The decline of Black churches and independent media is impacting American politics

Introduction

The 2024 presidential general election is looming large now that Donald Trump has all but vanquished the remaining putative opposition that he faced from people like Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis.

But at this point, many Black Americans are still not very satisfied with President Joe Biden and many Democrats as well, even if they may not like Trump. So here at Theory of Change, we’re doing a mini series on Black Americans and their political views. If you missed the first episode of this series with Steven Robinson, which focused heavily on the Democratic Party and what it is or is not doing correctly for Black Americans, be sure to check that out.

This episode is going to focus on some of the larger trends. And there are some unique and interesting dynamics at work compared to other racial demographics. One of them is that Black Americans who are less religious are also slightly more likely to be Republican. And that is the inverse of White and Asian groups, where those who are more religious are more likely to be Republican.

So why is that? Well, we're going to discuss that on today's episode, and then we'll also take a look in this discussion at the state of Black media in America.

For the longest time, much of the media that Black Americans consumed, in newspaper format especially, was via outlets that were locally owned and operated, in some cases originally by churches. As Black media, like all forms of media, have become increasingly conglomerated, there is the question of what effect that is having on Black Americans, both in terms of their awareness of local news, but also in terms of their awareness and concern about national matters.

Joining me to discuss are two guests: Tyson Jackson is the COO of Black With No Chaser, an independent media website, and we’re also joined by Marcus Johnson, who is a graduate student at American University in Washington, DC.

The video of this episode is available. The conversation was recorded February 8, 2024. The transcript of the audio follows. The transcript of the audio is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the complete text.

Cover photo: Worshipers at the St. James A.M.E. Church in Newark, New Jersey. December 19, 2018. Edwin J. Torres/New Jersey Governor’s Office.

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Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

04:28 — How independently owned media outlets shaped and informed Black public opinion historically

09:29 — As Black media has become nationalized and conglomerated, it has become less political

14:08 — How many Black elites became co-opted by social systems and policies that harm most Black people

19:31 — Did Barack Obama’s rise impact Black political opinion and organizing?

25:51 — Black churches provide a shared social narrative, in addition to inculcating theological views

33:51 — Less religious Black Americans are more likely to be Republican, a big difference from non-religious people of other races

36:06 — Kanye West and the potential appeal of reactionary Christian supremacism to some Black Christians

46:29 — Will Black conservatives ever “come home” to the Republican Party?

48:50 — Right-wing groups are flooding the internet with content starring reactionary Black people while the left is doing almost nothing in response

54:14 — Republicans are using “voter depression” in concert with voter suppression to win elections

Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been corrected. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: Welcome gentlemen, thanks for being here.

MARCUS JOHNSON: Thanks for having us.

TYSON JACKSON: Glad to be here.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. All right, so there's a lot to talk about here, and as I mentioned in the intro, I think there's a lot of recriminations out there in the progressive side media about, well, Joe Biden's doing this or that wrong with Black voters, or he is doing this or that right. And the reality is that there's bigger forces at work here. And I think [00:04:00] there's all this attention that's constantly, the national press is sending out reporters to tell us what the rural White people think in Ohio and Iowa. And there's not a lot of reporting going on, ‘well, what are the larger factors at work in terms of Black Americans’ political views?’

And some of that is related to the fact that Black Americans, the media that they are using is different and has changed over time, especially with the decline of newspapers.

How independently owned media outlets shaped and informed Black public opinion

SHEFFIELD: So Tyson, let's maybe go to you first and then we just tell us about, how independent Black media has sort of falling, dying on the vine here in a lot of ways.

JACKSON: Absolutely. And I think as you mentioned or even talked about, if we think about even some of the origins of Black media coming from church basements and understanding the first printing presses that we had were the printers at the churches for us to disseminate our news, and some of the oldest Black newspapers were started in those church basements, to where we are now with the decline [00:05:00] of Black media being a primary source of information in the African-American communities, to looking at how digital platforms, such as Black With No Chaser and other avenues in the digital forefront, or how we are getting our information nowadays, and I would say to the detriment, if you will, of some of those older Black newspapers and older Black publications who were not able to change when things moved to the digital format.

Now we're looking at the diversity that's out there, but also a huge void of information that we can trust, and understanding where the information is coming from.

So it's interesting to see kind of how things are shaping up and how we have the older generations, myself, I'm a millennial, but we have from the Baby Boomers and Generation X, still clinging to some of the more traditional media sources, to Millennials, Gen, Z, and then beyond, are more into the digital formats, which are kind of, in many different areas where they're getting the information from.

SHEFFIELD: [00:06:00] Yeah. Well, and then also there's been just this real conglomeratization of Black media that's happened over time. So whether that is just the decline and death of many local Black newspapers, that's happened. But then it's also been the case that some of the more national platforms like BET have been absorbed into giant companies like Viacom or Paramount, I guess as it's known now.

 And that's had some political ramifications as well because these companies tend to be either, deliberately apolitical, or in some cases conservative, whether that's with the media owned by Armstrong Williams, who is a Black conservative Republican consultant and also a media owner. And I don't know how you square that, but hey.

And then you've got people like Byron Allen who were kind of just as apolitical as you could possibly be. And he bought up a lot of of Black digital outlets. So he owns the Grio if I remember right.

And then he owns a, a [00:07:00] couple of other shows as well. And . I, he had a sitcom, I don't know if it's on the air anymore now, but it was called Black President that kind of, it was ba it was basically like, sort of, well what if there was a sitcom version of Barack Obama? Did you ever see that one?

JACKSON: He's had a sitcoms that were Byron Allen-ish.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, so, Marcus, before we get into your your research on this, did you have anything you wanted to add in terms of Black independent media, and how that might have affected things in your view?

JOHNSON: I do see the same trends that you guys see that the internet and kind of the digital revolution has really changed and kind of fragmented the media space.

A lot of these smaller newspapers have either gone out of business or been bought up and you don't see the, local newspapers that are related to, Black communities bringing issues that matter to those communities, to the forefront. A lot of news has been nationalized, [00:08:00] it's national trends and a lot of these smaller communities, a lot of these Black communities just, I don't want to say have been left behind, but their views and their opinions and the things that matter to them don't necessarily align with what gets mainstream coverage.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, a similar thing happened in a lot of rural areas, regardless of whatever racial demographic was living in them, that, like I used to live in, rural Missouri and where I lived it was mostly White, but you know, we had one newspaper in the county, and it was a weekly newspaper and it was the county seat of the county. Like there was all kinds of stuff going on, but you, would never know because they couldn't afford to print anything and they didn't, they had like almost no advertising. But we were lucky, if you live in, in, parts of Mississippi or Alabama, you don't have any newspaper in your community.

You've got nothing telling you what's going on. Other than if you happen to catch something on your friend's Facebook that they're mad at some school district [00:09:00] b******t or whatever. That's the reality that a lot of people are living in. Because stuff that is either kind of numerically, percentage-wise smaller, it's just going to be slipping through the cracks. And then at the national level, that's also true, with whether that it's, you're talking about a racial demographic that's a smaller percentage. People are like who cares? I can't make money off that.

As Black media has become nationalized and conglomeratized, it has become less political

SHEFFIELD: As the national Black media has become conglomerated, it's also become more entertainment focused as well. So like back in the day, BET was had a lot of news coverage, especially in the presidential year, they were more likely to have stuff.

Right. But that's, kind of gone to a large degree now. And and I guess and that, that's something that I, you've you have known somebody Tyson who has experienced that as well. You want to talk, tell us about that?

JACKSON: Yeah, [00:10:00] so in, in thinking about it, just kind of BET and then thinking of the Black News Channel as it came, and even BET and it's different iterations. It, it first came out as a balance, if you will, to MTV, which was more about the music and the entertainment aspect of things. And as we become more politically astute in the African American community, you saw more news coming up because it was a demand that was coming from our communities.

But as anytime as, is what we see throughout history, anytime we're, giving these tools where we are enriching ourselves and becoming enlightened, those tools are seen either taken away from us or diluted in many different ways. So I see that with BET as it, as things became more political, for us and we began to express our political views those avenues and where we are getting the information went away.

But even in the terms of a Black news channel of thinking through, and I remember we. My wife and I, [00:11:00] we, met someone from Black News Channel before Black News Channel launched, and they told us that, they've been trying to get this going for 16 years. So all that time in between there to where they are now to you get shot Con who comes in who has no interest whatsoever in the Black community, puts money into it and gets it going and then takes it away that, that ends up for us, a huge void ends up in the community of where we're, where the information that we we're getting from there and where we're getting it from now with those things happening.

So it's kind of, you see the rise and fall of this and now as you even talked about, just kind of that delusion of Looting the information. Well now it's more entertainment. Now it's more World Star hip-Hop. It's more the Shade Room where this information is coming from. We're seeing important things that are happening in the world, being.

Reported to us by these sites that also have some of the most salacious things that you can see out there about African Americans or about anything [00:12:00] going on, period. That you have this men in between the two. So what is real, what's not real and what's exploiting us and what's benefiting is kind of the question that I'm left with.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. And then, and I think it's also, even when you look at some of the people who are now nationally prominent in, what you could at least technically call, Black news whether that's, like, I mean, Charlamagne, the god, I mean like .

This, a dude doesn't even use his real name. That I think in a nutshell, just that right there, shows you that this is not news. Like this is not Tom Joyner.

JACKSON: Right. I mean, for what it's worth, the Breakfast Club, which, you, get Charlamagne to come from.

. Has turned out to be pretty pivotal. And when it comes to just discussing things that are going on in our community and and, the entertainment aspect of it is there, but they're also they bring in a lot of people that we need to hear from as well too. There has been some really [00:13:00] dynamic interviews on this show, and Charlamagne, even though going by a fake name or, a name that's made up there and not his real name has contributed to the discourse that I think that is needed in some ways.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. I, yeah, I'm not going to say he's, he is all bad, but it's, I get, I don't know. To me he reminds me more of like a Black Howard Stern than because Howard Stern, Howard Stern had politicians come on his shows all the time. . And journalists. So that's, because like, and he did some good stuff.

I can't take that away from him. In addition, I think it's kind of like

JACKSON: the Daily show if you'll, and the Daily Show for . It broke the mold when it comes to politics of us learning about things. But it did it in a way that entertained us. It did it in a way that brought us to the conversation with laughs and, not just something that's so heavy and serious.

But then John Stewart was able to introduce us to many different people who have a different take on how politics should be delivered and how that news should be delivered. Yeah. Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Okay. Well, I think that's a fair [00:14:00] point. you don't want to have only that. Yeah.

You got anything you were thinking on that Marcus this topic. Well,

How many Black elites became co-opted by social systems and policies that harm most Black people

JOHNSON: Part of this to me speaks to like a broader trend of kind of, a lot of Black elites have been kind of co-opted into Profit-seeking and rent-seeking versus doing what's best for the Black community, even if it means that you don't necessarily make a profit.

And I think that part of this trend of infotainment or entertainment as, news is part of the rent-seeking process where, news isn't necessarily as profitable as it maybe used to be. Some of the other types of education maybe aren't as profitable as they can be.

And we have elites who are seeking out different ways to make money versus different ways to help out and improve the community. And I, think it's, a, a real problem for the Black community in that we have pushed kind of [00:15:00] this idea that, well, you just have to, make it, and it's kind of this individualized idea versus how can we help the community?

What things can we do to improve education, to improve healthcare, to improve access to different types of resources, and instead as well, this different artist got this car, or this different person said this on the Shade Room or on this Instagram or Twitter or whatever. So, I think it's really an indictment on some of the Black or really the whole class of, Black elites that we've kind of turned away from revolutionary ideas and ideas that can really improve the wellbeing of the community towards ideas that can or kind of a narrative that you need to seek individualized gain that you need to be able to try to get the newest car or the newest house or whatever.

So, I think that's a, I think part of this entertainment trend in media is really a, microcosm or kind of [00:16:00] a symptom of this larger issue that we have with Black leaders with, kind of taking a path that isn't beneficial to the broader group.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And, let me just say, I'm going to cut this out, but like, anytime, like whenever the other person's done talking or anybody's done talking, like if you want to just jump in when, say whatever you want feel free to.

So, yeah. So I'll let you respond to that Tyson if you want, and then we can move on if you don't.

JACKSON: Yeah. Well, and hearing and thinking about like, when we started Black With No Chaser our first iteration that we did a couple of blogs and trying to get going. But right before Black With No Chaser came about, we had a blog called Emmett Trill.

And so it combines Emmett Teal's thing with Trill, which is a, southern rap slang for something means too real, I guess, and trill. But so Emmett Trill and, but we were covering at that time from Trayvon Martin to to Mike [00:17:00] Brown, to the other police killings, extrajudicial police killings that were happening in the African-American community.

We started covering that and it got really heavy and it was like, I, just, I didn't have the energy to write or even wanting to be there in that space because it was so, much trauma with that. So we, we began to think of. All right. We are funny people. We like to joke, we like to laugh, we like to experience life.

We're humans. We are multifaceted. So we wanted something that showed that. So we thought about going to the entertainment route as well too. And, some of the ways that we were able to grow our audience as fast as what we did was because we had mixed in some entertainment stuff. However, we knew we didn't want to be a shade room.

We knew we didn't want to be hip hop. We didn't want to share any of that negative stuff. So we chose not to do that, but we did bring through some entertainment. So I think that there is a actual value, if you will for that aspect of, I don't want to say news, but media if you will [00:18:00] today, that brings people to the table for that.

But I do agree with Marcus, what you said when we think about the elites and we think about kind of the Black elite and kind of that hoarding, if you will, of that information and hoarding of that space. And the same thing we see in politics too, of them not passing the torch. But it's not passing the torch when it comes to news and media as well too.

And it's kind of like they're just taking these things to their grave with them and it's not serving our communities.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, no, that, and I think that's a, and that is a problem with Democrats as well. Like, these people will not retire. They want to die in office. and the problem is, like it's going to drag everybody else down along the way because.

And I think Nancy Pelosi is probably the best example of that. But you know, she just is so out of touch with what the, generic, democratic base voter wants or thinks about stuff. Whether, whatever it is. Like she just doesn't know what people [00:19:00] want. And, and she's most prominently demonstrated that with her, awful remarks about saying that people who were upset about Gaza, they're, being controlled by Vladimir Putin that was just, it was embarrassing.

And, but this is, this is so, I mean, yeah, so like, but of course that was, I mean, we could talk all day about what the Democrats did or didn't do, but, you're right. Yeah. And I guess, but let, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but maybe let's, before we move on to Mark's research I did, I.

Did Barack Obama's rise impact Black political opinion and organizing?

SHEFFIELD: In terms of like this sort of transition to kind of a more of a respectability striver type politics that you're talking about, Tyson is it, is some of that related to the emergence of Barack Obama as the president, do you think? Did that change things in terms of what Black elites thought should be done?

And I'll want you to weigh in also Marcus.

JACKSON: Yeah. I, don't know if that changed things. I think what [00:20:00] we saw with Barack Obama being elected is a combination of a lot of their efforts along the way to make sure that African Americans are enfranchised and their fights in, in, in many different arenas for representation.

And it, came through it just happened to be at a time where in the world I think things were changing. You had the undercurrent of the younger generation that was coming up. And also, looking at the election of Barack Obama, but that necessarily wasn't our candidate. It wasn't a progressive candidate.

But we were brought into it because we were Black and we knew that what if you will the significance of in voting for a Black person in there, but the respectability politics of that era and that generation is something that it is always been there. And it's still here now too. It's just the populations are shifting now where, that generation is sunsetting where another one is rising up.

So I think some of that respectability politics is being pushed out the door, but so much of it [00:21:00] is, still in place because they hold a lot of the resources. who has the money in the Black community? Well, it, happens to be those same people who are involved in a lot of respectability politics.

SHEFFIELD: . Okay. All right. Well, Marcus what's your take?

JOHNSON: Yeah. I think Barack Obama is kind of. A consequence of decisions that were made decades earlier. If you look at the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement and the leaders of the Civil Rights movement decided that we don't want to work outside of the system.

We want to work within the system. We want to be inclusionary of what it means to be American, what it means to want to participate in the US government. And I think that in making that decision versus being people who wanted to make radical change, they decided to be people who are going to make incremental change.

And I think that meant that they were going to produce a class of politicians who were a amenable to, the, American state and the American interest, and those things weren't always necessarily in Black [00:22:00] interests. And I mean, you see that over time. It's not like, Black wealth has dramatically changed.

It's not like the amount of resources Black people have, radically changed that are stature in society or their social hierarchy. So, I think that Barack Obama is just a product and, really the Black political class at large is kind of a product of decisions that were made many decades ago.

And I think we're starting to see the possibility for change in that the younger generations are saying that, Hey, this situation hasn't necessarily worked out for us. We don't have the money that we promised. We don't have this necessarily this American dream that we were promised.

And we think that things should change potentially radically. So, I think that the younger generations are, much less likely to be favorable to Barack Obama or to be favorable to some of these other democratic politicians who are leading the party right now. And they want to see things change so that they can have the better life that they were promised.

So, I think that even though [00:23:00] things have been, difficult for the Black community. I think that even though you have this, you're, staring down the spectrum, potentially another Trump administration. I look at the future and I'm, optimistic. I mean, I think that there's still the potential for a successful multiracial democracy where people really can make it.

But I, I think that the current political class isn't getting people, the results or, young people, the results that they want. I mean, I think that you look at the relative living standards, I think that it's harder and harder to make it, it's harder to rent a, rent an apartment.

It's harder to buy a house. It's harder to, live. So, people want change.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

JACKSON: Yeah. it just, can I make one comment there? Yeah. Yeah. So, and, then I was listening to it, it made me also just think about kind of the whole defund the police kind of, thing that came out there.

Right. And it was a younger generation said, we're pushing for this, and I'm, I'll just be clear, I'm an abolitionist, so I believe in destroying, tearing it down, and let's rebuild something better. And whatever that process comes [00:24:00] about, however, I looked at the messaging that came out defund the police, and how it was met with fierce objection.

Mainly in the Black community by some of our elders. But then I was reminded living in Jackson Mississippi, that those are the same elders who fought for representation in the police department. It was their, their generation who were the first Black police officers, first Black firefighters, first Black what, have you in these spaces and how important that was for them.

So when we come around and say, let's defund the police, and we're looking at a police department that is majority African American in a place like Jackson Mississippi, it, fell upon deaf ears. And I think that there's still, looking at it from being in this kind of wedge generation, I understand what they're saying on one hand, but I also fiercely understand what's being said on the other end of what the changes in the the reform that needs to happen within the police departments and how we need to look at police officers who are, who are responding to [00:25:00] everything and look at making sure that there's resources to really diversify who responds to what kind of things that are called for. So I just brought that up to say, okay, I'm looking at this older generation there, and they fought for so much and for many of them they're still fighting to this day because they still haven't seen the true change happen in our communities.

That was promised by whoever organized them to get them started or, whatever ambition they had to get started. They haven't seen it being actualized, so they're still fighting. It's just the fight has changed so much and so more that much more dynamic. And I don't think they see where we are in our position in the fight as well as theirs, or if they think one is a priority

SHEFFIELD: over the other.

Yeah, there's still fighting the last war, basically in a sense. Yeah. All right.

Black churches provide a shared social narrative, in addition to inculcating theological views

SHEFFIELD: Well, so now in terms of the intergenerational dynamics here, that's something that you've been looking at a lot, Marcus, in your [00:26:00] research. And the stuff that you've been doing is really interesting to me. And it's a, you haven't published a paper yet, so, I can't we're not going to link to it yet for people.

But I definitely will encourage people to check that out when it comes out. But the stuff you got, you and your research partner are looking at is sort of the religious dynamics in among African-American communities, and looking at how how majority Black congregations have functioned as kind of a political literacy program for a lot of people who now that.

Participation in those commun and those churches has declined quite a bit among Black Americans, and it's also changing Black Americans political attitudes. Let's hopefully that's a good enough setup for you. Tell, us what, you've been working on with all that.

JOHNSON: Yeah. Well, the Black church has really been this really important institution in the Black community for such a long time. I mean, going back to really the abolition of, slavery all throughout the rest of American history. So you look at the [00:27:00] Black church's institution and, historically it's been this central aspect of Black American life, and that is increasingly not the case.

Religiosity is dropping throughout the country, kind of with all demographics, but with the Black community, the Black church has had such a strong impact on all aspects of life that we're really starting to see some, major changes. I mean, as I. Black church attendance declines.

What we're seeing is that there's lower levels of support for Democrats. There's lower levels of democratic identification. And what we found in our research my co-author and I, Mark Tenenbaum, is that the Black church kind of functions as a place where social pressure can be exerted, where social and political norms can be established.

And when people aren't going to the church, when Black people aren't going to, to the Black church and being surrounded by other Black Americans, they're not getting these social cues. They're not getting these social pressures, and so they're less likely to do things that are perceived as in the group [00:28:00] interest.

And that involves democratic support. Now we find that, when Blacks are going to Black churches, they're more likely to support Democrats to identify as democratic. And when they go to White churches or multiracial churches, they don't get those same cues. It's been well researched by other scholars that White Americans who go to church.

Typically have the opposite kind of effects. They're more likely to vote for Republicans, they're more likely to be conservative. And part of that's because they're getting the opposite social cue in those churches. And that's why you see kind of this the same kind of thing for Whites who don't go to church or who have left churches, that they're less Republican or less conservative on average than Whites who go to church.

So, we're kind of interested in that psychological phenomenon, the, social pressure how it impacts political attitudes and political behaviors. And I think that we're kind of transitioning into a country that's going to be less religious, a country where you're going to have more people who are atheists and agnostic, or people who maybe are spiritual but don't attend church.

And [00:29:00] what we find is that it's being around other people in institution, getting those group cues, getting those social cues, establishing those social norms. Those are places where people kind of figure out what are group expectations. What do other people in my group expect from me? And, that stuff matters for ideology and partisanship.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, it does. It's, this comes out of the concept of what a lot of sociologists sometimes call linked fate or shared struggle. So for people who haven't heard those terms, especially as they relate to Black Americans, do you want to give a little overview of that for them?

JOHNSON: Yeah. So linked fate is essentially the idea that what happens to other people in my group matters for me. So, what happens to Trayvon Martin matters for me. What happens to Mike Brown matters to me. And what scholars have found among Black Americans is that linked fate is particularly high, higher than it is for other racial and demographic groups in the United States.

And part of that we believe is from the [00:30:00] social pressure component from being in institutions whether that's the Black church, whether that's HBCUs, whether that's Black schools or other kinds of Black institutions. You get those social, that social pressure, those group expectations.

You want to do what's in the best interest of the group. What you perceive is going to not only help you, but help other Black Americans that are around you, around the country. And so, that's kind of the concept of linked fate. It's really the idea of what matters for, me also matters for other Black people in the community.

Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And some of that's essentially what we're describing as being lost here whether through these religious migrations that we're seeing. And one of those dividers is income, where, because that's another thing.

And I, and you do you look at that a little bit also in your research Marcus with, the income that's for people who are Black in higher income, not being part of a Black church. It's like, this concept of that I've upgraded my life now I go to the White church.

I don't go to the Black [00:31:00] church. At least, that's what people have said to me. And that's some of what we're talking about here, right? Like proximity to Whiteness, if you will. Right.

JOHNSON: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I would definitely agree with that, that generally as you go up on the income scale among Blacks, generally you're going to see less of democratic identification.

A little bit lower levels of linked fate, not as much drop off on, linked fate, but a little bit of drop off with democratic identification. And part of that is because you don't have the social pressure component, you are more likely to be in White spaces. You're more likely to be in high income spaces where other Black Americans aren't around, whereas, middle class and poor Black Americans are likely to be in spaces where there's more Black Americans around and they get those group cues and, that social pressure that maybe higher income Black Americans aren't getting on a regular basis.

SHEFFIELD: And the White Americans that they're around are also more likely to be Republican as well. That's despite all the propaganda of the Republicans about how, we're the working-class party, [00:32:00] etc.

It's, the reality is when you look at income, the more a White person makes, the more likely there be to be a Republican. That's just how

JOHNSON: it's that's changed a little bit though. I mean, I, think that you're seeing more wealthy White Americans

SHEFFIELD: turn who have a, if that postgraduate education.

JOHNSON: yeah, Education definitely plays a role. But education and income typically are correlated. So I think that income isn't the, as strong a correlate of partisanship among Whites as it has been in the past. I mean, in the past it was really strong that as got more money, you became more Republican.

And I think that's still true, but not to the same extent.

JACKSON: And I was going to say, I think it's interesting living in, and I live in DC now, but I lived in, Mississippi for a long time, and kind of the dynamics hadn't really changed. And it, I thought it was always interesting that, what you would consider Black elites, those who had the most money were still in the same neighborhoods, if you will, but the folks who didn't have money, it was like they were really accessible.

Like that's actually a multi millionaire over [00:33:00] there that you could just walk up to where in other places, like those folks are just not accessible. Like the, division between economics is, huge as well too, within the Black community up lived in, in, in major cities like here, even in DC right? You see just in that division of folks.

But in the south specifically, like places like Mississippi, Alabama, the segregation is so much that if you're Black, you live on this side. If you're White, you live on this side. So I. You're in intertwined and most of the time at the churches, the, Black elite families are the ones who are sitting in the front rows who are, heading the churches and doing different things.

And they, have a certain regard and esteem, but they're there in the same spaces. And from my experience, what I've got a chance to see kind of in the south, I see that.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well I think that's a important point to Yeah. That it thing, this stuff can be different depending on where you're at.

Less religious Black Americans are more likely to be Republican, a big difference from non-religious people of other races

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. So, in terms of Black non-religiosity, just to go back to some of your research, Marcus, among Whites and [00:34:00] Asians, it's definitely the case that people who are not religious are much more likely to be democratic. Whereas yeah, that correlation, it's, not as, it's almost the reverse among a lot of Black Americans.

And that's, it's the only racial demographic group where that is the case. You want to talk about that a little bit? I mean, some of it you've already said on here, but there's some unique aspects here, right?

JOHNSON: Yeah, for sure. So, I mean, definitely in the White community religiosity is really strongly found in the south in the old South.

And so you're going to see the highest levels of church attendance among Whites who live in the southern states maybe going out a little bit west to like Oklahoma, above Texas and stuff like that. But that's generally where you're going to see church going among Whites in, the United States at the highest levels and the cues and the social pressure that they're getting when they go to church is to be conservative, is to be Republican, is to vote for people like Donald Trump.

Whereas in the Black community, when they go to [00:35:00] church, they're hearing about social, the same kind of social pressure and, things of that nature, but it's things that are perceived to improve the Black community. So you're going to hear about, Hey, we need to vote for Democrats because we believe that Democrats are going to be.

A better option for us than Republicans who we think are going to go out of their way to try to harm Black interests. And so when you are in these institutions that have a lot of Black Americans, and you want to be a good member of your group, you want to be in good group standing, you're going to go out and, do things that are in the best interest of your group, as, as far as you perceive it.

So, it's not surprising to me that Black Americans who go to church less typically have lower levels of, Democratic ID now. I mean, they're still more likely to vote for Democrats than a lot of other groups, even if they aren't going to church. But you definitely see there's a difference, a degree between Black Americans who go to church a lot and, Black Americans who don't their level of support for Democrats and democratic self-identification.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and [00:36:00] now, but here's the other interesting thing is that on the kind of. Opposite extreme of religiosity.

Kanye West and the potential appeal of reactionary Christian supremacism to some Black Christians

SHEFFIELD: There has also been a bleeding among Black Americans. So, and particularly for Black Americans who are kind of involved in the, new apostolic Reformation movement or other Pentecostal type denominations, which are, it, I mean they were, hi, historically speaking, the, kind of the first real integrated religious denominations in the United States, but now they become completely overrun with the most radical, far.

Christians in America, and they're coming for the Black church. And especially in the south with the Protestant congregations. And it's, it's, disturbing what they're doing. And they're doing the same thing with a lot of Latino outreach as well. Especially with recent immigrants.

They target them heavily for recruitment because, like they don't have anything. They don't, they just got to the country. They don't know anybody. And [00:37:00] so they, these guys offer them a built-in network and, that's good enough for some people. And so it's, this is a thing that's happening on the edges.

An example of this would be like Kanye West that, he was somebody who converted to this Pentecostal form of Protestantism. And, as everybody knows by now, he is off the chain insane.

Basically fascist and well self-proclaimed Hitler lover. Like that's, this is a thing that is happening on, the margins. And maybe, people who, like you might have your friend from high school or college that they went off the deep end or something, but you also don't realize they also like Donald Trump now and Q or not.

Would you guys have any thoughts on that? Tyson,

JOHNSON: I'll let you go first on that.

JACKSON: Kanye is always an interesting subject no matter what, but I think in, in, as Kanye there and just thinking about kind of how churches are formed from connected churches to, in the Protestant form of the disconnected churches that [00:38:00] you get within just more of the Baptist and in, ways that you have your new denominations that are popping up left and right.

People are claiming themselves to be bishops. The same thing that you had with storefront preachers back in the day. Now they're just now using storefronts to just using social media to get out there and and, preach whatever message that they want to preach. But it's not necessarily coming from any lineage that is entrenched in the history that that.

serve the African-American community is just more individualism than anything. And just seeing someone like Kanye get out there and do the same thing that we see others that are, doing that, that serves themselves and themselves only. And I think for us in African-American community especially thinking of the history and the lineage that we have there, a lot of what has served us has been more of a collective effort.

And as you said there and as Marcus said, just kind of, how our face are, linked through kind of that process. But that collective aspect of who we are is very still very much important. And then you have a [00:39:00] Kanye and others who are, going against the grain of that. And it makes them at odds with the Black community.

It's like, ah, man. Sold out. you done, sold out everything. You did, you just, you've sold out a hundred percent. And, even comes deeper into just kind of, thinking that comes from some kind of religious philosophy self-doctrine. Yeah. Yeah.

JOHNSON: I mean, to, build on that. I mean, I, definitely agree a hundred percent.

To me, Kanye West is somebody who is even more than a co-opted elite, like you said. I, would characterize him as a, sellout of somebody who doesn't care about the Black community and actively working against Black interest and can be probably characterized as anti-Black. And a lot of Black artists, unfortunately are like that these days.

But there's always been movements on the fringe. There's always been 10 to 15% of Black Americans who vote for Republicans who are going to be supportive of somebody like Donald Trump are going to be supportive of other conservative interests. So, [00:40:00] even though these movements are under fringe, I, don't view them as necessarily care like.

Characterized as having major support in the Black community. I don't think that there are going to be movements that are going to really pick up and, gain steam. Even though the Black church is in a slow decline or even more than a slow decline, I mean, you still see Black Americans who don't attend church are on average going to be more democratic than most other racial and ethnic groups.

So I think that you still have a level of cohesion within the community, even though you're going to have some of these different fringe groups or fringe ideas kind of pop up. I don't think that they're going to have major play within the community anytime soon. I

JACKSON: actually do though.

If, just on, on the back of that, just kind of, from maybe, cursory research, if you will, or just kind of interactions within those who may not be in the mainstream political conversation. African-American community and much, and many of them are already supporting Trump. And they believed [00:41:00] that Trump was the one who got them their stimulus checks.

They liked the fact that Trump doesn't hold, holds no bar. Sexy

SHEFFIELD: red said that explicitly.

JACKSON: Exactly, that's what I'm saying. Sexy red and, but she's not the only one. There are so many others that are there. And so, and they're going to repeat what a Sexy red says in, so many ways. But in the same time, this is just a conversation that's there.

For the most part, the Democratic Party, for being a person who's worked in, in politics and worked on the Democratic side. And I say that I'm not affiliated with any party, even though most of the stuff I've done has been within the democratic and progressive movements. I've seen so many times of just neglect to that aspect of the community.

We need to go and canvas over there and make sure that they're being a vote. They, don't vote. We're going to go after the ones who we know who vote, who are your older church-going people. And that's typically where the target is. So now you have all these people over here that are apathetic, that are not involved in any political process whatsoever.

And now you get a Trump to come up. And I [00:42:00] seen the same thing happen on the other side. because it, the crazy thing is that remember we, in Mississippi, we still had the Confederate flag flying, and this is back in 2000, 15, 2016, we, led a rally to take down the flag. It was a pretty big rally the next week like the Sons of the Confederates did a rally down there in the same spot.

So they had all the Confederate flags. We went out there and it was three of us. We went out there and had a conversation with them. And what they were saying was the same thing our communities were saying. They were mad at the the politicians or the legislators inside of Mississippi State House, just like we were as well too.

But they were tricked in believing that it was us who were the, issue. So when I see that, and then when I go to the African American community and those who are not in on a political process, not necessarily Democrat or whatever, they're saying the same things that they were saying, and then you get a Trump that rises up, who begins to champion their message.

And I think what we'll hear from Trump this time, he's going to co-opt a lot more Black folks into this, time. You're going to see a lot more rappers getting involved into it. You are going to see a [00:43:00] lot more people that are, that you wouldn't see normally in there because. Joe Biden has done zero outreach to them.

The Democratic Party has done zero outreach to them to get them involved. And they come in the last minute where Trump, over these last four years of him not being president, they've been working their way and making inroads into that community. So I'll be, I'll, I'll, I'm bracing myself for a large part of the African American community to start saying that they're for Trump.

JOHNSON: we'll, see. I mean, I think that. Polls right now are kind of not predictive because we're a little bit of the way out and people still think, in the back of their minds, maybe there could be some kind of change in the two candidates. But I think that as we get closer and people see that it's Trump or Biden, I think ultimately 85 to 90% of the Black community.

Is going to vote for Biden. I think that they're not going to necessarily be happy about it. I think they're not going to be like super enthusiastic about it. But I mean, Black people [00:44:00] vote for Democrats not necessarily out of some major self-love, but that they know that Republicans are actively, most of the time actively against their interests.

That Trump represents kind of, a reactionary White force that wants to go back to a time when there was less it's kind of part of what my dissertation is about, less competition over resources like jobs and income and, land and other things of that nature with minority groups.

So Trump represents kind of the idea that. White people have to compete in a way that they shouldn't have to. That that these different minority groups are taking things and, and . Trying to get a place in a social hierarchy that they don't necessarily deserve or, whatever the case may be.

And that's why you see Trump say things like, oh, these are shithole countries. Or, talk about other minorities not. It shouldn't have these types of rights or whatever. And so I, think that as Trump gets back on TV and he's, saying more of these things, the Republicans are saying more of these things.

I think that the Black community, is going to look at that. And I think they're going to talk amongst themselves and say, you know what we don't always like all the things [00:45:00] Democrats do, they don't always help us a lot, but they're not going to actively go out and try to hurt us in the way that Republicans do.

And I think that's honestly the story of democratic, the democratic party with, Black Americans for a long time is part of why you don't get to necessarily enthusiasm that maybe you should. But I think that in a two-party system, you're still actively probably going to vote for the party and candidate.

that's not actively trying to harm your group.

JACKSON: And I, overall agree with that. In, in looking at it just for political analysis Malcolm X said they put they put you last and you put them first. As political chumps. So that has been something that's been there the whole time.

And we was talking about the Democratic Party back then as well as we're talking about the Democratic Party now. And so I overall a hundred percent agree and I think we're going see that dynamic, but I think we're going to see a little more of the African-American community especially those who probably historically haven't been voting trumpet Trump's message.

I'm not going [00:46:00] to say they're going to vote that's going to, that's going to be the deciding factor right there. You could talk all that you want. Sounds good. You could put Sexy Red on TV and she could say, I love Trump all day, but did Sexy Red actually go vote? That's going to be the question. The, ones who are following along or are they actually going to go vote?

Historically they haven't. And I don't think that the outreach is going to be done on the level that it needs to, actually get them out to vote. Yeah, it's money for sure.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

Will Black conservatives ever "come home" to the Republican Party?

SHEFFIELD: Well, and and one dynamic that I think when people are, looking at the post Obama Democrats that I think that there was a, there was an assumption among a lot of Democratic elites that how things were in terms of Black turnout and the percentage of the Black vote that Democrats got, that was the new baseline.

And I don't think that's reality. And it never was. And they were completely wrong about that. Because, like, I mean, I had [00:47:00] several relatives who were Black and they, said they were only voting for Obama in 2012 because he was Black. They didn't really like him very much.

They just didn't want him to lose from being the incumbent, the only, the first Black president to lose reelection. Well, they didn't want that. But they didn't really like him. And, whereas, and then of course, then you got, everybody after him who has been not Black. is it any wonder then that there would be some reversion to the mean that, there's a, I think the reality is there's a lot of, I.

Black Americans out there who are, they would be Republicans. If the Republican party wasn't, deliberately and, unintentionally courting racists. I mean, that's, the reality. There's a lot of, of, , churchgoing, Black people who would vote Republican if they could.

But they just feel like they can't,

JACKSON: I mean, historically we have, I mean, even a kind of Lisa Rice, you, the reason why she was a Republican was because. Republicans were the ones who [00:48:00] got her her father an opportunity to vote. And so the Republicans were the ones back in the day.

It was, before Barry. Goldwater and the whole switch and the Democratic, the southern strategy came about, and the, switch happened in politics. the Republican party's there, but that's still our older generation and many of them still harbor that, but they vote .

Like you said, they vote Democrat because of the other aspects, but they truly are conservative, um . In their value in nature. And they would vote Republican if it wasn't for the racial aspect of things.

SHEFFIELD: So whether it's, they don't like gay people or, they, think everything is woke or whatever, whatever's going through their head.

I mean, that's, that there's a reality, there's

JACKSON: a lot of people out there, so pull their pants up, that's what's wrong.

SHEFFIELD: Yep. That's why poverty exists. It's only that.

Right-wing groups are flooding the internet with content starring reactionary Black people while the left is doing almost nothing in response

SHEFFIELD: But another potential factor and who knows what it is, and I'm curious to see what you guys think is that, the, to some extent the Republican party and, [00:49:00] reactionary groups are not a huge amount, but, to some degree, like, to, go back to what you said a little bit about, Donald Trump and rappers, I mean, whether it's so you've got Kanye, you've got now apparently Snoop Dogg saying he's, got love for Donald Trump.

because he got, pardoned one of his former record label friends. And then, sexy red and . There, there's, and I mean, for, a minute there, and when Bush was the president, if I remember right wasn't 50 cent, didn't he like Bush? I think he did at some point.

So, like I, I think there was something there and, maybe it's just a function of that these people get a lot of money and they want to keep it. Maybe that's what it is, but I mean, but, but you also see, these right-wing groups like turning Point, USA a lot of these right-wing re reactionary groups are propping people like Candace Owens or Rob Smith, or some of these other, Black Republican people. They're really putting them out there and, and by contrast, I don't [00:50:00] see a lot of progressive groups or donors or the Democratic Party.

They're not out there flooding people on YouTube with, stuff. They're just not, like, if you watch YouTube, man, it's like one, almost nonstop, right-wing garbage in terms of the politics content, whether, and it doesn't matter what your race is, they got. They got a, fresh and fit for you if you're Black and, any number of them.

If, you're White they don't care. Nick Fuentes, he'll have you too if you're Black. And he says that explicitly, I'll, take Black people over Jews any day. So I mean, I don't know, but, are these people just, are they going anywhere? Are they making a difference?

what do you guys think? Yeah,

JOHNSON: I think the Republicans historically, at least the last 20, 30 years have commonly done this, where they think they can kind of buy off a Black celebrity and that's going to really get them enrolled into the Black community. And I, just don't see it. I mean, last cycle you had Lil Wayne, you had Kanye West, you had a couple of these other Black [00:51:00] rappers.

You had people like Diamond and Silk who tried to be, Black influencers who for Trump, and that, that stuff just doesn't work because they're, approaching the whole thing wrong. I mean, Black people are going into their different institutions and talking amongst themselves and their communities and saying, okay, well what's, they're kind of having a debate.

They're like, okay, what's best for Black? What's best for the group? And so just buying off a celebrity and saying, Hey, look, I have this celebrity with me. Like, that doesn't change the nature of the deliberations within the group. I mean, you're still, if you're a Donald Trump should Republican party pushing anti-Black policies, you're pushing an anti-Black message.

And at the end of the day I think that people see through that and I think that they're like, Hey, Democrats aren't going to go out and be permanently anti-Black in the way that Republicans are going to be. And I think that one thing that's interesting, and one thing I think that could have helped them if, Republicans had a lot more Black people and the Senate or in congress or in, in local state houses, and I mean, they really don't, one of the things that's was really [00:52:00] interesting, and I don't know, this kind of seems anecdotal, there might be some data to back this up, but it seems that whenever they run a Black candidate, like they had a Black, I think was the senator or governor candidate in, Michigan they kind of underperform.

It seems like Black Republicans tend to underperform where they should be, where other White Republicans get their vote share. And I, think that sends a signal that, hey I. They might try to get a celebrity, they might try to buy off some, people from BT or MTV or whatever.

But when it comes to really giving Black people political power the Republican party isn't really, they're not really a fan of that. So, I think that stuff matters more than the Black celebrities. I don't think that's the celebrity stuff's going anywhere.

JACKSON: Yeah. And I agree with that.

I don't think that actually is going to move the needle Actually, what is going to get changed anything is really if you're getting people to get out and vote and the only way you're going to get people to get out and vote is if you're knocking on the doors and you're really there and, having a ground game with that as well too.

So having a little way and get out there and, say anything, is not going to [00:53:00] mean anything. And do they, and if we look at the political operations that are, put out there for the most part, Republicans are going to hire young White people to get out there and do that work, and, most part, they can't go into African American communities inconspicuously, if you will, to do the work that needs to be done. They're going to be, everyone's going to notice that you got some White folks walking around here and that means we about to shut our doors and we ain't going to open no for you.

because we don't know who you here and what you're there for. So you, it's not effective strategy, if you will. because the whole the the whole aspect of, from having someone that influences people, but actually having the people that get out there and win the elections for the candidate is two different things.

So yeah, I just don't see it necessarily a change thing. And, for what it's worth we've had sambos in our community for a long time. It ain't.

JOHNSON: Really quickly. I mean, I think it's really a story of maybe Democrats not getting the Black turnout they want, and maybe Black people not being as [00:54:00] enthusiastic about Democrats versus Black people being enthusiastic about Republicans and really increasing Republican vote share.

It might just be that Black people say, Hey, I'm not enthusiastic about Democrats. I'm not going to turn out, versus, I'm turning out for Republicans. Thanks,

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

Republicans are using "voter depression" in concert with voter suppression to win elections

SHEFFIELD: Well and that's actually, no, that does take me to one thing that I actually have been doing a lot of writing and. Research about, and that is there, there's two things that Republicans use to shape the electorate.

One is, voter suppression, which of course, taking your ability to vote away from you. But then there's also voter depression, which is to get you to willingly throw it away. . And that's what the candidacy of Cornel West is about. And that's, like this dude directly got money from the big Republican fat cats.

They're propping him up, and you look at like they love funding hopeless candidates, especially Black ones. And this was something that Pat Buchanan, when he worked in the Nixon White House, he wrote a memo explicitly [00:55:00] about we're going to find Black candidates and run them as third parties and give them money and prop them up in order to splinter the Black vote.

And you see that to this day, whether it is over on Rumble that is owned by, in large part by Peter Thiel the far-right investor, he's paying people like Glenn Greenwald and he's paying people like Breonna Joy Gray to get them to prop up this hopeless, third party nonsense.

Like, I remember I was on her show one time and she was telling me how Marianne Williamson, she's a real candidate, she's going to win well, and the day as we're recording this, she dropped out and ended her grift operation. She had

JACKSON: beautiful hope, though. That is still one of my favorite quotes of all time.

SHEFFIELD: Which one was that?

JACKSON: What is it that we subconsciously let our light shine and let other folks shine their light? It, something like that. And I'll mess it up, but that's my only introduction to Marianne Williams because before, long before she ran for [00:56:00] president, I had that quote up and I had her name under it.

So, so what I'm saying, oh, that's take, that's the quote lady. That's the quote lady. She had a great quote, but I, do, I think, I'd be remiss with if not to mention though Biden campaign right now sucks. And if it wasn't for Clyburn in, in South Carolina, I don't think we would have a Biden as president.

But also, so the detriment of, us, we had South Carolina and and, Jim Clyburn kind of sell Black folks down the river. It is like, we got, this is the Black vote. And, for us as Black folks, a lot of folks, I'm like, that's not necessarily what I was hoping for.

That's not what I wanted to see. And I think we are going to see a lot of that same thing now. And it's, not showing up and giving the true answers to the, or solutions to the issues that are going [00:57:00] on in our communities. And it's still ignoring it. And I think we're going, we have the binary, we won't have any choice, but you don't have a Biden or a Trump.

But at the same time, I think we're still going to get the short end of the stick and we're not going to move anywhere. And I don't think that's going to bring more voters to the polls in the future.

SHEFFIELD: Did you guys see that picture of that, that Republican pollster put on Twitter the other day of the, two Black man, one of whom has three arms?

Do you guys see that? Well, I got to show it to you then. Just as an example of what you were talking about, that their outreach efforts are just so ham-fisted. Let's see here. Oh man. He deleted his tweet.

JACKSON: You got to screenshot those.

SHEFFIELD: Oh, yeah, No, people screenshot it, so don't worry about that.

But there's nobody got it. Add it to the mix here. So let's see. Share screen. Here we go. [00:58:00]

Okay. Yeah. And and, just to your point Marcus, to go back the Republican party and their problem with Black outreach, there was a Republican pollster the other day that he put out a tweet that said the Republican victory in twenty-twenty-four depends on their being able to do this.

And he used an AI-generated photo, because he couldn't find any Black Republicans canvassing photos. And the dude who is being talked to in the second photo has three hands. So yeah, if that's what you guys are working with you, do have a problem here.

And to that end, they also had a, Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA, he has a program now, he's it based doing Black outreach by telling Black people that Martin Luther King was terrible and evil. [00:59:00]

So, in some ways it's good that they’re so incompetent because they are so awful.

JACKSON: But I mean, I think some of that, it, it, starts to resonate and you, I'm thinking of this young person who hears this now and, how many years is it going to take to unlearn all of this BS, right?

For them to be in a state where they can actually learn and be politically educated and, vote for and think about things in the best interest. Hearing this now that person who gravitated might be that 1%. As we, as we talk about a small percentage of the Black community that starts to hear this, but.

How long is it going to take for them to get enfranchised and, be in a position of power to, vote in their own?  

SHEFFIELD: Well, especially if they hear no other alternative message. Right. Because like, because like ultimately, the Democrats’ problem with Black people generally is always the same, which is, which is also their ultimate problem with the larger electorate, which is right-wing media [01:00:00] now is so huge that it's bigger than a lot of the mainstream quote unquote media.

You look on CNN.com, like CNN on YouTube, they don't have as many people looking at their stuff as the Daily Wire does. You look at Facebook, the Daily Wire is the number one publisher on Facebook. They got more hits on Facebook than the New York Times does. And any of the alphabet networks or whatever and like these, are serious issues in terms of what people are being subjected to.

So I think that's a good point that you're making there Tyson, at how things stand. Now it may not be, doing too much, but when people don't have any alternative, especially if they're on YouTube, like you look at Andrew Tate, I mean, he is not on YouTube now, but, there's a lot of kids, I hear from middle school teachers and high school teachers, that they're like, oh yeah, all my boys, they worship him and believe whatever he tells them.

And [01:01:00] I think a lot of that is coming down to misogyny in many cases, particularly in regards to Black women. Like that's kind of a way to, that Republicans think that they're going to peel off Black men, young Black men through hating Black women. And some of that, like Matt Gaetz, the Republican from Florida, he explicitly said that, he said, for every Karen meaning White woman that we lose, we're going to get a Julio and Jamal. And that's what they're thinking. Whether that's going to work or how soon it would work, I don't know, but it's something that people have got to take seriously, I feel like.

JACKSON: You know what, as you said, I thought of the most diabolical thing that, that they're doing in the background because looking at Kushner and Ivanka and their involvement in bringing in Kim Kardashian with their involvement in looking at mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex of thinking of alternatives, but also thinking in the background that there's an ushering in of releasing Black people from or [01:02:00] releasing all these people from prisons, but putting ankle monitors on them and having them pay for this.

So that is the, change and how this happens now is like, all right, we got you out of jail. You got to ankle monitor on, but you owe us something. So where are they going to get the Black, those votes for Black men? If most of the Black men, if you will, that possibly will vote for them, are in jail because of the mass incarceration, so it's like, all right, we let them out of jail, and we might have a new voting pool.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. But it's an interesting thought. All right, well, is there any other aspect here that you guys we want to cover or are you, are we good to wrap up here?

JOHNSON: I guess I would just say that for the Republicans, they've had a long-term strategy of trying to kind of break up Democratic coalition because in absolute terms, I mean the Democratic coalition is just larger than a Republican coalition.

The Republican coalition is a minority of the country, a minority of the electorate. And so they have to [01:03:00] do things to try to get to peel off Blacks or Latinos or Asians. And the problem is their message essentially is a message that We want to have White people have less competition with other minority groups, that we want White people to have kind of an unquestioned place in society and, culturally, politically, economically, and for a larger percent, like the demographics of the country are just changing and that's going to be harder and harder to do, even if they can peel off a few percentage of people.

So I think that Republicans as dangerous as a lot of stuff that they're pushing is, I think that they're ultimately coming at this from a position of weakness. And I think that ultimately if you just played this out over the long term and the demographics change in the way that they're changing, it's going to be difficult for them if they keep their same essentially just pro-White message.

They're going to have a hard time in the long term.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, I think that's right and that's, part of why they're going so crazy right now is that they know that, they know that, the [01:04:00] demographics are not in their favor. But on the other hand, they have decided perhaps we don't have to persuade people if we can just get them to stay home.

And that's why people who have a progressive viewpoint, you have to do more than just say lesser than two evils is what I would say. All right. Well, I think that'll do it for this episode. I appreciate you guys joining me. Let me put your social media up on the screen here.

So Tyson you are on Twitter and other places at BlackNoChaser, so people can check you out there. And then Marcus, you are on most of the places at MarcusHJohnson. So I encourage everybody to follow your gentleman there. And thanks for being here.

JACKSON: Thank you.

JOHNSON: Thank you.

SHEFFIELD: Alright, so that is the program for today. I appreciate everybody for joining us for the conversation, and you can always get more of this program if you go to theoryofchange.show. theory of Change is part of the Flux Media Network. So go to flux.community for more podcasts and [01:05:00] articles about politics, religion, media, and society.

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