S4 Ep23: Taken for Granted? (with Ashley Allison)

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Focus Secret Podcast. I’m along well, publisher of the Bulwark. And this week, we are talking about how both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are doing with black voters. One of the key reasons that Donald Trump’s polling has been better in twenty twenty four matchups Joe Biden in twenty sixteen or twenty twenty is Trump’s relative strength with black voters. When you only include the major party candidates Bulwark voters voted ninety three percent for Hillary Clinton in twenty sixteen and ninety percent for Joe Biden in twenty twenty, according to the analysis from Data Firm Catalyst.

But now, some polls, including a recent one from the New York Times and Siena College, have Trump pulling in twenty three percent of Bulwark voters. It’s no coincidence that he was beating Joe Biden by five points at the same time overall. That means that there are a small, but meaningful handful of black voters who voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden who are now going with Trump. So, of course, we wanted to understand, straight from these voters, how they were thinking about Trump this time around. My guest today is a big deal with Democratic politics who can help us explore this dynamic further.

My good friend, Ashley Allison, the former National Coalition’s director for the twenty twenty Biden Harris campaign. She was also a senior policy advisor in the Obama White House that led African American engagement in the state of Ohio on president Obama’s twenty twelve campaign. And she is, like, for real, my good friend, because one time we got sent to, like, grown up politics camp together in the woods one time. And it was during Charlottesville, and we became good friends and, super pumped joining me on the podcast right now. Hey, Ashley.

Hey. Thanks for having me.

So I’m super excited for the conversation to wait. Say the thing that you just said me in the before we got on, which is that you used to say you didn’t talk to Republicans, but now I’m your favorite person. Right? So

that was editorialized. Okay. I literally, for years, did not engage with anyone who identified as a Republican. I had to for a little bit around my work because of criminal justice reform, but I was just like, nope. Not gonna do it.

But then you met me and your mind was changed. And then I’m glad we established

an hour. Yes. I’m glad we talk to you.

So you’ve been, like, having this meteoric rise. You’re on CNN all the time now. Like, when I met you, Nobody knew who we were, but you’re, like, famous now. So what drew you to politics in the first place? We’ll just do a quick little bit about you.

I got paid to work on my first political campaign when I was turning thirty. So it was a later entry into the political realm. A lot of people start right out of college. I had always volunteer on social justice efforts and protesting being an activist, but never really knew you can make a career out of working in politics. And then this guy called Barack Obama ran for president, and it is the the the idea of, like, being a community organizer and getting paid and committing your life to, like, working for a greater good, and that was kinda all she wrote.

Because, I mean, it wasn’t like you got paid a lot. But I got paid, and I went back to my home state, and, I was good at it, and I liked it because I was engaging with people and meeting them where they are, which is the thing I always say. And it was fun. And so I have just been doing it ever since.

Awesome. So I wanna jump right in to the group of black voters who voted for Clinton and Biden who say they’re now gonna vote for Trump. A very important caveat, though, before we do this. I’m not saying that what you’re going to hear today is representative of all or even a majority or even a plurality of black voters. But I think this sound does give us some clues as to why the polls look the way they do at the moment.

So let’s listen to how these Trump leading voters talked about why they’re warming up to him after voting for Hillary Clinton and then Joe Biden.

I think he just has an more of an ability to jump start the economy to inject energy into the economy, and that’s really what a lot of us boil down to, for me, I think it’s kind of optimized to, there is no standard or traditional or typical president in a sense.

With him and, Putin from Russia. They had some kind of rapport, and so that’s what keeps us alive without getting bombs, you know, thrown on our country. So it seems like I don’t know. Maybe a gangster knows another gangster and they have respect from one another, but it seems like he was able to get along with them people a little better. And he also pays a lot of attention to where the United States is sending money to.

We tend to send a lot of money overseas, and I remember when they were looking to approve the stimulus package, you know, this is what, a thousand page, act, a thousand page law, He noticed how congressmen and senators were sending money to their own states and stuff. It was so much fat that was in that bill to be passed for us to get that stimulus check.

For me, personally, strongest is the only not the only president to speak against secret societies and what elite people do. They have power above him. But he’s one of the only people that recently speak about it. And he mainly got demonized because he was allegedly the president during COVID. Wish for anybody that wouldn’t be a fair presidency and a fair way to judge because, you know, again, he wasn’t in control.

He was just the face of what they telling him to say.

You know, I didn’t necessarily agree with everything he said and how he went about it, but he did You know, and he did hold the country together during COVID. At the time, I didn’t appreciate it. But he held the country together during COVID, but you have some countries that are still trying to get it back together. That’s why I voted for Kim. A lot of states shut down, and it’s still a struggle.

So when he helped characters on the straight path, So, I mean, I grew up, grew up in the south. And so we were, you know, being black and from the south, you automatic a democrat almost. And so we were trained to bleed it. We voted this person because, you know, this is what was best for us. I think we were sold a, bill of goods.

We were giving a wooden nickel.

Then I voted for Biden because some of the views that I had on Trump in the twenty twenty election I didn’t think was a good idea after, all these years of indictments. And it’s just everybody else in the media made him look like a bad person. And again, it was peer pressure and influence. Now this presidential election being, you know, twenty eight going on twenty nine years old, actually working in the economy, living the economy, being a part of the people that our president is here to serve, to be honest, Trump would honestly be the best choice. And the only reason why I say that is because of the fact that he was president.

He got respect.

I kinda was jumping on the bandwagon with Biden when, it was, like, everybody’s debt was gonna be forgiven for education, and a lot of people are still paying back on student loans. So I just would like for somebody to, to be in leadership that’s gonna stick to their words, whether it’s good or bad, you know, Nobody’s perfect. So I just feel like we are lacking leadership.

Okay. Now a little later in the show, we’re gonna get to another group of Bulwark voters who they’re kinda down on Biden, but they’re still gonna vote for him. But this was the group that had moved away. So, Ashley, do you think that Biden’s trouble and, like, Democrats in general, the trouble with Bulwark voters are overblown, under blown, right on target. What’s going wrong for the dems here?

Okay. I know this is the show about black voters, but I wanna zoom out for a second and say Bulwark voters have voted Democratic since they have been able to vote, really, and have continuously done what they have needed to do to ensure our democracy survives. So there is a frame right now that, like, if Joe Biden loses because of Bulwark people, and I think that is false. If Joe Biden loses, we’re the only demographic of voters that will still vote at a disproportionately higher rate than every other constituency in America, and it still always becomes Bulwark people’s fault. If we decide to have a difference of opinion versus white woman or, you know,

or rural white voters.

Overall white voters. Right? So I want to just say out in front, like, I do not accept the premise that if Joe Biden does not win this fall, particularly if his percentage numbers of black voters decreases, that is black people’s fault that we have Donald Trump as president. So that’s my first premise. The question though you ask is, do you think that the concern about how block voters are feeling about Joe Biden are overblown or not?

When you are running to be the president of the United States, and a demographic that is core to your constituency is a little leak in terms of their support towards you, you should always be concerned. And right now, for a host of reasons, some of which the voters suggested in the focus group, there are some conversations that need to be had in the Bulwark community with the Biden administration, the Biden campaign, that must happen in order for him to be successful. So I do not think it’s overblown. I think it is a solvable. Like, I have a response to every single thing one of those voters says, And the first thing is, like, I would not start with, like, you’re stupid.

You’re voting for Donald Trump. I’m, like, I hear you. Okay. Let’s actually have a conversation. Because when in the world had never won a argument because you yelled louder.

When have that ever worked? So I would have a conversation with these voters and assume they are working off of facts that they have heard, but also present another set of facts that would hopefully over the course of the next eight or so months bring them back to be able to vote for Joe Biden.

So I wanna grapple with that first point you made a little bit about, like, would it be Bulwark People’s fault I heard this loud and clear in the groups is that when there’s a constituency that feels like maybe you take them for granted, which is a thing that just like, you know, thematically was through these groups. I think the part of the reason that people are freaking out is that it’s such a reliable constituency for Democrats that to see this slide and to see this slide per particularly in relation to Donald Trump, who I think for people in DC, they’re like, but this guy is so racist. Why would Bulwark voters like this guy better? It doesn’t make any sense to be, like, make it make sense. But one of the reasons I was really really wanna do this episode, and I really felt like the sound captured it as, like, there’s a whole bunch of reasons these voters kinda lean toward Donald Trump and that they’re specific things that he’s doing where they, like, were making jokes or talked about how he was more accessible.

Like, he felt like he connected with people, talked to them less like a politician, which I mean, if there is a thing I hear from voters just across the political spectrum, but, like, Trump voters, especially They just say, you know, a regular politician is the thing they hate more than anything else, and that Trump doesn’t feel like a regular politician. And so I think that Trump is uniquely able to pull demographics that have historically voted for Democrats that they’re used to relying on but who find Trump sort of like enjoyable funny whatever. Like, what do you think it is about Trump in particular? Do you think I’m off basie or do you think there’s something about Trump that not just black voters, but lots of different demographics of voters that he’s able to connect to that regular politicians can’t.

I I think this is the sixty four thousand dollar question. Right? Like, why is Donald Trump still around? Jake Tepper has this series on, seeing it right now. I’ll call it scandal.

Yeah. And

it’s going through white men, particularly who have done is things and no longer are in politics. They’re like careers are over. And one would think that Donald Trump would have episode on that show, but the problem is he’s not over. He’s still a viable candidate, and it doesn’t make sense. So I think there are a couple of reasons why Donald Trump has become the exception to the rule.

And first is his wealth, whether you believe he has it or not, don’t know if he has five hundred million dollars that he has to pay with state of New York, but he is a wealthy man. Most people I know don’t have their names and gold letters on building. Okay. And Donald Trump has, and he has most of my life. And he also it was introduced to us through a lens of celebrity with, like, a diversity of people.

Like, I remember his picture with Don King, and then I remember him, you know, on the apprentice. So We don’t know him as the politician and kinda his brash persona of not really caring is what allowed him to continue to grow. And I think any variation from that, people would say he’s kinda folding into this typical Washington DC politician, and we just honestly have not had someone like him before rise in politics, and go for it, you know, like at actually go for it. There have been celebrities that run for president, but not with that pedigree and not with the approach that he has. He had no policy.

He had no structure around, his campaign in twenty sixteen. He just used the media in such a way that nobody else has been able to do it. And when you see just like on the practical, practitioner of politics, when people introduce new concepts and ways to win election, think of Barack Obama, his use of social media, they crack a code that others try to model that is hard to model. So I think there is something to that around Donald Trump. I don’t have the answer why he’s so viable.

And if I knew, I would like you know, he’d be gone because I would deploy it.

Well, I think and what you’re saying is you don’t know the antidote, but I think you just, like, totally identified the thing that I think is really hard for people in Washington to get their arms around because we’re like, Trump is a racist human. Like, listen to his words. He is very racist. But because of the celebrity, because of the pictures, here, I’ll try to make an analogy with another that I think people sometimes misunderstand about Donald Trump, which is voters, if you ask them about abortion and Trump, nobody thinks Trump is stream on abortion, even though he put the three Supreme Court justices on

I know.

The court that overturned Roe, they think he’s a social moderate. Why do they think he’s a social Here’s what voters say in the groups are like, I’m pretty sure he paid for an abortion. Yeah. So, like, just think about the celebrity rate, what they know is, well, Trump has black friends. Trump hangs around with black people.

Like, They can be like, I think the Republican Party’s racist, but like, trump, trump’s just a dude, like, who hangs out with, like, lots of black people, and, you know, and is a celebrity. And so it, like, nullifies Yeah. Some of the Washington things that we’re sure voters will respond to, and they don’t respond the way we think we’re going to. In fact, I think we have sound right now where these voters talked about the Republican party and the overtly racist things they say, but don’t, like, tag that to Trump. Let’s listen.

There tends to still be a lot of racism within the public and party. A lot of anti black. I do agree with the Republican party’s stance on as the gentleman said, when he mentioned the bathrooms and the schools, I I said, wow, I’m glad my kids are out of school. I wouldn’t know if they’re going to boys bathroom or girls bathroom. So I’m glad that, you know, recovery can sort of, you know, align with that.

There’s a

lot of racism, but I have experience more discrimination within my own race than I have from people of other races in my life experience. I don’t know what other people go through, but this is some of what I go through even from when I was at my firm to in my business, my greatest challenge has been my own people, women. That have been meaner crueler to me, have discriminated against me and more than than other people and vice of greatest supporters have been people of other races to my surprise.

The faces that represent the different parties, you know, in terms of overall race representation, I think it’s much small on the Republican side. So I think that allows the stereotype to continue. Because me personally, I do think over these years, my experience, I feel like the racism is across politics, and not necessarily just Republicans, you know, but that is something I think in the back of my head is always kinda there. It’s just that that concern of overt racism from the Republican side.

So there were, like, the Republican party is more racist. This is why I’ve mainly voted for Democrats, but you can hear this evolution almost where I always voted for Democrats. I thought the Republican Party was racist, but, like, because Trump transcends that, they’re now able to sort of do a little bit of rationalizing. Uh-huh. Well, but also, there’s racism across the political spectrum.

And so what do you make of this? Like, do you think Democrats are relying too much on the idea that Bulwark voters will just think the Republican party’s racist and don’t realize how much Donald Trump himself transcends some of those sort of old stereotypes about the parties

Yeah. So, again, on the start with saying Donald Trump is a, existential threat to our democracy, and he is extremely problematic because of his racist policies, those he speaks and those he just acts on. Right? And he is unapologetic about it. Not just something about president, like, from his housing discrimination days from his exonerated five at that point, the Central Park five, some of the things he was doing around that.

But I think what people, particularly, but in this instance, in this conversation, Ron DeSantis often do is they do this comparison of, like, I’m not perfect, but this guy is really, really bad. And the reality is is that, like, Most black people, if not all black people, have saved some form of discrimination in their life. Okay? I have stories of the discrimination that my family members from my aunt’s house being set on fire in the seventies in our hometown because they were the first Bulwark family to live there. Two things that I experienced just on Friday, literally.

Okay? And I don’t know if those people were Republican or democrat. But I do know that I experienced racism in this country. And at times, I experienced through the lens of a Republican party. And at times, I experienced it through the lens of the Democratic party.

So to tell me to pick which form of racism is better or worse is a illogical question to ask someone who has systemically experience that in their lives. And I think that is the flaw for many black people who are just, like, I’m not gonna think about it through that. I think you should be thinking about it through that, but some people in this standing have decided not to, And then they go back to the thing of this is an economic issue, which in many of the initial sound that you played, The underlying pinning of all of it was a message of prosperity, whether it was Trump had an economy that was thriving or Trump exposed the secret society, which it transcends race, and it’s about the rich versus the poor. And rich cannot be, like, assigned to race just about like who has had access. Whether it’s about COVID, some states were struggling and some states that stayed open were thriving.

A wooden nickel, one of the brothers said, like, he was like, I feel like I got a wooden nickel, which means, like, it ain’t no good. Right? It’s not gonna work for me or student Monday. And so if I can have that conversation with somebody about the economy, I can get you to Joe Biden, but I do experience some people of color and in this instance, some black people who are saying, please don’t tell me to pick, like, which former racism is worse.

That makes total sense.

It’s all bad. Let’s stop it. You know?

Alright. So speaking of things that, like, felt way people find really racist about Donald Trump that doesn’t quite land the same way with voters is, like, most recently, he was doing this thing where he’s like, well, because I have a mug shot.

A lot of people

will like me more or, like, the gold sneakers. Like, there’s these things he says. And when they hit us here, we’re, like, This is just profound racism straight up. And then when you ask black voters, about the legal cases, There was sort of the general sense that he was being persecuted. And we’re used to hearing Republican voters talk about how the legal system and the establishment are out to get trump.

Like, I hear all the time from the Republican voters. And one key way that the Republicans usually dismiss the case against Trump is by saying that all politicians have skeletons in their closet. Like, Trump is not unique. But let’s listen to how this group of voters and again, this is Bulwark voters who were leaning toward Trump, how they thought about his upcoming cases.

We’re being totally being indicted for all these things. I mean, every single bank right now is violating the guidelines consumer financial protection bureau. And it takes a million complaints before the consumer financial protection Bureau will even get involved. I don’t know who in government is not committing fraud who’s not being crooked, who’s not doing us right. I I don’t really don’t know.

I don’t know why he’s the only one that’s actually being held accountable.

The one year in Atlanta, the Rico case it’s become a circus, and I just think it’s a at this point, a waste of taxpayer money, I can’t imagine retrying him again with a new prosecutor using payer money. Again, this would be the third prosecutor. And to me, I would rather just have it go away than taxpayers pay again to retrial. And then the person who is, as you know, the prosecutor who is trying him, well, now she’s extremely questionable. She’s facing probably worst jets as many Charlie Sykes he is.

Are you able to see the news demonizing somebody? Trying to lock them up just for speaking? The first name is normally right. I mean, I’m Bulwark. So I saw Michael Jackson get killed.

I saw them. Pranks get killed. This by fentanyl, he didn’t even do drugs. I saw Margaret King get killed, afraid, happening about commit Jesus. That’s all kind of people I can So, usually, that person is right in hindsight.

It didn’t matter what he did. They were just gonna bash him anyway. At least It seemed like maybe three fourths of the media. Of course, he had Fox on his side, but it seemed like three to fours of the media was bashing the guy. I’m like, That’s unheard of for somebody to get bashed that hard, and he’s the president of the United States.

So that may be for the red flag in my head that maybe he’s on to something you look into the closet of all those folks, I mean, come on. You’ll find all kinds of stuff. So why he gets all this stuff, and they’re trying to make all this stuff stick That’s a red flag again for me. So it makes me think that that’s just another way they’re trying to keep him out or to shut him down.

So, again, to be clear, eighty three percent of black voters view the legal actions against Trump as appropriate according to a USA to April, But some still believe as you just heard that the legal system is out to get Trump or at least that most politicians are guilty of something. So it’s a little like of the both sides of them. Do you know the S and L Skit where they have Tom Hanks and then, like, two Bulwark women and it’s a game show? It’s like a jeopardy. Totally what I’m talking about.

I yes. Yes.

I rewatched it again recently. I don’t know why it was, like, resurfaced on Twitter or something. It’s a very funny skit. The point that it is making is sort of that there can be this cultural overlap between these sort of white working class trump voters and these working class black voters that actually you think of them as these very different sort of cultures, but I thought of that skit the whole time I was listening to this

group Mhmm.

Because they sound like every two time Trump voting group that I do. Right? The, like, deep state, they are out to get trump with the legal system, the, what about Foddy Will Saletan so I guess I wanna ask you, like, is there a skepticism that you see in the black community of, like, government and the legal system in general that actually does allow people to see Donald Trump. Black voters, in particular, to see Donald Trump as more of a victim of this stuff.

I bet you never thought Fred Hansen would get name drop on your podcast twice in one day. So to your point about two time working class Trump voters and black voters that have skepticism. The reason why Fred Hampton was a revolutionary thinker that was killed was because he was trying to draw the similarities in those two bodies that, like, your suffering doesn’t have to be in isolation and it is rooted in this same belief of the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep suffering. And as long as they keep the poor divided and filling that One is better than the other or that you can’t live and thrive together, they win. And the they in that scenario is Donald Trump.

And so he has tapped into the skepticism that justly exists. We we cannot deny that our criminal justice system Disproportionately incarcerates Bulwark and brown people, but particularly black men and then black women compared to our white counterparts. Like, it is a fact. And so when you use a nugget of truth, but you stored it like Donald Trump does and then be able to begin pull some people off. And that is what Donald Trump is so good at doing.

And we have to push back on it. Like, the reality is if Donald Trump would actually tell the truth, it is not because he has a mugshot that black people are supporting him. That is offensive. That is saying that black people are criminal that black people only are seen and only experienced life through the criminal justice system, and that is not true. But what he is doing is saying, like, look, guys, they’re picking on me too.

I’m one of you, and we know that he’s not one of us. He is the exception to the rule. If Donald Trump was Barack Obama or Donald Trump was me, I would already be in jail. I would not even probably be able to post bond. The thought of having to pay five hundred million dollars, I was telling somebody, like, The concept of what even five hundred million dollars is is absurd.

And the fact that she has to pay that to one state and still is running for president. No black person could get away with something like that. And so Donald Trump kicks that little fliver of truth and says, I’m gonna distort it in my favor. And without having a fact checking media or broader ecosystem, it can get a little traction. On the sneakers’ bit, It’s not surprising that he put out a pair of gold sneakers.

First of all, I think he might get a trademark lawsuit from Christian baton because he put red bottoms on it. I hope he doesn’t. I hope he drags them to court and has takes every little penny of bills with five hundred dollar secrecy ever made. But he went into a subculture. So there’s this new thing now, right?

Like, sneakers are a part of, like, hip hop culture from, the beginning of run DMC wearing Adidas. It’s an evolution of culture that has been, like, very specific to the black community that now has become a larger marketing effort. And, like, people wear sneakers on the house floor now. Like, they have sneaker balls. Like, I wore sneakers.

Last year, I wore Jordan’s, like, gold and black and white Jordan’s to an award, Gala, with a formal gown. It’s a part of, like, culture. And so Donald Trump was like, I’m probably not gonna get every person. And and to be fair, it wasn’t just black people at the sneaker con festival that they have. But, like, I can get some, and you know what?

Nobody else is gonna go there. So let me see if I can do that. It’s not because black people are so caught up in the allure of gold sneakers that they think that is what makes a president, but again, takes a little sliver of culture he manipulates it, still uses it for his own good because all of that is going to his legal defense, and he tries to see if, you know, he throws fish out on the hook and sees if anyone bites. Right? Do I think that will be why Donald Trump wins if he wins in the general election?

No. But again, he runs the gamut of just throwing spaghetti at the wall and sees what sticks. And most people when they throw spaghetti at the wall, they have to clean it up after. Donald Trump ever has to clean it up. He just leaves it.

He leaves the mess for somebody else to clean up, and he goes and he makes another room dirty. And so until we can, like, figure out the intervention, it’d be like, no. Go clean it up. And some of these court cases might be the last backstop. To have him have to clean it up is why some of these cases are so important because it’s a test of our institution if anyone is above the law, including Donald Trump.

And my five way I’ll just make on this is whether the voters was saying that he’s the only one being held accountable. That’s true. Barack Obama, they tried to take that man down, but he did not do anything wrong so they were not able to. Joe Biden, you see right now, they’re trying again after again with attempts to impeachment, but there is nothing there. Joe Biden is not going down.

And not being impeached because the system is working to protect Joe Biden. And what Donald Trump was trying to get you to say is like, yeah. We’re all crook I am a bad guy. Like, he’s acknowledging I do bad things, but everybody does but that’s not true. Everybody doesn’t break the law.

And so you say that to people with the hope that people say like, yeah. Like, everybody does break the law. No. They don’t. Most people don’t break the law.

Particularly black people, most black people don’t break But if you try and feed folks’ belief that I do, then maybe you can carve off a sliver of people. Joe Biden is not being indicted because Joe Biden has not broken the law. Joe Biden is not being impeached because he has not committed an impeachable offense. Donald Trump was impeached because he not just attempted. He almost overthrew the election in our democracy.

And not just that He is saying he will do it again. So if you want to live in an authoritarian country, then support Donald Trump, but if you want your rights and privileges that you are afforded by our constitution, Donald Trump is not your god.

So I agree with that, and I think we should just, like, cut that whole riff out and just, like, release it on its own. But, like, do voters care about whether or not they live in authoritarian country? I mean, this is one of the things that I grapple with all the time listening to all the voters. Because here’s the thing, your first thing out of the gate was, like, I don’t want this to be blamed on black people. Let me tell you what.

For me, I think about the margins all the time. Right? It is the right leaning independence, the soft GOP voters. It’s Hispanic voters, it’s young voters, wherever the margins are. They’re gonna decide this election.

I wanna understand what those margins are and what it’s driving those people to do this. The word authoritarianism, the word democracy in these groups, came up zero times, and it never comes up.

Yeah. So one thing I’ll say is that What I am talking about now is a political practitioner trying to figure out how to solve the problem of Donald Trump. If this was a different type of conversation of just, like, bash Donald Trump, I can do that too. And if you ever want me on the show to do that, I’m happy to do that. I wanna put that because it for a listener, they may be in, like, well, she’s saying Donald Trump is, like, truthful.

No. I don’t think he’s truthful, but I think he is strategic in the way he uses the truth to manipulate people. So this is me saying, like, this is my theory on how to do interventions on Donald Trump. Okay. In the world of the internet, you gotta be clearer sometimes.

Okay. I don’t wanna be real clear on where am I positioning it. Do people wanna live in an authoritarian society act absolutely not. Do people fully grasp what we mean when we say some of these words? I’m gonna short.

So for example, when RBD died, I’ll never forget that night and what that was gonna mean. And I was, like, watching the clock for when it was going to happen. And then when Roe fell and was no longer the law of the land, I cried again. And I remember, like, oh, god. I remember stories.

I grew up with a a mom who still to this day tells the stories that people don’t often want their children to know forced us to watch things so we grew up aware of what we had even though we never might have lived without it. And so now you see women who did not realize what the fall of road would actually mean and actually thought that they were gonna be the recession to the rule. They were gonna be able to go across state lines and pay for their abortion. They were gonna be able to find IVF all the time. And now we have this cascading aspect where it is truly what authoritarians do.

I always say that the Alabama Supreme Court justices and get the memo to wait until let’s see if Donald Trump won to put that IVF decision out. Like, this is the plan all along around the follow-up row is to really take control over women’s bodies. And so if you don’t like that infringement of your right, wait till you live in authoritarianism. And I think there is this thinking that, like, I’m gonna be the exception to the rule that, like, he won’t do the bad things to me. He will.

Donald Trump will do the bad things to anyone that is not him. Or will not fall, kiss the ring and do the thing. So I don’t wanna say, like, people wanna live in renthoritarian world, but I think there is this belief that I can be the exception to Donald Trump’s authoritarian reign. And there is this belief that he’s really not gonna do it, but let me be very clear. In twenty sixteen, there was fear of that, and he showed his hand as a president for four years.

In twenty twenty four, he is saying the quiet part. Wow. He is saying to us, I am going to be a dictator. And I think this is also a little bit of a fault of the the schools is like, we don’t know what it was like to grow up in Venezuela. We don’t know what it was like to grow up in Cuba, these authoritarian places.

And so Without the knowledge of it, it’s hard to really conceptualize what America would look like without a democracy. But it is possible, and we are hanging by a thread And this election cycle is the thing that might be the either the scissor or it’ll be the needle to sew it back together.

Yep. Yep. I wanna play one last brutal bit of sound.

Okay.

Because one key reason for these voters discontent with the Biden Harris administration was the Harris half of the ticket. Let’s listen.

I used to be a Democrat, not anymore, and I’m very disappointed and a vice president. She’s not representing my people very well. If anything, she’s making us a little more lazy, you know, as a African American woman, I had an expectation that she was gonna be in her peas and cubes. To, you know, open up the opportunity for others. But I barely see her.

So she’s representing us as if we’re lazy, oh, how was that supposed to provide an opportunity the rest of us that are actually on top of our a game, those that are actually qualified to be the vice president. Those that don’t mind really putting into work, I barely see her. Even if she’s not lazy, I would expect to see her always gonna tear mercy. This is what’s going on in the economy. This is what I’m gonna do.

I wanna see somebody’s hard work

So when she was in California, I believe, as a prosecutor. And just as far as how, I guess, my people were treated by her, I mean, she was laying the hammer down. Like, she was prosecuting left and right. Mostly my people, were getting prosecuted the toughest. So I didn’t really know what to think about her, but I knew just with her record as a prosecutor.

I just didn’t really see just what she was gonna really bring to the table. So she was just somebody that they got, just to sway the, black vote more so than anything.

If you look back at a record as a prosecutor, how many people were were prosecuted and trumped up Charlie Sykes things put, witnesses that weren’t credible. So, I mean, she wasn’t a critical person from the beginning, so I didn’t think all of a sudden, she was gonna get at this stage of her life and be the most honest person either.

Okay. I’m gonna make this a little bit worse because I would now wanna play from a different group that we did that was Bulwark voters who were gonna vote for Biden and Harris and I wanna play what they said about Harris.

We hardly still see her.

We don’t see her.

Here is she.

I feel like they can’t find her.

I’m glad that Kamala is VP. I hated when he said that he was going to pick a black woman as VP. I wish he would have just done it and said, yo, she is qualified. She is the best person for the job. She’s intelligent.

She’s qualified. She She just has no flair until it’s time to bring up that she went up to Howard. And then all of a sudden, you she has a little playing in her voice. And, like, even when she shared her cooking for thanksgiving. It didn’t look like there was much seasoning.

I did hear that she had a history of helping, certain people in California, Bulwark Mills in particular, she helped that percentage go up with incarceration.

She’s qualified. She’s very intelligent and sure she has a shaking background with some of the things that she’s done in the community. But if Shitty was such a qualified candidate, that it just felt like kind of fishing for votes early. Like, hey, I’m gonna put another black person in the office versus, hey, I have a qualified VP who happens to be a

black So one of the reasons I was dying to have you on this is because I know you will talk to me for real about this problem because listen. The favorite parlor game in DC or just out there is okay. Biden is an old, old man. Mhmm. She says vice president becomes much more important.

And she is even less popular than he is. And I guess I’ve been pretty surprised. This is not the first time we’ve done groups of black voters. And this thing of where is Kamo Harris? That was the first time I heard somebody be, like, it makes us look lazy.

I’ve never heard that before. I think that was just a very specific opinion of that one person. But, like, the where is she is constant, including from, like, white lips who really love her and are rooting for her, So the parlor game is people being like, can we replace Kamala Harris on the ticket? To which everybody says no because it will alienate Bulwark voters, especially black women who are, like, the core of the core. Is that true though?

I mean, I have just, like, surprised listening to these voters how much they’re not into Kamala Harris?

Man, Sarah. If you have more time, I would tell you how hard it is to be a black woman in America.

Are you saying that in terms of how it’s hard for Kamala? Like, she’s not getting a fair shake, you think?

No. She’s not getting a fair shake, and nobody expected her to because that’s what happens when you make history, in particular, when you make history as a black woman. I’m not giving Kamala Harris a pass. I think that every person, when you ascend to a certain level of success, you deserve to be scrutinized. But the reality is for most presidents, Obama, to don’t even know who George Washington’s vice president was.

He was the first president of the United States. I mean, we don’t think about it. Who was Abraham Lincoln’s vice president? Who was JFK’s vice president?

I did not know there was gonna be a test.

We don’t know. You know why? Because you don’t see the vice president because that is their role. They are the vice for a reason. They are a sill in when the president is unable to hold a certain scope of work.

So it’s a thing. I do think John Adams was the VP of Washington, and I’m pretty sure of that.

I also think you might have just googled. Don’t you? Like, I’m not saying this to, like, say, we should know. I’m just saying that, like, It’s just this thing of, like, there’s this expectation that people put on her that was unfair because when you are a history maker, you expect them to make history in every day occurrences of the role. But the problem is, and this is the thing that most people don’t say when they’re like, well, where is if Kyle Harris on day one came out and tried to over shine Joe Biden, What do you think the narrative would have been about her then?

An aggressive, loud, mouth, black woman doesn’t know her place. So it’s like, she had to learn the role. She had to figure out how to support the president, which is what ultimately the job of her vice president is. He got some of the hardest portfolios that no president let alone vice president has been able to solve. She didn’t run away from him.

She took him like a g. She said, I’m up to the challenge. I’m gonna try. If she would have been like, no, no, no, I don’t want, then we would have been like, she’s lazy. So I think that there is this narrative that never gave her space to succeed.

I also think there were other candidates that could have been selected as vice president that people just might not have wanted it to be Kamala. And so I think that there are, like, different backends of why people are not falling over themselves to support Kamala Harris. And I think one of the main reasons is because she’s a black woman. Because it’s actually funny. The one voter that said the thing about her being lazy was the same voter who said the thing about having more discrimination from black women than other people from other race.

There’s a trend there if you actually listen to that voter’s comment. Not saying she doesn’t have the right to her opinion. Fine. I’d be happy to have a conversation with that voter and really dig a little deeper. But what I will say is that I think the vice president has found her stride.

I think she has realized that Washington DC is not where she is going to win this election. It’s gonna be out talking to voters. So she has said since Roe, and she is uniquely positioned to talk about some of the issues that are front and center in our country whether it be social issues or whether it be economic issues. Who better to talk about what it means not to have a constitutional, right, than a woman? Because of the follow row.

So she has been out. She has when I last talked to her team, it was, like, thirty seventh date at this point, it’s probably almost in the high forties, traveling, having round tables talking to physicians, talking to women around the culture wars at Ron DeSantis. She’s been going out tell saying, like, you won’t erase our history. So I think she has found her stride. I think she needs to just continue to be out having conversations with people tackling the tough issues.

She did something that people in our base, Bulwark people, young people, Arab American Muslim, she called for an immediate ceasefire. On the foot of the Edmund Petice Bridge, where Bulwark people were beaten for wanting to have a democracy, she called for an immediate ceasefire, not after Joe Biden did, but she led the way on that. And I hope she gets credit for doing that. But people go silent when she does good things. And that’s when there is this phrase we have in the progressive and democratic space that maybe your audience has heard or not, but it’s like trust black women.

Stand with black women. The origin story around that was actually Plus block women to make choices about their own reproductive freedom. And now it has become kinda, a rallying cry about, like, we can make choices about our body and we also can make choices for our community to be better. And I think Kamala Harris is leaning into that. It’s hard to be the first.

I don’t think she will be the last. I support her. I have met with her many times. I remember working with her on the campaign. She’s One thing no one should ever say about that woman is that she’s lazy.

She has run the second largest department of justice in California She took Brent Kavanaugh out of task. Like, she has done the thing. She is not lazy. She is capable. She is competent.

And I look forward to seeing what’s in the future for her. Should she be held account as a vice president? Absolutely. Just like everyone, should she be held to a double standard? No.

But that’s what we do for women and leadership.

Okay. That was a stirring defense of vice president Harris and Sure. So, like, you do not think she should be replaced on the ticket. I’m so annoyed with that. Okay.

We’re facing down this huge threat, and she’s not popular. I mean, I guess, you say she was given this lousy portfolio. Like, the tough issues immigration, And, like, even these voters, they didn’t like the idea of just putting her out there as, like, the black vice president or, like, the woman. Mhmm. I hear that from a lot of Trump voters too.

They do not like it when things are made about race or made about gender.

Right.

But I guess, like, how should they deploy her? How should she deploy herself? Like, when you say that this, you know, she called for the ceasefire, I did have the reaction of, like, Is that sanctioned? Like, like, what’s the choreography of this? Is this that she is meant to speak to a constituency in the Democrat party that Joe Biden literally just came

to do

because but listen to this. Joe Biden called for gay marriage before Barack Obama did. I remember it. And people looked at Joe Biden, like he was a cavalier who stood for justice. And I fundamentally believe because Joe Biden was a white man.

Bucking and going ahead of the Bulwark president. Kamala Harris did something before the president did it, and people The only people I see really saying like, wow, she did that are black people on Twitter. And this is what I mean, the double standard of leadership for women, but particularly black women in leadership. Where is the support in saying She stood in her truth, she stood in her power and did it. Do I think that Joe Biden probably is gonna call first ceasefire in the state of Union?

Most likely, because I think Carmel Harris has shown herself to be a vice president that always aligns with where the president is as most vice presidents do, but there still is just this, like, We remember that day, and it moved the president, and we were grateful in that moment that Joe Biden did that to get Obama where he needed to be. I’m grateful Kamala Harris did that because if Joe Biden is not there, hopefully, that will get him to where he needs to be. But where’s the defense of her? Alright.

I hear you. I hear I just let you know.

I don’t like to talk about it through an emotional. I really do like to talk about it through, like, actual experiences because I have said since November that she should get out ahead of the president because I think she was there already. But she didn’t. And so she didn’t get credit for supporting him. But now that she is doing the thing that the majority of her voters have asked her, still and it’s just like, can the woman win?

I don’t think this is the campaign’s responsibility, but as someone who is a believer in having leadership that is representative of our population, it’s my responsibility to call that hypocrisy out in people and be like, why did you do it for Joe Biden, but not for her. That is what we’re talking about when we say, like, there’s a double standard in leadership, and it’s hard to be a black woman in leadership.

I can absorb and understand and even give credence to the frustrations and yet Let’s just say hypothetically that he had a cheerful, softball coach like lesbian is a vice president. Okay? And I felt deeply connected to her.

Yeah.

If that softball coaching lesbian was so deeply unpopular, and we were up against Donald Trump. I think I would still be like, sorry. She’s she’s gotta go. Like, What do you do about the fact that voters

Yeah.

Like, the why doesn’t matter. Like, what matters is how do you beat Donald Trump? And if she’s not the best person to help do that, I mean, there’s nothing to be done at this point, but I think this is Yeah. This is the thing I think people wrestle with.

I don’t think that, like, changing your vice president is the thing that is going to beat Donald Trump. Yeah. It’s Joe Biden that will beat Donald Trump. And we can contort ourselves into pretzels to blame Kamala Harris if Joe Biden loses. Like, when Hillary Laws, Did we blame Tim Cain?

No. Maybe it’s Joe Biden’s a thousand years old. Like, that’s the why it matters more of who his vice

president Sure.

So I

think there’s just this highlight. Okay. I wanna close with this broader discussion about these democratic leaders. So, again, we’re all pretty much gonna vote for Biden. Mhmm.

And

as much didn’t really like Trump or Biden. They did think that Trump was pretty funny, and they had, like, the same complaints as the Trump leaners. What’s also to that?

I think Trump just feels younger physically with Biden. It’s the like, the mumbling and not sure if he’s like sleep. That’s the type of thing. Also, like, when Trump is speaking, because he speak with his hands, it feels more active. He’s more animated.

So that feels younger to me. So plus, you know, you know, the spray tan helps. Freight can’t help. You know? No.

Orange is the new black just joking joking.

Stop shucking and jiving for black boats every four years. Like, I’m older than most of the folks on this panel. And this has been going on for decades where they don’t think they don’t hear they don’t know anything about us. They don’t, you know, have anything to say to us until it’s time to vote. And it’s like, Hey, come on, black people.

Someone said earlier fall in line, and that’s exactly what they expect.

What I feel is that with the Democratic Party, it seems like all the things that they want for the people, like, the student loans, like, you know, that was gonna be a a key point. They never have funding anymore. But when a Republicans run and they’re in charge, there is always funding for everything that has nothing to do with helping people in the Democratic or in that, like, blue collar workers. It’s always oh, they have funding for businesses. They have funding for war.

They have funding for this, but then when Democrats say, Hey, let’s help the people. Let’s do this. They’re like, oh, sorry. Bill doesn’t pass. Can’t help you.

I just remember, but I didn’t say, if you don’t vote for me, you’re not Bulwark, or if you’re black, you have to vote for me. Hey, I it’s it’s too much. And for me to to, you know, be in in in the same place, I don’t wanna curse, but it’s just like what do they want us to do? This could not be our options again. Democrats are, weak.

I think that they don’t speak up when they should. They don’t fight like they should. They don’t represent the Democratic party is they, like, just get deboned, if you know, the movie Friday. They get ran over. They don’t stand up.

They don’t bolts when they should. They don’t fight like they should. Like, I am so disappointed with the student loans with them. I’m just it They don’t have enough.

I think I’d be more likely to not vote than switch parties, but I think that the expectation that, oh, black people are gonna fall in line. Women are going to fall in line. Most Americans are gonna fall in line. Asian Americans are gonna fall in line, so I can just give them the barest of their minimums. And they’ll just do what I what we expect them to do.

That is frustrating.

So they were like, I’m gonna vote for Biden. Like, yeah. Like, against Trump, I will. But they just sounded just like the other group in terms that they take us for granted, And I’m frustrated with the weakness. There was a lot of concern about this is one of my least favorite Joe Biden policies, but the student loan forgiveness, people were upset that that ultimately didn’t go through got overturned by the Supreme Court.

So, like, this is your job. You’ve got a tough one. As the political practitioners, to help voters who feel this way feel like it’s worth voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It’s like, how are you gonna do that going into twenty twenty four?

So When you put up Joe Biden against Donald Trump, like, what I heard in those voters is that they wanna fight her. And what I also know about Donald Trump is that he will break the law. Donald Trump did things that his base really loved, like, putting a citizenship question on the twenty twenty census in an effort to most people believe put fear in immigrant communities to identify where people were. The Supreme Court overturned that too. What Donald Trump has introduced is like this prerogative to fight in a way that, like, breaks the law that I don’t want the Democrats to go to that love I think that that is where you begin the slippery slope of breaking the law, destroying the constitution and going into authoritarianism.

That’s my first take on that. My second thing is, again, I would love to have a conversation because I too really like I know you are fan of it, but I love the student loan debt for forgiveness program. I pray one day that I become a chosen one. I mean, they find that is forgiven from law school. It was overturned by the Supreme Court, but the reality is even since that decision, tens and hundreds of thousands of peoples debt has still been canceled because the Department of Education has figured out a way to still proceed within the parameters of the law.

The way democracy works is they’re right. Like voting rights, George Floyd, Justice, the policing act, all those things were stopped. It was stopped because we didn’t have enough votes to get it done. In the senate. The way we can change that is, like, either elect senators who will actually get rid of the filibuster that we don’t need to meet a sixty vote threshold, or elect more senators to get to sixty that would vote for that to be locked.

We just don’t have that the systems will put in place for various reasons. We don’t have time. That’s a whole another podcast conversation. But they are put in place so that progress is slow. It’s like they literally they’re like, we don’t want the societal infrastructures to swing so fast in a pendulum.

That’s why the center is structured that way. So if you want, progress to be expedited, you have to engage in the democracy in all different levels. And so what I hear those folks say is They want a fighter who was going to figure out how to get it done. And really, the way to get it done is that you can’t have the president up there by himself, without the majorities, without enough votes to pass the legislation. You can’t have a president up there without governors who will accept the funding to improve the quality of schools, to improve the quality of your roads, like what’s happening with the infrastructure bill.

You can have a state legislator and play said, like, in my home state when you actually pass a valid initiative that codifies abortion and the constitution that then does everything they can to prevent the will of the people. So I often say, like, yeah, I wanna fight her too, but the only way I can get a fighter that I set the people up to win once they get in the ring. And right now, the reason I properties to go down is because we don’t live in a Mona Charen the president doesn’t have total rule. And so the same reason why Trump has to be held accountable is the same reason why you can’t leave president sitting alone because he doesn’t govern by decree. He governs by the will of the people, and there are people all throughout our government infrastructure that have to be aligned with the president’s vision to actually give the people what they want.

And we just haven’t seen and haven’t in a very long time. If ever, maybe.

Ashley Allison, my friend. Thank you so much for your insight and coming on and talking this through. And thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the Focus Secret Podcast. We will be back next week where we’re covering another US Senate race, the Republican primary in Ohio. You will wanna miss it.

See you guys.