The potential Trump/Vance administration raises concerns for Black Americans due to Vance’s alignment with Trump’s extremist agenda, including abortion bans and threats to democracy. Credit: AP/Paul Sancya.
Houston. Texas. Black America. A Trump/Vance November election win would mean we all have a problem.
That’s the assessment of many after news that former reality TV host and 34-time convicted felon Donald Trump named Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate.
Vance, who was one of the most vocal and outspoken critics of Trump just a few years ago, is now the mini-me of the only U.S. president in history to attempt to overthrow the U.S. government – and the only one to be impeached twice.
Vance, who Texas Democrats and their political kin nationwide describe as a MAGA extremist, has converted from one of the only Republicans to say with his full chest that Trump was a grifter, con man and racist, to a full-blown 2020 election denier who is all in on cutting Social Security and Medicare so those funds can be funneled to members of the billionaire class.
Vance, who formerly criticized Trump for his lack of care and concern for common people, men, women and children, is now fully on board with a near-total, if not all-out ban on abortion.
Another reason the Trump/Vance ticket is being viewed as a warning sign for Blacks and other members of the global majority was voiced by New York Times bestselling author, TV and film producer, and former CNN political commentator Keith Boykin.
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Buck-dancing won’t save you
“After all that talk about former prosecutor, senator, and current Vice President Kamala Harris being a ‘DEI hire,’ 78-year-old Trump picked a 39-year-old opportunistic, freshman senator with only one year of experience to be his running mate,” wrote Boykin in anarticle written for Word In Black. “And after all the clowning and capitulation by Tim Scott, Byron Donalds, Vivek Ramaswamy, Marco Rubio, and Nikki Haley, Trump skipped over all of them and picked yet another white man.”
In other words, no amount of skinning and grinning and seeking Trump’s, and by extension, the 90% white Republican Party membership’s approval and acceptance, will work.
Democracy in danger
That’s not all. The mere embers of democracy that still burn in the U.S. have served as a firewall, albeit a weak one, that has given Blacks and others the space and opportunity to fight back against this nation’s and its institutions’ most vile white “supremacist” tendencies.
With Trump’s agenda, voiced by him and shared via Project 2025, taking aim at tearing down the last vestiges of democracy, Black voting rights are in danger. Moreover, any issue viewed as important to the Black community – criminal justice reform, healthcare access, gun control, environmental justice, women’s rights, educational funding, Black business development – will be gone with the wind.
“Donald Trump picked J.D. Vance as his running mate because Vance will do what Mike Pence wouldn’t on January 6: enable Trump and his extreme MAGA Project 2025 agenda, even if it means breaking the law and disrupting our democracy,” said Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa in a released statement. “If elected, Vice President Vance will enact Trump’s Project 2025 agenda, push to ban abortion nationwide, gut the Affordable Care Act, and give tax breaks to billionaires and corporations instead of hard-working Americans.”
Texas Two-Step
Vance 2024 now brings a political agenda in lock-step with U.S. Senator Ted Cruz whose voting record has been identified by Texas Black politicos as extremely anti-Black.
“As for Texas? J.D. Vance is in lockstep with colleague Ted Cruz in strongly supporting Texas near-total ban on abortion that is forcing women to risk their lives by fleeing the state to access basic healthcare. And just like Ted Cruz – J.D. Vance is against any exceptions for rape and incest.
Hinojosa says his party will engage in a voter education campaign aimed at inspiring voters to make the Trump/Vance ticket a losing one.
“For the next three months, we will show the stark choices Texans have this November. Texas Democrats are focused on uniting the country, creating opportunities, and lowering costs; the MAGA Republican ticket will take away Americans’ freedoms and hurt the middle class.”
Vance highlights
For perspective, here are some Vance agenda highlights.
Defends [the]Texas abortion law – just like his colleague Cruz, who called it “perfectly reasonable.“
Like Trump supports an abortion ban nationwide.
Opposes exceptions for rape and incest survivors, saying “two wrongs don’t make a right,” and calling those circumstances “inconvenient.”
Thinks women should stay in “violent” marriages.
Railed against the Affordable Care Act, which includes protections for millions of Americans with preexisting conditions.
Called Social Security and Medicare “the biggest roadblocks to any kind of real fiscal sanity.”
Admitted he would not have certified the 2020 election results, and echoes Trump’s baseless lies in refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election.
Repeatedly attempted to whitewash the political violence that occurred on Jan. 6.
Has a reputation as one of the most far-right extremists in Washington, endorsing a Jan. 6 rally member for Congress.
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