It might not seem like there are many answers, at first; it could easily be just a matter of name recognition. A big problem, recently revealed by ex-Bernie staffers to Terrell J. Starr in "How Bernie Sanders Lost Black Voters", was that the campaign did not seem to value black voters in the first place. But there's actually much more dynamism to the "black vote" than meets the eye, and when you look past the surface, you'll see that Bernie winning the black community was a long-shot from the start—a long-shot that prefaced his overall inability to clinch the nomination.
History & Black Political Context
Bernie’s campaign and supporters have touted his involvement with the Civil Rights Movement as a testament to his longtime support of issues that matter to Black Americans. People who criticize Bernie, on the other hand, ask what he’s actually done since the Civil Rights Movement. As admirable as the former point is, when it comes to garnering support among Black Americans in 2016, the latter is going to be more important.
To break it down, though, you don’t have to look very hard to understand why Bernie struggled to amass black support. He inherited a struggle by going up against one of the most well-known Democratic politicians in the nation. Black Americans have known Hillary since her husband’s initial presidential campaign decades ago, whereas they have utterly no history with Sanders, nor have they had any reason to. He is a senator from Vermont, literally the whitest state in the country. Not only does this mean Black Americans are unfamiliar with him, it means he has no experience in courting the black vote. And his campaign was apparently either uninterested or unprepared to tackle it. Compare that to Hillary, whose husband's presidential runs required black voters in order to win and who has been in the national political arena for decades. Though many question what she has actually done, negative or positive, for Black Americans, she is well-acquainted with campaigning for their support. Even if Sanders' political history is dotted with support for civil and black rights, that’s absolutely not his foundation, nor what he ran on. He used it, certainly, but his platform was based heavily in economics and even much of his racial analysis pivoted back to poverty and economic inequality. (Never forget the time he said that white people "don't know what it's like to be living in the ghetto" or "be poor.") The mere idea that his proposals should be appealing to black voters does not mean they necessarily are, or that they’re enough to overcome support for Hillary, who has been around far longer and at least theoretically has much less to prove.
In addition, the strong Democratic bloc of black voters is often mistakenly reduced to a monolith of unvaried viewpoints or as staunchly liberal. The dynamism of black politics is regularly ignored and undermined. By being reduced to Democrats or being construed as liberal, the conservative leanings of black voters on certain issues are ignored. The mainstay of the black Democratic bloc is that it is economically liberal. Other issues like foreign policy, terrorism, immigration, and other social issues might also play a role as to why Hillary is more appealing than Bernie. While true that black voters would arguably have more to gain from Sanders' proposals, at least in theory, that won't necessarily warm voters to semi-radical politics overnight, particularly if the message is not being effectively campaigned to their community.
The Democratic Party & Barack Obama
The black community has solidly been in the Democratic Party's corner since the 1960s. Bernie Sanders? Not so much. Though essentially a leftist who sometimes works with the party and certainly often votes with the party in Congress, Sanders is an independent whose views have remained steady through most of his lifetime, even as the political parties have shifted ideologically. In that way, it makes complete sense that black voters would gravitate toward the option who has always (well, almost always) been a Democrat. And although Black Americans and concepts of socialism in this country go far back, as various great Black American thinkers and activists leaned toward it or communism at some point, that's not really the case anymore. Since black representation in government has progressed, Black American politics have become much more mainstream and, as a result, been pulled to the center.
Further, to understand current trends among the black electorate necessitates understanding of Barack Obama’s legacy. The scars of 2008 aside, Hillary served in the Obama administration and is a link to him. Bernie is much more of a political mystery. He advocates for restructuring the systems we have, while Hillary campaigns on protecting and expanding them (i.e., the Affordable Care Act). One option seems much safer and more politically viable, and at a time where little seems possible politically, it only makes sense for Black Americans, as a relatively vulnerable group, to choose that safer option.
Sanders also represents an anti-establishment wing of the left, which greatly contributed to his relative success against Hillary, but also decimated his chances at winning the nomination. How? Well, like Trump's support, these disaffected voters are more likely to be brought in by his message, as opposed to already making up the party base. That means more voters, yes, but less votes proportionately from Democrats, who are still for the most part loyal to Obama. The establishment Bernie rails against is still being headed by a pretty well-liked (partisanship notwithstanding) Democratic president, and that's not likely to sit well with most of the Democratic Party. This ties right into his low support among black voters—few black voters are being brought in to the Democratic Party; they're already there. And they are much less likely to criticize Obama, both out of genuine policy support and racial affinity.
Message & Issues
A common criticism of Bernie’s campaign is that his message is too narrow. Although practically all Americans would be better served by economic reforms he’s suggesting, that doesn’t mean this benefit is necessarily translatable to everyone. The point is that the economy is not the only issue that matters to people, and attempting to swerve every other issue back to it is not adaptive or persuasive. This is especially true when you’re talking to different population groups. The fact that root problems of many issues source back to economic inequality is not going to convince a voter that you care about solving that problem, since many issues go far beyond that. Further, consider the context of speaking out about economic inequality with no racial analysis when factors like black unemployment have been consistently double the rate of white unemployment for decades, even when you control for education level.
Bernie's success has not necessarily been in bridging great political divides, but in his ability to convey a promise of change to a disaffected electorate. Trump has been able to do much of the same thing. While their messages and policy proposals are often very different, their actual base is a lot more similar than not. As evidenced by his political history, though, Bernie’s platform is de facto geared toward working-class whites who have not felt served by the Democratic establishment in particular. Just because this dissatisfaction might translate across racial lines does not mean that the dissatisfaction actually stems from the same source. Opinions that have characterized as black voters as not “really” progressive because they don’t support the "most progressive" candidate are obnoxiously simplistic. Black politics have always been distinct from white politics, and it’s ultimately a candidate’s fault for not being able to adapt their message in a way that can appeal to multiple groups. Sprinkling in mentions of police brutality isn’t actually enough to court a significant portion of the Democratic electorate.
Despite his low rating from the NRA and various remarks in favor of gun control, some of Sanders' constituent-repping, anti-gun control votes in Congress came back to haunt him during this campaign, and Clinton emerged as the clear and unequivocal gun control candidate. As of a 2015 Pew Survey, a majority of Blacks (72%) polled just behind Hispanics (75%) in support of increased control over gun ownership (Whites, 40%). With recent spates of high-profile police killings of unarmed Blacks, the continual problem of violence in urban communities, as well as the endurance of discriminatory Stand Your Ground laws, this is a significant issue for the black electorate and put Sanders at a disadvantage.
Demographics
The “black vote,” despite tendency to associate blackness with maleness, is actually a female majority. In fact, black women vote at rates higher than any other group. But Bernie’s major black endorsements have not equitably represented this trend whatsoever.* All of his heavy-hitting black endorsements (Cornel West, Spike Lee, Killer Mike) have been black men. And frankly, none of them have been particularly relevant black men. Cornel West comes closest, but Cornel West does not have the same public sway as more mainstream intellectuals like Michael Eric Dyson. Clinton, on the other hand, has many women of various races publicly in her corner, in addition to several black politicians in national office. That’s not to say that this is the only “get” or that either could make dramatic inroads with the black vote by high-profile endorsements alone, but there’s going to be somewhat of a hesitance in general to support a candidate who has few supporters that look like you.
Bernie’s strongest support has been among millennial voters, and that success shouldn't be minimized. But millennials still tend to vote at rather low rates. This was his struggle in general: voters bend more toward Clinton the older they get. Based on exit polls, this has been true of black voters as well, with the bend being even more extreme. That said, older voters turn out to vote in higher concentrations than young ones in addition to voting more consistently. With these trends, older black women are the foundation of the black vote, and they've been firmly in Clinton's corner. This compounds with issues like gun control, where many mothers of sons lost to racist and/or police violence have publicly come out in support of Hillary Clinton.
The Other Options
Finally, there’s no talking about this presidential campaign without noting the utter lack of options on the Democratic side. At its largest, the Democratic debate stage was just a quarter of the size of the Republican field—and it was whittled down quickly. From the start, Hillary seemed like the presumptive nominee, and for all of Sanders' impressive gains, he never did quite catch up. All of the aforementioned problems considered, as one of two options, Sanders had his work cut out for him among the black community—and he never proved he was up to the task.
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*My attention was first drawn to this by Feminista Jones on Twitter many months ago, though I can't find those tweets to save my life.
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