Recently, I set out to find some insight into a vexing political mystery: why, when the economy is surging and President Biden boasts of a long list of accomplishments, are Democratic voters so angry with the Democratic Party? To begin to answer this question I traveled to Georgia. For all the shock and awe of Trumpism, it is Joe Biden's 2020 victory in Georgia, the heart of the Old South, that has tugged at my imagination. In Atlanta and its suburbs, a multiracial coalition of voters, many of them younger and college-educated, voted for Democrats in large numbers. So too did Black voters in rural Georgia, who, though a minority in most counties, were able through high turnout to cut deep into the Republican margins of victory there. That urban-rural alliance not only delivered the winning votes that denied Donald Trump a second term in office, but also sent the first Black senator to Congress from Georgia since the fall of Reconstruction, and the first Jewish senator from the state ever. Those Democratic victories may be hard to replicate next year. Traveling through the state, I found that the Black voters who make up the backbone of the Democratic Party feel abandoned by Biden and by the party itself. Younger Black voters, in particular, feel disaffected. They have not seen the gains from Wall Street's recent highs. In rural areas of the state, especially, poverty remains widespread and grinding. Jobs are low-paying. Many, many people are working two jobs, yet struggling to cover rising rent and to put food on the table. Some have tens of thousands of dollars in student loans. Across the state, the voting rights of Black Georgians — many the descendants of Americans enslaved in the same lands — remain under threat from efforts by Republicans and their allies to erode their political power. In dozens of interviews, I didn't find a single Black Georgian under any illusion the Republican Party planned to serve her interests. But many said they are beginning to wonder whether Democrats planned to serve their interests, either.
Here's what we're focusing on today:
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Tuesday, December 19, 2023
Opinion Today: Why is Biden struggling with Black voters?
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