“Kamala Harris doesn’t talk often about her Black and South Asian American identity. She’s not talking to Latino voters about theirs either,” Politico reports.
“It’s a major shift in how Democrats are targeting Latino voters this cycle — and a rebuke of the belief long held by many Democrats that overt appeals on race and progressive policies on immigration are key to winning Latino votes.”
“President Joe Biden tore into Donald Trump over his record on race on Wednesday, targeting the former president for his past comments before a crowd of Black voters in Philadelphia,” Politico reports.
Said Biden: “What would’ve happened if Black Americans had stormed the Capitol? I don’t think he’d be talking about pardons. This is the same guy who wanted to tear gas you as you peacefully protested George Floyd’s murder. It’s the same guy who still calls the ‘Central Park Five’ guilty, even though they were exonerated. He’s that landlord who denies housing applications because of the color of your skin. He’s that guy who won’t say Black lives matter and invokes neo-Nazi, Third Reich terms.”
He added: “We all remember, Trump is the same guy who unleashed the birtherism lie against Barack.”
President Biden declared on Tuesday that hatred of Jews “continues to lie deep in the hearts of too many people,” saying there has been a “ferocious surge of antisemitism” in the United States following the attacks by Hamas that killed 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, the New York Times reports.
Interestingly, Biden did not mention the plight of Palestinians killed in Gaza since Israel began the war in response to the Hamas attack.
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“If Donald Trump returns to the White House, close allies want to dramatically change the government’s interpretation of Civil Rights-era laws to focus on ‘anti-white racism’ rather than discrimination against people of color,” Axios reports.
“Trump’s Justice Department would push to eliminate or upend programs in government and corporate America that are designed to counter racism that has favored whites.
Targets would range from decades-old policies aimed at giving minorities economic opportunities, to more recent programs that began in response to the pandemic and the killing of George Floyd.”
Nate Silver: “As you can see, Biden’s margin against Donald Trump has basically not moved an inch among white voters; he’s losing them by 12 percentage points, as he did in 2020. However, Biden is now only winning Hispanics by 7 percentage points — down from 24 points in 2020 — and Black voters by ‘only’ 55 points, as compared with 83 points in 2020.”
“I’m not going to cover every possible difficulty when surveying non-white voters, who generally have lower response rates to polls than white voters do. I’m just saying this has been a consistent pattern; Split Ticket has been doing the same analysis for months now, and they’re finding the same thing every time. So at the very least, Democrats can’t wish this problem away by complaining about small sample sizes, although that doesn’t mean they won’t try.”
John Burn-Murdoch: “American politics is in the midst of a racial realignment. I think this is simultaneously one of the most important social trends in the U.S. today, and one of the most poorly understood.”
“New data shows that Democrats’ longtime advantage with Black, Latino and Asian American voters has shrunk to its lowest point in more than 60 years — creating a massive vulnerability for President Biden and congressional Democrats,” Axios reports.
“One of the most loyal parts of the Democratic coalition is suddenly in danger. Black and Hispanic men could vote Republican in numbers not seen since President Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected in the 1950s.”
“I’ve been a senator since ’72. I’ve served with real racists. I’ve served with Strom Thurmond. But guess what? These guys are worse. These guys do not believe in basic democratic principles.”
— President Biden, quoted by Axios, on Republicans in Congress.
In a series of interviews and public appearances spanning nearly two years, Jim Marchant, a Republican candidate for the Senate seat in Nevada, has frequently invoked antisemitic tropes claiming that “evil people” including the “Khazarians,” “the cabal,” “globalists” and “central bankers” have controlled the government and conspired to oppress the American people and the world for centuries, Jewish Insider reports.
New York Times: “The racist discourse by Republican members of Congress, both in casual comments and in official statements, has become so commonplace that it now often slips by without any real condemnation from the GOP. Democrats frequently call for apologies but no longer expect any response, and those futile denunciations quickly disappear into a morass of polarized content on social media.”
“The pattern is playing out as the Republican Party once again coalesces behind former President Donald Trump, who routinely made bigoted statements during his first campaign for the White House and his presidency. His approach has encouraged some Republicans to freely use rhetoric that denigrates people based on ethnicity, religion or nationality.”
“Michigan state Rep. Josh Schriver (R) lost his staff and his spot on a legislative committee as punishment for sharing a social media post amplifying a racist conspiracy theory,” the Detroit Free Press reports.
“House Republicans are critical of diversity and inclusion programs within the federal government and elsewhere, but they see recruiting women and minority candidates, along with veterans, as key to expanding their slim majority in November,” the AP reports.
Rep. Jerry Carl (R-AL) said that “everyone has some racist in them,” pushing back on GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s assertion that the United States has never been a racist country, NBC News reports.
Said Carl: “I used to work a lot with ministers, and I had some very private conversations. Everyone has some type of racist in them.”
He added: “My mother, who after Pearl Harbor — she couldn’t stand the Japanese. She couldn’t stand them. And it used to just eat her from the inside out. So it’s there.”
Washington Post: “The Republican Party’s three leading presidential candidates are speaking about history and race in polarizing and provocative ways that sometimes diverge from or distort the facts, some political strategists, experts and civil rights leaders said. Their comments have stoked outrage among many Americans and risk alienating wide swaths of voters, including the independent and moderate voters whom Haley has been courting, according to strategists in both parties.”
“But their rhetoric is also appealing to many Americans who lean conservative, interviews with voters in Iowa and New Hampshire show, including some who reject the accusations that the statements are racially insensitive or worse. Many in the GOP are resentful of liberal leaders who they see as constantly pointing out or forcing the country to apologize for past atrocities, and some are angry about demographic and cultural shifts in America driven in part by immigration.”
“Donald Trump is getting headlines for saying immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country.’ But for months the GOP race for president has been shadowed by xenophobia, as some candidates or those backing them have embraced racist and white nationalist themes,” Axios reports.
“It’s partly a reflection of how Trump has moved Republican politics toward the harder-edged, ‘us vs. them’ view that now dominates the GOP’s base and is reshaping its membership in Congress.”
“It’s not just Trump. Even as the GOP has recruited more minority prospects for public office — this year’s initial field for the presidential race was historically diverse — more Republicans are latching onto Trump’s racially divisive rhetoric.”
The White House on Friday lashed out at Elon Musk for promoting “Antisemitic and racist hate” after the Tesla CEO and X Corp. owner said he agreed with a social media post accusing “Jewish communities” of pushing “hatred against whites,” CNBC reports.
Jonathan Chait: “It is certainly true that there is antisemitism on the left, frequently presenting itself as criticism of Israel. (The usual trick is to make an antisemitic statement and replace ‘Jews’ with ‘Zionists.’) But it is overwhelmingly directed in opposition to the Democratic party.”
“The most antisemitic activists on the right tend to be pro-Trump, which is why the ranks of J6ers were overrepresenting with white nationalists. The most antisemitic activists of the left despise Joe Biden and generally oppose the Democratic Party.”
Agreeing with an antisemitic post on his social media platform X, Elon Musk endorsed the claim that Jewish communities push “hatred against Whites,” CNN reports.
FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that antisemitism in the United States is reaching “historic levels” in the wake of violence in Israel and Gaza, the BBC reports.
Said Wray: “The Jewish community is targeted by terrorists really across the spectrum.”
He added: “This is not a time for panic, but it is a time for vigilance. We shouldn’t stop conducting our daily lives — going to schools, houses of worship, and so forth — but we should be vigilant.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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