Steve Sailer writes: In theory, Bernie Sanders’ platform of Free Stuff ought to appeal to black Democratic voters in South Carolina today. But in black politics, in both America and Africa, 19th Century European socialist logic doesn’t have much emotional appeal. It’s too abstract and impersonal.
Instead, black politics is mostly about the Big Man Gets Paid (and, in these enlightened times, the Big Woman Gets Paid.)
Hillary simply has a longer track record than Bernie of seeing that local Big Men and Big Women get their cut.
COMMENTS:
* Hillary has better name recognition. This is especially important with low-info voters. And most of the Black pols are for her. They want to be on the winning team, plus some may be paid by her campaign to get out the vote. I think I remember James Carville once bragging about bribing Black pastors. Would Bernie do that? Would he even reward his endorsers with jobs and the like if he somehow managed to win, or would he consider that sleazy?
* Also, truly poor people already get all kinds of free stuff. Bernie’s platform is for not-quite-successful white baristas who want enough free stuff to make them look upper middle class.
* Also, we already have socialism for blacks. Bernie just wants to extend the free handouts to whites. So, he isn’t really offering much new to blacks.
* The alternative theory is that poor blacks sell their votes. The sale is mediated through church or civic organizations.
Ed Rollins repeated claimed he could do this:
“We went into black churches and we basically said to ministers who had endorsed Florio, ‘Do you have a special project?’
Historical note, republican Whitman won the the race. Florio was the last governor of NJ to completely fund the state pension system.
* “The alternative theory is that poor blacks sell their votes. The sale is mediated through church or civic organizations.”
All urban democrats know this, but what gets me is that none of these black churches ever get their non-profit status revoked, whereas a white church that tried the same tactic would be under IRS scrutiny very quickly.
In a particularly weird example of this, Seattle’s homosexual mayor Ed Murray won office by buying off Somali imams who then publicly reminded him of this when he tried to shut down their hookah parlors. Naturally, he backed down.
