When ABC’s Jonathan Carl recently told Charlamagne tha God that “Trump got one out of every three voters of color,” the author and The Breakfast Club radio show host seemed legitimately shocked, responding, “No… really?” It was a remarkably honest revelation of just how blind even the so-called cultural tastemakers are to the politics of their own presumed constituency. It just proves that being Black, on the air, or sought out for your opinion doesn’t mean that you know the temperature of the public. Charlamagne clearly didn’t know.
Whether it was Hillary Clinton popping out with her I-keep-it-right-here-in-my-purse hot sauce pandering, Joe Biden telling folks “You ain’t Black” if they vote for Trump, or Kamala Harris cackling about inhaling the substance she put Black men in prison for, many pulse-moments have happened on Charlemagne’s show—yet, he didn’t call them out in real time. He played along. You see, it’s not enough to double-back after the public backlash has had its way with the world and posture as if you’ve been on ‘team common sense’ the whole time, any more than it is to be a Democrat pundit on CNN hunting a new job due to poor ratings.
Identity lives at the root of racism, slavery, ethnocentrism, and even that institutional marginalization that infects life within the carceral state. Trade your family name in for a number and tell me if you still feel like yourself when you haven’t heard your first name called in three decades. Talent, intelligence, skill, artistry, and brilliance know no color, and if Ibram X. Kendi taught us anything, it’s that race is a man-made concoction of hubris and fear laced with a power that can only thrive when stupid people stack themselves up to become a human staircase for others to climb in the vapid name of a throne built for demagogues. There can be no categorization of anyone without compliant someones.
It should be telling that every leftist pundit—every one—told their dwindling audience of snowflakes Trump would lose and that the polls reflected a close race. Have you forgotten what the world looked and sounded like two weeks ago? If you’re a leftist fretting over the election and looking to the ladies of The View, the talking heads on CNN, MSNBC, or any of the legacy media outlets like ABC, CBS, or NBC for solace, you won’t find any. The mainstream media is like three people who just jumped off the sinking Titanic fighting over the last life vest. The best blamer survives. They still can’t fathom how or why 47 million people watched Trump on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Ratings are a real metric—weighted polls are just bad commercials framed as news.
I’m not sure who to feel more sorry for—the hosts who act surprised that Kamala lost in a landslide and fake-blame the voters of color for selling out, or their lemming viewers who swim so deep in the Kool-Aid that they couldn’t see it coming. One thing is for sure: Charlamagne got exposed by Carl in a most unmitigated way that belies his supposed awareness of the electorate and the pulse of Black culture. He was legitimately surprised by the one-in-three data point, and it was caught on camera for all to see. Remember that moment when the next pandering politician gets booked on The Breakfast Club trying to bait the Black vote. If so many Black media personalities can be so wrong and surprised by the very electorate they program content for, why would anybody presume to think race has anything to do with voting?
It’s the economy, stupid.
Thanks Ghostwrite Mike for posting this refreshing article on the Vanguard.
Yes, Democrats didn’t know how to read the room and never saw the Red Wave coming.
If anyone wants a good chuckle go back and read the comments on the Vanguard articles posted before the election.
So many Kamala Harris koolaid drinkers got it all wrong.
Well Nate Silver’s gut feeling that Trump would win was RIGHT even though he picked Kamala by a slim margin on the day of the election.
Nate should’ve went with his gut.
Well, well, well, Mr. Olsen. Suprised to see you commenting here…not. Not all of us were drinking the Kamala Koolaid. I was hoping that she would win, but my rational mind said no. What troubled me was the gaslighting by the democratic establishment attempting to convince us independent thinkers that Joe Biden’s cognitive and analytical abilities were top-tier. I watched in dismay as Ashley Williams (Oval Office Operations Officer), Annie Tomasini (White House Chief of Staff), and Anthony Bernal (Jill Biden’s Chief of Staff) act as gatekeepers for our President Biden who is obviously suffering from dementia and possibly Altzheimers. However, there is the issue of class warfare which is alive and well in America. We have demonized undocumented people and attempted to blame all of our problems both foreign and domestic on them. With proposed appointees like the Islamaphobic Elise Stephanic from New York and the sleazy Matt Gaetz recommended to head the DOJ, your guy Trump is about to show the American people exactly who and what he is. It’s going to be a long and entertaining 4 years. But the struggle for freedom, justice, and equality for all people will never stop.