African Americans rethinking their political loyalty

More than half of African Americans responding to a recent poll said the Democratic Party is not paying enough attention to their needs.

For decades, African Americans have been a key voting block for Democrats. In 2016, 89 percent of black voters supported Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Now a movement called Blexit, which means the exit of black Americans from the Democratic Party, is encouraging African Americans to abandon the status quo.

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Candace Owens started the organization that now boasts chapters in several states.

“Black Americans are waking up,” Owens said during an appearance on The Mike Huckabee Show. “They’re realizing they’ve been sleeping at the wheel, and really what I’m saying is just to embrace your future. You can be in the driver’s seat of your future.”

Danielle Robinson, a Blexit member in North Carolina, stated, “This is not a quiet time at all. It is an all-in time. And those that are fighting this battle, those of us that are part of Blexit, we are all in because we’ve got nothing to lose because we’ve lost too much already.”

Robinson, who is a devout Christian, recently became a Republican. She says she’s proud of specific inroads President Trump has made into the black community. They include historically low unemployment for African Americans, prison reform and allocating a record amount of federal money to historically black colleges.

“Regardless of if you like him or not, his results are undeniable,” said Robinson. “I never expected to have a president deliver in such a way.”

Robinson, who has faced backlash for her conservative political views, urges other African American believers to consider their values.

“They have fooled us every election into voting against God or voting diminishing freedom of religion,” she said. “They cause us to forget what’s not working. And we’re not doing that anymore. As a community, as Christians, we’re coming into alignment.”

–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice