FOR SOME VOTERS, THE CHOICE IN 2024 MAY NOT BE AS OBVIOUS AS YOU THINK

One of Donald Trump's policy proposals for a second term is this:

Trump ... said he would require police departments nationwide to implement a controversial policy called “stop-and-frisk,” a police tactic of detaining and searching civilians for weapons and contraband items, even though the tactic was deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge in New York in 2013 and faces widespread criticism for discriminating against people of color....

And yet:

In [a] GenForward survey released on Tuesday and shared first with POLITICO, nearly 1 in 5 Black Americans, 17 percent, said they would vote for former President Donald Trump....

It ... represents a significant jump for Trump among Black voters overall. During the 2020 presidential election, AP VoteCast found Trump won 8 percent of Black voters, versus 91 percent voting for Biden.

We're told that more Black men than Black women are backing Trump.

“It is possible, and we’ve seen it before, that a higher number, in particular Black men because of a kind of hypermasculinity of Donald Trump, could vote for Trump [again],” said Cathy Cohen, the founder and director of the GenForward project and a University of Chicago political science professor.

(Professor Cohen said this; I didn't. Although you might not guess it from her surname, Cohen is Black.)

She adds that this figure might be balanced out by the number of Black women, often thought of as the backbone of the Democratic Party’s multiracial coalition, who support Biden at higher rates than Black men.

It may seem surprising that a significant number of Black men would back a presidential candidate who promises to require police forces to pursue policies historically targeted at Black men -- but I wonder how many of these Trump supporters know that Trump has made this promise. The Biden campaign ought to mention it sooner or later -- but will that happen? Biden has tried to position himself as an opponent of progressive police critics and a champion of the cops. I suspect he might never bring it up.

This brings to mind Biden's handling of the issue of abortion. Biden talks about reproductive rights, but his heart never seems to be in it. In response to the Texas Supreme Court ruling that Kate Cox is not entitled to an abortion under state law, Oliver Willis is correct:

I see no response from the president on the White House website, none on the Biden-Harris campaign site, none at the @POTUS Twitter/X account, and none at the @JoeBiden Twitter/X account.

You might think this idea from a few days ago was unserious:

Joe Biden travel to Texas on Air Force One, collect this poor woman, and fly her to a free state to receive a safe abortion challenge. https://t.co/YbDmftBgpW

— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) December 8, 2023

But it would have shown pro-choice voters who's on their side in this fight. I hope they know.

I'm a good liberal with a degree from a fancy-schmancy college, so I know I'm supposed to think that political grandstanding is gauche and unseemly, but I think of how Greg Abbott has been grandstanding on immigration for the past year and I see no downside for him -- he's gaining fans and he's influencing policy in his preferred direction. (New Yorkers think there are too many immigrants now! Mission accomplished!) So maybe grandstanding is good, and the stunt Beutler proposed would have been a good idea.

*****

UPDATE: Here's a statement from the White House. The Biden/Harris campaign's "rapid response" team put up some social media posts last night after 8:00 or so. That's good, but it's not a rapid response.