It's beginning to look like Donald Trump, whose racist reputation has only grown stronger during the course of his presidency, may be headed for an election payback by Black voters who are tired of his act and threatened by his policies.
According to this analysis by The Washington Post, with Election Day just over two weeks away, Black Americans are voting in unusually large numbers, helping to drive historic levels of early voting, despite the long lines that many have endured.
Significantly, many Black voters are saying they are voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, not out of special admiration for them as was the case with Barack Obama, but rather because they are determined to get rid of Trump, whom they view as a racist, race-baiting supporter of white supremacy.
Trump's "law and order" rhetoric that emerged following the demonstrations that were spurred by police killings of Blacks, such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and his use of federal force to quell those uprisings, has intensified that feeling among many Black voters.
In Washington Post-ABC News national polls conducted in late September and early October, Biden leads Trump by 92 percent to 8 percent among Black likely voters. Additionally, three Post-ABC polls conducted since August found on average that 86 percent of registered Black voters are either certain to vote or have already voted, up slightly from 80 percent in 2016.
Covid-19 Impact
All of this comes as the coronavirus pandemic ravages the nation, with Black Americans disproportionately affected, both by the virus and its economic fallout. In fact, one non-partisan study showed that the impact on Blacks is twice as severe as on Whites.
The APM Research Lab reported last week that through October 13, when 217,000 lives had been lost to the virus, one in 920 Black Americans has died, or 108.4 deaths per 100,000. That compares to one in 1,840 White Americans, or 54.4 deaths per 100,000.
The Michigan University School of Public Health reported in July that in Milwaukee and Chicago, African Americans represent about a third of the population, but over 70 percent of Covid-19 deaths. In Georgia, they comprise a third of the population, but represented 80 percent of hospitalizations.
A higher prevalence of underlying medical conditions among the Black population certainly contributes to this, according to the experts, but so does the fact that they are among a large group of essential workers who must choose between staying home if they get sick or risk losing their pay, or even their job.
That's because they are more likely than white Americans to hold those "essential" jobs that require continuous interaction with the public. Often, those jobs do not provide benefits like paid vacation, sick pay, or the option to work from home.
A recent poll found that Black Americans are nearly three times as likely to personally know someone who has died from the virus than white Americans.
Trump's mishandling of the pandemic and his cavalier attitude regarding it, along with his false claims and promises, are seen as major reasons why he badly trails Biden in most national polls.
And, on top of all of that, Trump continues to attack the Affordable Care Act and supports a challenge that will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court that could bring it to an end, along with its health care coverage for some 20 million Americans, including many Black Americans.
So is it any wonder Black Americans are swarming to the polls, determined to send Trump packing once and for all? As Stacy Fitzgerald wrote in this piece for Not Fake News, Trump sorts people like baskets of laundry–by color.
So for many Blacks, like many other Americans, it's payback time. And the ballot box is the best way to make that happen.
November 3rd.