What’s Going On

ANATOMY OF 11/3 ELECTION
Last week was “the best of times and the worst of times” for American political cognoscenti. The 11/3 election did not deliver the desired Pollyanna outcomes held dear by American progressives. Results expelled the lead protagonist of the evil empire, POTUS 45, a major accomplishment. Joe Biden is USA President elect, the next White House occupant effective January 20, with his Vice President elect Kamala Harris, the Afro Caribbean /Indo American. The 11/ 8 media Biden victory confirmation invited dancing in the streets from coast to coast. Would like to know more VP elect Kamala Harris’ Jamaican ancestry. International media raced to her late mother’s birthplace in India. None visited her paternal Afro Caribbean ancestral homeland Jamaica.

The USA as a democratic republici could not have survived a second term Trump presidency. For the second presidential season, since 2016, we learned that American pollsters and pundits have miscalcuted the American electorate’s temperature/temperament, which is highly complicated. No, the Democratic trifecta victory eluded us. There is 2022 for which to look forward. Flipping battleground states from red to blue, assuring more equitable 2021 redistricting configurations, was no small feat. Successes are recorded in battleground states. All eyes are poised on Georgia to determine who rules US government. Trump’s failure to concede to Biden is a function of the GOP battle for the Georgia reps to the US Senate.

Advertisement

ELECTION STATS
According to 11/7 election results, Joe Biden got 75 million of the 149.8 million votes cast and counted/ Number is most ever for a US presidential candidate. His EC number is 290. According to AP Vote Cast Data, 9 out of 10 Black people voted for Joe Biden who garnered 65% of the Latino vote. Trump got 58% of the white vote. In another survey, Biden enjoyed 61% of moderate voters, 54% of suburban voters and 62% of young voters – Millennials and GenZers. Viewed through other lens, our nation is deeply divided – Dems vs. Republicans, rural vs urban populations, liberals vs conservatives. Forgot to mention race! Divisions don’t stop there. Look at levels of education, gun ownership and perceptions of COVID-19 which originally was a blue state phenom which has traveled deep into rural red states. These divides inform perhaps impair our mindsets. This nation of 330 million is hard to read.

BLACK VOTES MATTER/GEORGIA
The Democrats biggest problem is “messaging” and “narrative control.” Some key words and phrases which chipped away at voters. Republicans, especially POTUS 45, has defined the 116th Democrats in Congress as a bunch of socialists, who were really progressives; who want to “defund the police,” who really advocated for police reform; and has maligned the human rights group Black Lives Matter as a terrorist allied with Antifa. The Democrats never offered a counter argument. DNC Chair Mr. Perez need to open an agitprop office ASAP. Rep Alexandria Ocasio Cortez recently said that the “Democratic Party is not online.” Trump’s laundry list of policies like caging children, engaging with supremacists, ICE offensives undocumented people of column, tax cuts for the rich and the failure of COVID19 leadership to contain the pandemic should have been enough to vanquish the GOP at the polls on 11/3. I am still shock thinking about African American HIPHOP icons, like ICE CUBE, 50 CENT and Lil Wayne, en route to the billionaire club, who admitted their indifference to politics until this year, and who supported the Trump re-election effort. 50 CENT vowed to leave the United States if Trump loses. One young Black man explained that he supported POTUS 45 because no other US President ever sent him a $1200 check.

Democrats need to replicate the Stacey Abrams model FAIR FIGHT ACTION PAC, in Georgia, where she fights voter purges and voter repression and has recruited more than 800,000 to register, which has helped flip Georgia to bluish. A powerful organizer fundraiser, Michael Bloomberg is one of her backers. She deserves cabinet status in a Biden White House, if the Democrats rule the US Senate. Stacey can influence the two forthcoming Georgia US Senate races set for January 5 because Georgia Senate races fell short of the 50% state victory rule. The two Georgia Democratic Senate hopefuls are Jon Ossoff and African American Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock. What a difference those two races make. A Democrat US Senate majority enables President Biden’s political leverage. Yes, American politics has Georgia on its mind! Black votes really matter in Georgia. Trump’s

The House Democrats retained its majority with 218 members out of 435. Nevada Rep Steven Horsford and NY Rep Antonio Delgado were re-elected. On 11/3, NY elected three new Black Democratic progressives – Jamaal Bowman, Mondair Jone and Ritchie Torres – and has boasting rights for the largest delegation of Black Reps, seven all told, in the nation. They join NY Congress Reps Gregory Meeks, Yvette Clarke and Hakeem Jeffries who were re-elected. Ms. Cori Bush makes history as the first Black woman congress member from the state of Missouri. She joins the SQUAD.

ARTS AND CULTURE
The NY Carib News hosts its 25th Annual Caribbean Multi National Business Conference, a virtual event, “a re-imagining of the global Black community in the face of a dual pandemic – COVID-19 and the current racial reckoning, ” on November 13/14. Some of the Conference participants includes the Honorable PJ Patterson, Andrew Young, Allen Chastanet; NY electeds, Rep. Yvette Clarke, Assembly members Carl Heastie and Inez Dickens and Senator Kevin Parker; Doctors Julius Garvey, Donna Christian Christensen, and Bert Peterson; other thought leaders Hazel Dukes, NAACP; Lloyd Williams, GHCC; and Michael Roberts, real estate developer/author/attorney. Visit nycaribnews.com for reservations and price points.

Woodie King’s New Federal Theatre’s Audience Development Committee presents “50 Years In The Groove, A Salute to 5 Decades of NFT, on Saturday, November 14 at 7 pm. The event includes Classical R&B Hits; chats with Woodie King, Jr. and an All Star cast of NFT Alumni; and Felix Hernandez’s Rhythm Revue with celeb DJ co-host G. Keith Alexander. Show will be streamed online at NewFederalTheatre.com and at HarlemAmerica.com

The New York Urban League presents CHAMPIONS OF DIVERSITY VIRTUAL SUMMIT, on November 20 at 1 pm. Event is a CEO round table discussion and conversations about race.

Advertisement

Participants roster include Marc Morial, NUL; Arva Rice, NY Urban League; Valerie Jarrett, Obama Foundation; Ray McGuire, Citigroup Vice Chair; Douglas McNeely, BlackRock; Wes Moore, Robin Hood Foundation; Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Harvard historian; John Rogers, Ariel Investments; Darren Walker, Ford Foundation; and James Rhee, FirePine Group. Dr. Frida Polli, Pymetrics; and Charles Phillips, RECOGNIZE. Visit nyul.org/events to register and review price points.

A Harlem-based brand management and media consultant, Victoria can be reached at Victoria.horsford@gmail.com