Page 2 The Skanner November 23, 2016
Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now
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Opinion
The Three Elections That Shaped Obama’s Legacy
The first backlash election
of the presidency of President
Barack Obama’s time in office
was 2010 when Democrats in
the U.S. House of Represen-
tatives lost 63 House seats. It
was the greatest loss of seats
by a party in the House since
1938.
The second backlash elec-
tion was 2014 when there was
a 72-year low in voter turn-
out. In 43 states, less than half
the eligible voting population
voted. In New York the turn-
out was only 28.8 percent.
One has to go back to 1942 to
find lower voter turnout.
The third backlash election
is obvious. It was the election
on Nov. 8 of born-on-third-
base reality TV narcissist
Donald Trump. Trump’s sur-
prise victory arrives with
the predictable edicts that
“it had nothing to do with
race” — even though Trump’s
boasting and scapegoating of
immigrants and stereotyping
of African Americans was an
often repeated mantra.
Now we have swastikas
written on high school walls.
On Nov. 11 Black students at
Lauren
Victoria
Burke
NNPA
Columnist
the University of Pennsylva-
nia were targeted for racist
harassment the day after it
was reported that the Ku Klux
Klan plans to rally in cele-
bration of Trump’s victory
on Dec. 3 in North Carolina.
When President Lyndon
Johnson signed the Civil
“
Then, there was Nevada
Senator Barry Goldwater and
Richard Nixon’s talk of “law
and order.”
All of these policies pointed
squarely in the direction of
African Americans. America
had seen it before.
After the Emancipation
Proclamation there were Jim
Crow laws and the “Black
Codes” and other ways to at-
tempt to place African Amer-
icans back in their place of
second- and third-class citi-
zenship.
The 2016 presidential elec-
tion was a massive backlash
and created by Republicans
on the night of President
Obama’s first inaugural to
block his agenda is the same
obstruction that created so
much frustration and hatred
towards the federal govern-
ment, marketed so well by
congressional Republicans.
It would be the product of
that hatred of government
that would lead 59 million
Americans to select an un-
qualified, narcissist real es-
tate investor from Queens to
lead the federal government.
Just as no one believed
eight years ago that a Black
Frustration and hatred toward the federal government
led 59 million Americans to select an unqualified, nar-
cissist real estate investor from Queens, N.Y. to lead the
federal government
Rights Act of 1964 and the Vot-
ing Rights Act of 1965, what
followed was a backlash.
Soon there was the cam-
paign of Alabama’s proud-
ly segregationist Governor
George Wallace.
to Obama’s legacy itself. One
can only assume that Donald
Trump will focus on disman-
tling Obama’s policy achieve-
ments.
The irony could not be deep-
er: The obstruction planned
man would occupy the White
House on Jan. 20, 2009, few
will be able to believe what
they’re seeing when they
watch a professional birther
and serial liar taking the oath
of office on Jan. 20, 2017.
Democrats Could Lose Even More in 2018
T
he apprehension that
I felt upon Donald
Trump’s victory in the
presidential election has
only increased as he has an-
nounced the appointments
of his chief of staff, strategist,
and cabinet members. As of
this writing, he has mainly an-
nounced the selection of old-
er White men, including the
racist, Alabama Senator Jeff
Sessions, to lead the Justice
Department. The senator’s
use of highly inflammatory
racial rhetoric (including
describing the NAACP as an
“un-American” organization,
and expressing support for
the KKK) prevented his con-
firmation to the U.S. District
Court in 1986. Now, he will
be charged with law enforce-
ment in our nation.
Equally troubling has been
the selection of Stephen Ban-
non, his campaign chairman,
as chief White House strat-
egist and senior counsel-
or. Bannon is the Executive
Chairman of Breitbart News,
a news website that has been
the home of the alt-right, the
source of lies, hate, nastiness
and racist rhetoric.
President Barack Obama
had to walk away from Min-
ister Jeremiah Wright be-
cause one of his sermons was
considered racist by some
Whites. Trump openly em-
braces racists and is applaud-
ed for it.
The position that Bannon
will hold does not require
Senate confirmation, while
the position that Sessions will
be nominated for does. With
54 Republicans in the Senate,
Julianne
Malveaux
NNPA
Columnist
Sessions is almost certain
to be nominated. Hopeful-
ly Democrats have retained
enough of a backbone to raise
questions about Sessions’ rac-
ism. Senate newcomers Kama-
“
Senate.
The Trump campaign (and
its affiliated super PACs)
have as much as $60 mil-
lion to spend, and can use it
to build ground operations
in states where Democrats
closely lost this year. (Hil-
lary and her affiliated super
PACs may have as much as
$70 million to spend). Demo-
crats lost Michigan, Wiscon-
sin, Pennsylvania, Florida,
North Carolina, and Arizona
by less than five percent. In-
Democrats must start now to edu-
cate and encourage people to turn
out for the midterm elections
la Harris (D-Calif.) and Cath-
erine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.)
may be among the first to
raise the questions. Still, Re-
publicans will have the votes
to confirm anyone they want
to confirm. Welcome to the
age of Trump.
Will Republicans get more
of an edge in the Senate
when we go to the polls in
2018? Thirty-three Senate
seats will be up for grabs
then. Republicans hold eight
of them. Independents Ber-
nie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Angus
King (I-Maine), who caucus
and vote with Democrats are
both likely to be candidates
for re-election. A whopping
23 seats currently held by
Democrats could be flipped. If
some of the states that went
Republican in this year’s elec-
tion can be tilted, Republicans
can widen their margin in the
cumbent Democrats Tammy
Baldwin (D-Wisc.), Sherrod
Brown (D-Ohio), Bob Casey
(D-Pa.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.),
Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.),
Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Bill
Nelson (D-Fla.), and Debbie
Stabenow (D-Mich.) are all in
states that Republicans won
in 2016. While many of them
are popular, and incumbency
is a challenging thing to over-
come, we’ve just seen that the
right kind of Republican can-
didate can prevail.
These candidates, and the
Democratic Party, can’t af-
ford to take incumbency or
popularity for granted. They
can’t afford to savor a polling
lead and conclude that they
don’t have to fight for every
vote. If these folks want to go
back to Washington, they’ll
learn from the Hillary Clin-
ton loss and work indefati-
gably, starting now, to keep
their seats. They’ll make lots
of visits back home, host town
hall meetings, and make sure
their voters understand what
their contributions have been
and what challenges they face.
If Trump and his team can
brag of results, if his actions
are perceived as “making
American great again,” then
incumbent Democrats may be
in trouble. Virginia Senator
Tim Kaine, also on the ballot,
has described Democrats in
the Senate as the “emergency
brake” on Trump’s policy pro-
posals. I expect the Democrats
to vocally take Trump and his
team on when they revert to
the racist rhetoric and pro-
posed racist, misogynistic,
and jingoistic policies that
Trump promoted during the
campaign, but will they? They
may not want to be perceived
as obstructionists (though Re-
publicans surely didn’t mind
being obstructionists with
President Obama), and they
will certainly need to pick
their battles carefully, but
they must speak out.
Midterm election turnout is
always extremely low — it was
just 36 percent in 2014, the
lowest level in 70 years. Dem-
ocrats must start now to ed-
ucate and encourage people
to turn out for the midterm
elections. Voting rights or-
ganizations must begin now
to reverse the voter suppres-
sion that kept millions from
voting on Nov. 8. If Democrats
don’t get busy now, Republi-
cans will, indeed, prevail in
2018. So, let’s stop wringing
our hands and moaning. Let’s
get busy!
