Black and Blue: Why Blacks Vote Democrat Until It Hurts

Fifty Years of Democrat Loyalty. In Too Many Cities, Black Men Still Don’t Make 50.

"There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs." — Thomas Sowell

For more than half a century, Black Americans have voted overwhelmingly for the Democrat Party — and for more than half a century, the conditions in their communities have remained stubbornly poor, violent, and dependent.

Political loyalty, when unexamined, becomes currency for politicians who never have to deliver. And in the case of Black voters, it has become a blank check handed to leaders who spend it on symbolism, grievance, and slogans — while the real needs of the community go unmet, year after year.

The question is not whether Black Americans are capable of choosing better.
The question is: Why do they refuse to?

They Want School Choice

School choice isn’t some elite luxury. For millions of Black families, it’s a lifeline.

In a national survey from early 2025, nearly 70 percent of Black parents said they had recently considered moving their child to a different school. Among Black parents under 30, that number jumps to nearly 75 percent. That’s the highest of any racial group in America.

These families aren’t misinformed. They know exactly what’s happening inside the public schools they’re zoned into overcrowded classrooms. Reading levels are years behind. Students passed through the system regardless of whether they learned. And teachers who are untouchable, no matter how ineffective, are protected by the union more than the children are protected.

So what does school choice actually mean?

It means parents have the power to decide where their child goes to school — whether that’s a charter, magnet, private school, or even homeschooling. And in many cases, it’s made possible by a voucher, which allows a family to use public education funding to pay for tuition outside the traditional public system. The money follows the student, not the system.

Black parents overwhelmingly support this. In fact, they are the most pro–school choice demographic in the country. But the politicians they vote for — nearly all Democrats — consistently block it.

They claim to be defending public education. But what they’re really defending is the political alliance between the Democrat Party and the teachers’ unions — an alliance built not on performance, but on campaign donations. The average Black family doesn’t write big checks to political campaigns. But teachers’ unions do. Millions of dollars, nearly all to Democrats. So when it comes down to a poor parent’s freedom or a powerful donor’s favor, the decision is already made.

It’s not about the children. It’s about the funding. And who controls it.

Meanwhile, the same politicians who oppose school choice quietly send their own children to private or charter schools. They know exactly how bad the system is. They just don’t want you to have the option to leave it.

That’s why what Texas did in 2025 matters. Governor Greg Abbott signed a statewide school choice law that gives nearly every family access to Education Savings Accounts — about $10,000 per year per child — to use for private school tuition. For special needs students, that amount can be triple. This is no small experiment. It’s one of the largest school choice programs in the country, and it puts power directly into the hands of parents.

Texas did what Black Democrats in urban cities refuse to do. They trusted the parents.

That trust is the dividing line. Politicians who fear losing control of the system oppose school choice. Parents who fear losing their child to that system support it.

And yet, in city after city, those same parents keep voting for the politicians who trap them.

If your child can’t read by third grade, what exactly are you being loyal to?

Not your child.
Not your future.
Just your party.

And the party doesn’t send its kids to those schools.

They Want Safe Streets

Most people want the same thing when they step outside. They want to walk to the store, visit family, or sit on their porch without looking over their shoulder. Black Americans are no different. In fact, many want it more because they often live closer to the danger.

Gallup polling in late 2023 showed that 81 percent of Black Americans want police to spend the same amount of time or more time in their neighborhoods. Only 19 percent wanted less. That is a clear message. Most people in these communities do not want fewer police. They want the right kind of policing, and they want it consistently.

The reasons are obvious. FBI crime data shows that Black Americans make up about 13 percent of the population but account for more than half of all homicide victims. In Chicago, year after year, more than three-quarters of murder victims are Black. These are not just numbers. They are people’s sons, daughters, cousins, and friends.

Yet many of the politicians running these cities, including a large number of Black Democrats, keep promoting policies that make neighborhoods less safe. Bail reform that sends violent repeat offenders back into the community within hours. District attorneys who refuse to prosecute crimes that destroy small businesses and neighborhoods. Budget cuts leave fewer officers to respond when they are needed most.

Those budget cuts were often justified by the “Defund the Police” movement that many Democrat politicians supported in 2020 and 2021. In cities where police budgets were cut, violent crime rose sharply in the following years. Minneapolis, where the slogan first became national news, saw its highest homicide rate in decades. Portland’s murder rate spiked to record highs. In New York City, shootings and murders both jumped after police resources were reduced. These impacts were not felt equally. They hit Black neighborhoods hardest because those neighborhoods already faced higher crime rates before the cuts.

The results are predictable. In 2024, Washington, DC saw one of its highest homicide counts in two decades. Carjackings rose to levels the city had not seen in years. When President Trump sent federal resources to support the overwhelmed local police, several Black political leaders in DC accused him of being racist for intervening. They would rather let crime spiral out of control than admit that help from the other party could work.

This is not unique to DC. Baltimore, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Oakland have followed the same path. Voters in these cities say they want safe streets. Their leaders give them policies that keep the streets dangerous. The same leaders are re-elected again and again.

A single mother in Detroit does not care about political labels when she hears gunfire outside her window. She cares that her child can get to school and back safely. A shop owner in Philadelphia is not thinking about party affiliation when the same thief cleans out his store three times in a month. He is thinking about why the thief is still walking free.

The truth is that most Black Americans want public safety, not public excuses. They do not want to be harassed over minor issues, but they also do not want violent offenders treated like victims. They want leaders who protect the people who follow the law, not the people who break it.

Until they stop voting for leaders who treat public safety like a political bargaining chip, the violence will continue. The streets will not get safer. And the people paying the price will be the ones who asked for safety in the first place.

They Want to Protect Themselves

When you live in a neighborhood where the police might take fifteen or twenty minutes to arrive, if they come at all, you know your safety is often in your own hands. Black Americans in high-crime areas understand this better than anyone.

Legal gun ownership among Black Americans has been growing faster than in any other demographic group. The National Shooting Sports Foundation reported that between 2019 and 2023, Black gun ownership rose by more than fifty-eight percent. Most of these new owners are not hobbyists. They are ordinary people who want the ability to protect themselves and their families.

Despite this, the politicians who represent these neighborhoods keep working to make it harder for law-abiding residents to defend themselves. They pass laws that create endless obstacles for responsible citizens while doing little to stop criminals who ignore the law entirely.

Washington, DC requires every firearm to be registered with the police, limits magazines to ten rounds, and bans many standard rifles under its assault weapons definition. Baltimore and Maryland as a whole require permits, fingerprinting, and safety training just to purchase a handgun, along with similar bans and magazine limits. Both have red flag laws allowing temporary confiscation of firearms. These are among the strictest jurisdictions in the country.

They are also among the most dangerous. DC ended 2024 with one of its highest homicide totals in decades. Baltimore has had one of the highest murder rates in America for years. Criminals in these cities are not standing in line to apply for permits. They obtain weapons illegally, and they are not concerned about the law. The only people restricted by these measures are the ones who would have followed the rules anyway.

It is not a coincidence that the cities with the strictest gun laws also have some of the highest violent crime rates. Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles follow the same pattern. In high-crime areas, making legal firearm access more difficult often leaves only the criminals armed. Law-abiding residents are left hoping the police arrive in time.

Many Black Democrat leaders still call for more restrictions. In 2023, Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford said, “We must get these weapons of war off our streets once and for all.” Former CBC Chair Joyce Beatty declared, “More guns don’t make us safer. Fewer guns do.” Senator Cory Booker claimed, “It’s easier for a kid in Newark to get a gun than it is to get a book.” These soundbites generate headlines, but they do not reflect the reality for a mother in Baltimore or a store owner in Chicago who already face constant danger.

For a mom in Chicago, the choice is between waiting for help that may arrive too late or having the means to protect her children. For a shop owner in Philadelphia, it is about whether he will be alive to open his store the next morning.

Most Black Americans are not seeking the right to carry firearms so they can play hero. They want the fundamental right to defend themselves when no one else will. If leaders cannot provide safety, the least they can do is stop making it harder for people to ensure their own.

They Want Economic Opportunity and Jobs

Every community wants the same thing. They want to work, earn a living, provide for their families, and have something to pass down to their children. Black Americans are no exception. The difference is that in too many Black neighborhoods, the very leaders who have deliberately stifled economic opportunity keep getting voted for.

During President Trump’s first term, the numbers spoke for themselves. Black unemployment dropped to the lowest level ever recorded at 5.4 percent in August 2019. Wages for low-income workers rose faster than for any other group. Small business creation in Black communities increased. These gains came from lower taxes, fewer regulations, and targeted initiatives like Opportunity Zones that brought private investment into areas long ignored. It was not another government handout — it was the result of policies that allowed people to work, build, and keep more of what they earned. Independence, not dependence, was the outcome.

It took a global pandemic to derail it. In 2020, COVID-19 was used not just as a public health crisis but as a political weapon. Lockdowns and shutdowns devastated the economy, with blue-state governors imposing some of the harshest restrictions in the country long after it was clear that much of it was unnecessary. The timing and the politics were too convenient to ignore. An economy firing on all cylinders under Trump’s leadership was suddenly paralyzed in an election year, and the people hurt most were working-class Americans, including millions of Black workers and business owners.

Then came the Biden years. Inflation surged to levels not seen in forty years. Gas prices, grocery bills, and housing costs crushed families. Interest rates skyrocketed, making it harder to buy a home or start a business. The same Democrats who campaigned on helping the middle and working class presided over policies that left them worse off. Black Americans were hit especially hard, as higher prices and borrowing costs erased wage gains and made upward mobility even harder.

Now, in 2025, with Trump back in the White House, the tide is turning again. Growth is positive. Business confidence is up. Inflation is cooling. Jobs are returning in both private industry and manufacturing. Even with the damage left behind by four years of Bidenomics, the momentum is coming back.

The same voices that spent Trump’s first term predicting disaster are back at it. Every tariff is portrayed as economic suicide. Every ICE action is called racist and harmful to the workforce. Every Consumer Price Index update is spun as proof that the economy is about to collapse. Yet the predictions keep failing. Tariffs have not destroyed the economy — they have brought manufacturing back home. Unemployment is trending down, not up. The CPI is stabilizing. ICE crackdowns are removing dangerous criminals and opening up legal job opportunities for American citizens, including Black workers.

But economic policy is only part of the story. The bigger problem is the victim mindset that Democrat politicians instill and depend on to keep Black voters obedient. The constant message is that the system is rigged, that racism will block success no matter what, and that the only path forward is through government programs. If you believe that, why take the risk of starting a business? Why compete for a better job? Why invest in building something of your own? The victim mindset makes people fearful of failure and dependent on those in power.

The difference between a job and a program is simple. A job can last a lifetime and open doors for the next generation. A program lasts until the funding runs out or the political winds change. Politicians know this. Programs keep people dependent. Jobs make them independent. And independent voters are harder to control.

The numbers tell the truth. The median wealth for Black households is roughly one-eighth that of white households. The gap is widest in cities run for decades by Democrats — the same cities where small businesses face high taxes, excessive regulations, and limited access to capital. These are the same places where leaders campaign on fighting for the working class while making it harder for them to succeed.

Real economic opportunity comes from policies that encourage growth, support entrepreneurship, and attract investment. It means cutting the red tape that strangles small businesses. It means letting employers create jobs without being treated as enemies. And it means understanding that a paycheck builds dignity in a way a welfare check never will.

Until Black voters demand leaders who prioritize opportunity over dependency, and reject those who sell victimhood as a political brand, the cycle will not break. The result will be the same as it has been for decades — low wages, fewer jobs, fewer businesses, and politicians who talk about inequality while doing nothing to change it.

Rogue Judges and Jury Nullification

Justice is supposed to be about facts and evidence, not about who you know or what you look like. In too many Black communities, it ends up being about loyalty over law. The result is that dangerous people go free, and the same neighborhoods that need protection the most are left to live with the consequences.

Bail Reform: The Revolving Door
“Bail reform” sounds nice in a campaign speech. In real life, it often means a revolving door. Repeat offenders, some with violent histories, are back on the streets within hours. The judges who sign off on these policies do not live in the neighborhoods where these criminals return. They go home to safe, gated communities while regular people live with the fallout.

Jury Nullification: The Quiet Loophole
Most people have never heard of jury nullification. It is the idea that jurors can vote “Not Guilty” even if the evidence clearly shows the defendant is guilty, simply because they do not like the law or think the system is unfair. It was initially meant to push back against bad laws, but now it is often used to let people off the hook when sympathy or racial solidarity outweighs the facts.

You will not hear many big-name politicians openly telling jurors to do this, but academics and activists sometimes do. Law professor Paul Butler has openly suggested that Black jurors use nullification to resist what he sees as racially biased laws. In New Hampshire, a bill even made it through the legislature that would have required judges to tell jurors about their power to nullify. It did not survive, but the conversation was loud enough to make headlines.

Social media campaigns have pushed it too. In the Luigi Mangione case, people were openly calling for a “Robin Hood” style acquittal because they did not like the healthcare industry.

The Human Cost
Every time a dangerous criminal walks free, it is not just a statistic. It is a shooting. It is a home invasion. It is someone’s grandmother getting knocked down for her purse. When people see the system bending over backwards for loyalty instead of safety, they stop trusting the system entirely.

Politicians know this. They know voters want safer streets. For some, it is easier to posture about “compassion” than to take the heat for locking up people from their own community. The cycle repeats. The neighborhoods that need justice the most keep getting the least of it.

The Talkers Who Don’t Deliver

For decades, Black Democrat politicians have promised the moon to their constituents — safer streets, better schools, stronger economic opportunity — yet somehow the neighborhoods they represent remain just as dangerous, undereducated, and economically stagnant as when they first took office. The loyalty from voters remains, but the delivery of results does not.

Here’s a closer look:

• Maxine Waters (D) – In Congress since 1991, representing one of the poorest districts in Los Angeles. Her fiery speeches about injustice have made her a fixture on cable news, yet homelessness, crime, and poverty have gotten worse under her watch. She lives in a multimillion-dollar mansion outside her district while her constituents face declining property values and chronic gang violence. School choice? Opposed. Gun rights for law-abiding residents? Opposed. Real economic reforms? Never delivered.

• Jasmine Crockett (D) – Known more for viral clips and combative hearing performances than for passing meaningful legislation. Talks endlessly about racism and Republican “attacks on democracy” but offers nothing tangible for the struggling Black neighborhoods in Dallas. Spends political capital on partisan theater instead of local progress.

• Cory Booker (D) – Rose to fame as Newark’s mayor with promises of revival, but Newark still ranks among the poorest and most crime-plagued cities in the country. As a U.S. Senator, he champions lofty rhetoric on criminal justice reform, yet supports the same anti-gun and anti-school choice positions that keep urban residents disarmed and trapped in failing schools.

• Hakeem Jeffries (D) – Current House Minority Leader and Official" Dollar Tree Obama. He is a gifted orator (in a sort of on-the-spectrum kind of way) and skilled at party-line messaging, but his district in Brooklyn continues to wrestle with high crime and poor public school performance. Prioritizes national partisan battles over addressing the crime and economic stagnation in his backyard.

• Kamala Harris (D) – As California’s Attorney General and later as U.S. Senator, she talked about “equity” but enforced policies that devastated Black entrepreneurs through overregulation while doing little to protect Black neighborhoods from violent crime. As Vice President, she’s been a figurehead for the same soft-on-crime and anti-opportunity policies that accelerate decline.

• Willie Brown (D) – Former San Francisco mayor and long-time California powerbroker. Master of political influence, but under his leadership, the city’s Black population declined sharply due to gentrification, rising housing costs, and weak public safety. Prioritized donor networks and political alliances over actually improving conditions for working-class Black residents.

• Marion Barry (D) – The late D.C. mayor famously said, “Outside of the killings, D.C. has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.” Oversaw corruption scandals and personal disgrace, yet was repeatedly reelected. Under his tenure, crime flourished, schools failed, and D.C.’s Black middle class shrank.

• Cori Bush (D) – Former “Defund the Police” advocate from St. Louis. Championed slashing police budgets while using taxpayer dollars for her own private security. Advocated policies that directly worsened safety in the very communities she claimed to represent.

Pattern: The common thread is a political strategy built on grievance, dependency, and symbolism rather than results. They keep voters angry at a common enemy — Republicans, “the system,” or capitalism itself — but never give them the tools, freedom, or policies that would change their lives. In the private sector, a record like this would get you fired. In politics, it gets you reelected — as long as the talking points keep flowing.

The Big Black Caucus (BBC): Screwing Blacks Since 1971

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) was founded in 1971 with the stated goal of advancing the interests of Black Americans in Congress. More than fifty years later, the results speak for themselves, and they are not flattering.

Lockstep Party Loyalty
CBC members vote with Democrat leadership more than 90 percent of the time, even when those votes go against the clear preferences of their own constituents. Whether it is opposing school choice, backing restrictive gun laws in high-crime areas, or supporting policies that reduce police presence, party loyalty almost always comes before community needs.

Generations of Unchanged Conditions
Many CBC districts have been under Democrat control for half a century. These areas still rank among the worst in education, public safety, and economic opportunity. Yet the representatives in those districts rarely face serious challenges at the ballot box because the party machine protects them.

Kente Cloth Politics
The CBC has become known for symbolic gestures. Kneeling on the House floor in African garb, staging emotional press conferences, or issuing strongly worded statements all make headlines. But symbolism does not lead to safer streets, better schools, or stronger local economies.

Perpetuating the Victim Narrative
By continually framing Black Americans as helpless without government intervention, the CBC keeps voters dependent and fearful of leaving the party. This narrative helps Democrats maintain control but leaves communities stuck in the same cycles of poverty and crime.

Fundraising from Decline
The CBC pulls in millions in donations from unions, political action committees, and corporate sponsors. These funds help maintain political influence but rarely translate into real improvements in the neighborhoods they represent.

The reality is that the CBC’s record is less about progress and more about managing decline. If they were corporate executives, shareholders would have replaced them years ago. In politics, they remain secure not because they deliver results, but because they deliver votes.

Cultural Values: A Mismatch Hiding in Plain Sight

One of the most overlooked realities in American politics is that most Black Americans do not live by the cultural values the Democratic Party promotes. The data have been consistent for decades. Black Americans attend church at higher rates than any other major racial group. They are more likely to cite religion as “very important” in daily life. They express stronger support for traditional family roles, and in many surveys, they are more skeptical of the latest “gender identity” fashions than the national average.

Yet the party they overwhelmingly vote for treats those same values as obstacles to be overcome, relics to be dismantled. In Democrat-led cities, school systems push sexualized content into classrooms in grades where children can barely read. Political leaders champion policies that undermine marriage, reward single parenthood, and frame law enforcement as the enemy — even in neighborhoods where the loudest cries from residents are for more police, not fewer.

This mismatch is not an accident. It’s a calculation. If your policies produce strong, self-reliant families anchored in a moral framework, you don’t get a dependent voting bloc. You get voters who can afford to think independently. The Democratic machine thrives on the opposite — a cycle of broken homes, crime-ridden neighborhoods, and endless “emergency” programs that never solve the emergencies.

It is one of the great political ironies of our time: a community that lives more conservatively than most White liberals continues to empower a party that is actively reshaping the culture in the opposite direction. The numbers are not hard to find.

The gap between what Black Americans believe and what Democrat leadership pushes is not narrowing — it’s widening. And until that contradiction becomes impossible to ignore, the cycle will continue, decade after decade.

Pain by Choice

The most frustrating part of all this is that the cycle is not inevitable. Statistically, more Black voters are leaving the Democrat Party, as shown by the growing support for Trump in 2016, 2020, and again in 2024. That shift is one of the few bright spots on the horizon, proof that some are starting to connect the dots between promises made and results delivered.

But the question remains: how much more pain will it take before the majority wakes up? Every election is a choice, and for decades, many Black voters have chosen leaders who deliver little more than speeches and slogans. At the same time, their neighborhoods remain unsafe, their schools underperform, and their economic opportunities shrink.

Loyalty to a party that repeatedly fails to deliver is not a strategy for progress. It is an open invitation to be taken for granted. At some point, the question has to be asked without apology: when will Black Democrat voters demand better — and be willing to change course to get it?

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