{"id":12919,"date":"2024-07-11T15:22:29","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T15:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=12919"},"modified":"2024-07-11T15:22:29","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T15:22:29","slug":"my-black-job-is-to-protect-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/11\/my-black-job-is-to-protect-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"My \u201cBlack Job\u201d Is to Protect Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/em>Yes, Joe Biden is a flawed candidate, but Donald Trump is a threat to America. Our Black job, is there is such a thing, is to stop him<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Keith Boykin<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not doing this again with y\u2019all.<\/p>\n

While Democrats debate how to respond to\u00a0Joe Biden\u2019s debate performance, Trump and the Republicans are plotting to erase the entire twentieth century.<\/p>\n

Bottom of Form<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not an exaggeration. Donald Trump has publicly threatened to be a\u00a0dictator\u00a0on \u201cday one\u201d if he wins in November, and the Supreme Court justices he appointed have just immunized him from accountability and vested him with the unchecked powers of a\u00a0monarch.<\/p>\n

If Trump wins, he would empower an army of radical right-wing activists who plan to implement\u00a0Project 2025, dismantle civil rights, women\u2019s rights, and LGBTQ rights, rescind long-established progressive laws and policies, and swing a wrecking ball against the fragile institutions of government and democracy.<\/p>\n

Yes, Joe Biden is a flawed candidate, but Donald Trump is a threat to America. If anyone should withdraw from the race, it\u2019s the twice-impeached convicted criminal.<\/p>\n

But some critics are making the same miscalculation they made with Hillary Clinton. A Trump victory will not bring on a progressive people\u2019s revolution, strengthen third-party candidates, or buy us time to elect a better Democrat in the next election. It will set us so far back that it will take decades to unravel, no matter who wins in 2028. America cannot afford to make that mistake again.<\/p>\n

Back in 2016, I was teaching at Columbia University when college students were complaining about Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee for president. Many raised legitimate concerns, including her support for the unpopular war in Iraq. But others raised less substantive issues.\u00a0She\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>not likable<\/em>. She\u00a0<\/em>panders<\/em>.<\/em>\u00a0And the most memorable critique: they didn\u2019t believe her when she appeared on \u201cThe Breakfast Club\u201d and announced that she carried\u00a0hot sauce in her purse.<\/p>\n

A presidential election is not a popularity contest. It\u2019s a job interview.<\/em><\/p>\n

I, too, opposed the war in Iraq, and that was one reason why I voted for Barack Obama instead of Clinton in the 2008 presidential primary. But now it was 2016, and Clinton was the Democratic nominee facing a Republican opponent, Donald Trump, who posed a clear and present danger to democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Hillary Clinton wins, we may have a\u00a0liberal majority\u00a0on the Supreme Court for the first time in nearly 50 years,\u201d I posted on Twitter a few weeks before the election.<\/p>\n

That was eight years ago.<\/p>\n

Now, as Trump cements his legacy on the right-wing court, that opportunity could be lost for a generation, as Republicans have appointed six of the nine Supreme Court Justices.<\/p>\n

Joe Biden is not the ideal candidate to represent the Democratic Party. He\u2019s an 81-year-old white man leading a party that is increasingly represented by young people, women, and people of color.<\/p>\n

I worked for Biden\u2019s opponent when he ran for president in 1988. I did not vote for Biden when he ran the second time in 2008. And I\u00a0did not support\u00a0him in the Democratic primary in 2020. I even wrote articles\u00a0criticizing him\u00a0after he was elected president. But I did vote for him in 2020 because I knew he was the best available option.<\/p>\n

I am not invested in the question of replacing Biden on the ticket. I would vote for Biden, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Wes Moore, Pete Buttigieg, or any other credible candidate that Democrats nominate. This election is not about them. It\u2019s about protecting our rights.<\/p>\n

For five years, I covered Trump as a political commentator for CNN, following his racist speeches, midnight tweets, and unhinged press conferences. Some Americans may not remember the constant chaos and crises from Charlottesville to Covid that defined the Trump years, but I do, and I refuse to go back.<\/p>\n

I know that Democrats prefer young, articulate, charismatic presidential candidates in the tradition of John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. I do too, but the young guys don\u2019t always deliver. It was not JFK, but an older, less attractive Lyndon Johnson who signed the landmark\u00a0Civil Rights Act of 1964, 60 years ago today. As Jesse Jackson\u00a0said\u00a0at the 1984 Democratic National Convention, \u201cI would rather have Roosevelt in a wheelchair than Reagan on a horse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump is far more entertaining than Joe Biden, but a presidential election is not a popularity contest. It\u2019s a job interview. Unfortunately, the\u00a0majority of white voters\u00a0plan to install a twice-impeached, quadruple-indicted, convicted criminal with a 50-year history of racism in the most powerful position in America.<\/p>\n

My Black job, if there is such a thing, is to stop them.<\/p>\n

Keith Boykin\u00a0is a\u00a0New York Times\u2013bestselling author, TV and film producer, and former CNN political commentator. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School, Keith served in the White House, cofounded the National Black Justice Coalition, cohosted the BET talk show\u00a0My Two Cents, and taught at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University in New York. He\u2019s a Lambda Literary Award-winning author and editor of seven books. He lives in Los Angeles.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cBlack Vote, Black Power,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0a collaboration between Keith Boykin and Word In Black,\u00a0<\/em>
\nexamines the issues, the candidates, and what\u2019s at stake for Black America in the 2024 presidential election.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Yes, Joe Biden is a flawed candidate, but Donald Trump is a threat to America. Our Black job, is there is such a thing, is to stop him By Keith Boykin I\u2019m not doing this again with y\u2019all. While Democrats debate how to respond to\u00a0Joe Biden\u2019s debate performance, Trump and the Republicans are plotting to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,18],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[238],"class_list":["post-12919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-opinion","category-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12920,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12919\/revisions\/12920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12919"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=12919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}