The Year of the Race Card

Although our Democratic friends appear to be in the catbird seat, passing universal and mandatory legislation over the opposition of the American people, don't forget that their power rests on a very shaky foundation.

It rests on scaring African Americans and Jews to death.

The simple fact is that you cannot get 90 percent of people to agree on anything unless you scare them to death. That's why you typically only get 90 percent electoral majorities in thug-dictator countries.

The reason that African Americans vote 90 percent for Democrats is that Democrats scare them all the time with the race card.

They have to. Otherwise they couldn't win a presidential election. Ever.

That's what James Taranto is talking about.

Since 1964, blacks have voted overwhelmingly Democratic. If Republicans were able to attract black votes, the result would be catastrophic for the Democratic Party. Even in 2008, the Democrats' best presidential year since '64, if the black vote had been evenly split between the parties (and holding the nonblack vote constant), Barack Obama would have gotten about 48% of the vote and John McCain would be president.

Guess what. The same thing applies to Jews. The reason that American Jews vote so heavily for Democrats is that Democrats scare them all the time with the Christian Right.

Political and religious leaders have always done this sort of thing. But it was all supposed to stop with the Sixties and the Civil Rights era.

Of course it didn't. And the reason is not that Democrats are evil, but because they got themselves in a jam. There is no way they can win power without striking fear into the African American heart.

One fine day, of course, African Americans will break out of their cultural ghetto and discover that people really don't care about them one way or another.

But Democrats can't allow them to find that out. Not until they have found a new victim class to ride to power.

Is it possible that this year, in their desperation to avoid a total wipe-out in November, the Democrats will jump the shark on race, and that African Americans will come to realize that they have nothing to fear but fear itself?

Here's hoping.