Vice President Harris is rolling out a brand new agenda that goals to spice up monetary and profession prospects for Black males.
The discharge of the Harris marketing campaign’s “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men” on Monday comes simply 4 days after former President Obama, in feedback that went viral, admonished Black male voters for a scarcity of enthusiasm in help of Harris. Obama’s feedback got here as polls point out former President Trump is making positive aspects with Black males, who’re historically among the Democratic Celebration’s most dependable supporters.
The Harris marketing campaign, with simply over three weeks to go till Election Day, hopes to highlight its agenda to assist Black males obtain “the opportunity to get ahead, to thrive” by equipping them “with the tools to achieve financial freedom, lower costs to better provide for themselves and their families, and protect their rights.”
OBAMA, STUMPING FOR HARRIS, REPEATEDLY TAKES AIM AT TRUMP
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Harris speaks throughout a marketing campaign occasion at East Carolina College, Oct. 13, 2024, in Greenville, N.C. (AP Picture/David Yeazell)
The proposals embody offering 1 million loans which are absolutely forgivable to Black entrepreneurs and others to begin a enterprise, championing schooling, coaching and mentorship applications that assist Black males get good-paying jobs in high-demand industries and lead their communities, together with pathways to turn out to be lecturers.
Additionally highlighted by the marketing campaign is a regulatory framework to guard Black males’s investments in cryptocurrency and different digital belongings, a well being fairness initiative targeted on Black males that addresses sickle cell illness, diabetes, psychological well being, prostate most cancers and different well being challenges that disproportionately impression them, and the creation of alternatives for Black People within the leisure marijuana business.
PRO-TRUMP BLACK GROUP FIRES BACK AT OBAMA
Former Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Harris marketing campaign nationwide co-chair, mentioned the brand new agenda goals to ensure that “Black men are equipped with the tools to thrive: to buy a home, provide for our families, start a business and build wealth.”
“Donald Trump could care less about equipping hardworking Americans with the tools needed to get ahead,” Richmond mentioned. “While Vice President Harris is promising to equip Black men with the tools needed to pursue our dreams and aspirations, Donald Trump is promising Black in America a national nightmare.”
Republican presidential nominee and former President Trump is proven at a rally in Coachella, California, on Oct. 12, 2024. (REUTERS/Mike Blake)
To assist unfold the message, the Harris marketing campaign mentioned it’s teaming up this week with Black male celebrities, influencers and activists in key battleground states this week for “Black Men Huddle Up” occasions. The marketing campaign spotlights that it’s additionally enlisting the help of influential entrepreneurs for what it calls an “Economic Freedom Talk” sequence with Black enterprise house owners.
The brand new effort comes as Democrats are more and more involved about wavering help amongst Black males, and specifically youthful Black males, for Harris, who would make historical past if she is elected because the nation’s first feminine president.
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Harris and Trump are locked in a neck and neck race within the seven key battleground states whose razor-thin margins determined President Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump and can seemingly decide the winner of the 2024 White Home race. Any erosion of help amongst Black voters, and specifically Black males, might show pricey to the vice chairman.
Obama, talking Thursday at a Harris marketing campaign workplace in Pittsburgh, recollected the surge in help amongst Black voters that boosted him towards historical past in 2008 to turn out to be the nation’s first Black president. He bluntly mentioned he couldn’t perceive why Harris wasn’t having fun with the identical degree of enthusiasm, noting that the hesitation was “more pronounced with the brothers.”
Former President Obama speaks throughout a marketing campaign occasion in help of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in Pittsburgh on Oct. 10, 2024. (REUTERS/Quinn Glabicki)
“You’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses,” Obama mentioned. “I’ve got a problem with that.”
Talking on to Black males, the previous president mentioned that “part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”
As anticipated, Black supporters of Trump rapidly rebuked the previous president.
“President Obama’s recent call for Black men to support Kamala Harris based solely on her skin color, rather than her policies, is deeply insulting,” the Black Males for Trump advisory board argued this weekend.
However some Democrats additionally known as out the previous president for his remarks, arguing that Obama unfairly admonished Black males with out putting an identical chord with different demographic teams which have additionally expressed elevated help for Trump.
In one other pitch to Black voters, Harris on Tuesday heads to Detroit in battleground Michigan to take a seat for a city corridor dialogue with radio speak present host Charlamagne Tha God, whose “The Breakfast Club” program is common with Black listeners.
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter primarily based in New Hampshire.
