Trump reparations? How the Republican Party could win the Black vote for a generation

David Mastio May 24, 2024 at 6:07 AM Justin Lane/Pool via USA Today Network Joe Biden has improved his pitch to Black voters over the years. When he was running against Mitt Romney as Barack Obama’s vice president, our current president alleged that Republicans want to “put y’all back in chains.” Now his pitch is closer to reality. Oh, he is still selling the poison of fear and division. Just listen to what he told an audience of newly-minted Black college graduates at Morehouse College in Atlanta: “What is democracy if Black men are being killed in the street? … If Black men are being killed on the streets, we bear witness. For me, that means to call out the poison of white supremacy, to root out systemic racism.” Of course, it is true that Black men are being killed on the streets. Far more Black men die at the hands of other Black men than die at the hands of white supremacists or any white people at all. After stoking anger in his audience, Biden offered the thin gruel of the Democrats’ largesse: “Instead of a trail of broken promises, we’re investing more money than ever in Black families...