Joe Biden just tried to butter up Latinos by telling them they aren’t as dumb as black people. Perhaps he would treat us with more respect if we were to play hard-to-get.
In an apparent effort to shore up his shaky support among Hispanics, the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee just lauded the “diversity” of the Latino community in remarks broadcast from his basement lair. Pandering to Hispanic American voters has been a central element of Biden’s campaign strategy throughout this election cycle, so another example shouldn’t have drawn much attention — except that Biden felt compelled to couch his platitude in language that implicitly denigrated the black community.
“What you all know, but most people don’t know, [is that] unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community, with incredibly different attitudes about different things,” Biden declared.
Wow. He should probably pick a Latina as his running mate, since he apparently thinks that all blacks are narrow-minded (with a few “notable exceptions” he never bothered to name).
The former vice president’s praise for Hispanic diversity is effusive and unambiguous — Biden clearly wanted his audience to know that he considers diversity to be an “incredibly” good thing in and of itself. By extension, of course, lack of diversity would have to be a negative. And according to Biden, there are only a few “notable exceptions” to the general rule that black Americans lack the diversity that Biden and other Democrats prize so greatly.
Then again, it’s also possible that Biden’s fulsome adulation of Hispanic “diversity” was actually intended to obscure the annoyance and disappointment seething just below the surface, because polling suggests that the diversity of the Latino community is actually hurting Biden’s prospects for becoming president.
One recent poll that has many Democrats nervously biting at their cuticles is a nationwide NPR survey that shows Biden with support from about 59 percent of Latino voters — significantly less than the 66 percent of Hispanic votes that Hillary Clinton collected on her way to an historic defeat in the 2016 election. That might seem like it would still qualify as a commanding lead, but the calculus behind the identity politics strategy that Democrats have embraced requires them to run up impossibly lopsided wins among minority voters in order to offset the loss of voters who are turned off by their efforts to pit Americans against each other based on physical characteristics.
Black voters have been a much more reliable Democrat constituency, consistently delivering 90 percent or more of our support to Democrat candidates for the better part of a half century. Biden managed to win more black votes than his opponents in the Democratic primaries — mainly by waiting until after he had locked up the nomination to embrace the far-left policies of his former rivals — and he seems to think this entitles him to the blind, unquestioning loyalty of black voters.
This isn’t the first time Biden has betrayed his disdain for black Americans. During a recent interview with black radio host Charlamagne tha God, Biden abruptly declared that he was out of time, then curtly rejected the host’s invitation to make a follow-up appearance on the program by explaining that he doesn’t feel any need to communicate with black voters.
“You’ve got more questions? Well I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” Biden snapped.
The former vice president proved that he’s learned absolutely nothing from that notorious incident with his condescending claim that the black community lacks diversity. He obviously has no respect for us or concern for our interests, yet arrogantly assumes that we’ll eagerly line up to cast our ballots on his behalf.
The only way to get through to people like that is to prove their underlying assumptions wrong. We’ll have a perfect opportunity to do just that in November.
Pastor Darrell Scott is CEO of the National Diversity Coalition for Trump and a member of the Donald J. Trump for President Inc. advisory board.