Last year, we saw a record number of Democrats declare their candidacy to be the front runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. There was really no unity early on for what was going to be a long and grueling fight to become the 2020 nominee to face off against Donald J. Trump, our nations 45th President.
A total of 28 candidates threw their hats in the ring. Yes, you read that right, 28! Of that 28, 22 were male and 6 were women. Of those 22 males, 5 identified as a minority (3 Black male candidates: Corey Booker – Senator from New Jersey, Deval Patrick – former governor of Massachusetts, and Wayne Messaum – former Mayor of Miramar, Florida; 1 Asian candidate: Andrew Yang – Entrepreneur, and 1 Hispanic candidate: Julian Castro – Congressman from Texas.). Of the 6 women, only 1 identified as a minority: Senator Kamala Harris from California.
Today, only 1 minority top candidate remains, Andrew Yang. He is popular among millennial males and seems to care more about the next generations (millennials and xennials) more than any of his peers still in the race. There are 11 top candidates left, of whom 7 are White males with 3 are White females. Does anyone see a problem here? When you have a country that has one of the fastest-growing populations in the world of a single group of people (Hispanic men and women) growing at a rate of 60 million people in 2018 (Pew Research Center, 2019), you really must wonder if the Democratic candidates see what everyone else sees. Are they representative of the people?
Just a few weeks ago, Julian Castro, the only Hispanic candidate in the race dropped out and immediately put his support behind Elizabeth Warren. A noble effort maybe to position himself as her running mate should she be nominated or some other notable position in her cabinet should she win, time will tell why he decided to go this route.
Here we go again with another group of people vying for the highest office in the land that doesn’t look like the majority they represent. The mere fact that they still use the state of Iowa as the first voting poll to see what the rest of the country is going to do is outdated as well. At some point, the Democratic party needs to wake up and see that the methods that they’ve always used just aren’t cutting it anymore. With an impeachment going on, a man in office that could really care less about the pageantry that is the Presidency of the United States of America, and his supporters that hang on his every move (including Republican congressmen), you have to wonder what if anything the Democrats can do to regain control and push this country back in the direction of fair and balanced.
It is not too late to do any of that, but the old bait and switch routine of saying they care about minorities and then not supporting minority representation in the party is not only wrong but has to stop. The people who are tired of the wool being pulled over their eyes need to make up their mind and hold the candidates accountable.
The late Fannie Lou Hamer said it best, “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Similar Read: The Demise of Kamala Harris, the Good, the Bad, and What’s Next