sayed, perhaps, is all the evidence needed to confirm the Democrat Party’s slide from de facto racism to full spectrum de jure racism. As the Democrats seem content with taking a page out of the GOP’s book and applying a Midwest Strategy against Dr. El-Sayed we can expect to see a new nadir of gutter politics that wreaks of Islamophobia and anti Arab sentiment. And much of this will be coming from members of Dr. El-Sayed’s own party as their manifestation of the psychopathology of white “supremacy” will be in full focus.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright is an international climate and environmental liberation advocate, a racial justice practitioner, and a writer and policy expert residing in the United States with his family and their mischievous cat, “Evil” Ernie. He is a proud and active member of the Black Alliance for Peace and the Movement for Black Lives. His radio program, “Full Spectrum with Anthony Rogers-Wright,” airs on the Mighty WPFW network every Tuesday at 6:00 PM EST.
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