Election Day approaches and, yet again, Democrats are doing their damndest to terrorize blacks into marching to the polls.
- Maryland Democrats are promoting their black gubernatorial nominee, Anthony Brown, with a flier that includes an old photo of a sign for a colored waiting room and another showing white bigots, circa 1960, beneath a placard that reads: “Go back to Africa, Negroes.”
- New York Public Advocate Letitia James attacked Republican gubernatorial contender Rob Astorino as “someone who reminds me of Bull Connor in the 1960s.” Unlike Connor — Birmingham, Alabama’s infamous Commissioner of Public Safety — Astorino never sent German Shepherds after civil rights protesters. Unlike Astorino, Connor never picked a black running mate.
- A flier mailed to black voters in North Carolina says Democratic Senator “Kay Hagan doesn’t win! Obama’s impeachment will begin! Vote in 2014!” The background is a grisly, historical photo of a crowd of white people posing with a black man who has been lynched.
Why the scare tactics? That’s all the Democrats have to offer.
Democrats cannot appeal to blacks about the future, as they have nothing to promote on economic growth, innovation, or national competitiveness. They could explain how lowering America’s 35 percent corporate tax — the developed world’s highest — would keep U.S. companies and jobs here. This would benefit Americans, black and otherwise.
Instead, Democrats moan about “corporate greed” and fight “tax inversions” with class warfare rhetoric and threats of exit taxes for firms that move to lower-tax locales. This recalls the “confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels,” advocated in Karl Marx’s "Communist Manifesto."
Hiking the minimum wage seems to be the Democrats’ answer to nearly every problem. Of course, they never explain how often-squeezed employers will finance higher labor costs. They could pay higher wages but cut employees’ work hours. This accomplishes nothing.
As McDonald’s is demonstrating through computer tablets that customers can use to order food, more automation often means fewer workers. Supermarket self-checkout stands also illustrate this phenomenon.
Democrats cannot appeal to blacks about the present, which finds things broadly worse for them since Obama was inaugurated on January 20, 2009.
The black unemployment rate has fallen a bit, from 12.7 percent back then to 11.0 percent in September of this year. But the labor force participation rate for blacks has slid during that same period, from 63.2 percent to 61.7 percent.
According to the latest Census Bureau data, the number of black Americans below the poverty line has grown on Obama’s watch, from 25.8 percent to 27.2 percent.
Meanwhile, real median income for black households has slipped in the Obama years from $34,880 to $33,321.
Under Obama, black Food Stamp participants have ballooned, from 7,393,000 to 10,955,000. Home ownership, however, has dropped from 46.1 percent of black Americans to 43.5 percent.
This is all George W. Bush’s fault, obviously. But Obama was elected six years ago next week. What do black Americans have to show for more than a half decade of his governance?
Education offers a route out of this mess, as Obama knows. He sends his daughters to Sidwell Friends, Washington’s most exclusive private school. But for those less fortunate, Obama repeatedly has defunded Washington, D.C.’s school voucher program. Thankfully, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has found ways to finance it.
Nationwide, most Democrats slavishly stand shoulder to shoulder with their teachers’ union masters. Together, they labor mightily against charter schools, vouchers, teacher report cards, dismissals of incompetent instructors, and almost every idea that might help black children flourish.
So, ignoring the future and the present, Democrats appeal to blacks about the past. They invoke burning crosses, attack dogs, nooses, and other revolting things that blacks overcame a half-century ago. America is not free of racism, but these ugly memories are as relevant to blacks today as car fins and rotary telephones.
With the polls about to open, Democrats offer black Americans nothing but fear itself.
Deroy Murdock is a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University. Read more reports from Deroy Murdock — Click Here Now.