On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “AC360,” CNN Political Commentator and former Obama adviser Van Jones stated that he is very worried about the level of enthusiasm among black voters for President Joe Biden and that “it’s starting to feel like, wow, the economy isn’t that good and our issues didn’t get taken seriously and what are we supposed to do?” And that while disdain for 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump will be good enough for some voters, “you’ve also got people who are having a problem filling up their gas tank and they’ve got other stuff that they’re concerned about.”
Jones stated, “There’s no word big enough for the amount of concern, because people, it is hurt. It’s remarkable. I think, when you remember 2008, the hope, in, 2016, determination, 2020 — 2016, people kind of took their foot off the gas with Hillary Clinton. I think that — police reform, nothing, criminal justice reform, nothing, voting rights, nothing. The things that black people came out and voted for and voted about, George Floyd, the John Lewis civil rights, nothing has gotten done on the black card. And so, it’s starting to feel like, wow, the economy isn’t that good and our issues didn’t get taken seriously and what are we supposed to do? And I also think that people think black people are going to be single-issue voters, we don’t like Donald Trump. I don’t think that’s smart. There might be some black single-issue anti-Trump voters, but you’ve also got people who are having a problem filling up their gas tank and they’ve got other stuff that they’re concerned about.”
He added that while there will be some people for whom disliking Trump will be enough to get them to vote for Biden, “there [are] other people who feel like, man, what do we have to do? We stand in these long lines for hours and hours and hours. We’re getting gerrymandered. We have to fight so hard just to vote. And then, the neighborhood’s not any better and then affirmative action gets taken away and then the voting rights [are] worse and the gerrymandering is worse and nothing is happening.”
Jones concluded that there is a possibility that as a campaign goes on, people may change their minds.
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