Biden Thinks Rap Artists Will Rescue Him With Black Vote

Plus, he repeats false claims about his family and his record

President Biden hopes to win over Black voters to his reelection campaign by enlisting “rappers,” the New York Times reports. 

“The Biden campaign is thinking through less traditional ways to reach Black voters in places including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh,” the Times article says. “For example, early discussions are underway about using campaign offices in some neighborhoods as community hubs, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions, who was not authorized to speak about them publicly. There are also plans to try to enlist local celebrities including actors, rappers and other musicians, this person said.”

The same Times article faults President Trump: “while Mr. Trump has courted Black voters, his efforts have often relied on stereotypes.” 

What could be more stereotypical than thinking that Black people are sitting around waiting for some rapper to tell them which presidential candidate to vote for? The Times article, by Maya King, a 2019 graduate of Howard University, does not explain how Biden relying on rapper endorsements isn’t a stereotype while, at the same time, whatever Trump is doing is somehow problematic.

Meanwhile, on May 19 in Detroit at an event courting Black voters, Biden said, “I’m the first in my family ever to go to college.” That claim is not accurate. Biden’s father went to Johns Hopkins for a year, and Biden’s grandfather, Ambrose Finnegan, went to Santa Clara College. Biden’s great-grandfather, Edward Francis Blewitt, got a bachelor’s of science degree from Lafayette College in 1879. In addition to being blatantly false, it’s also somewhat condescending, as if Biden thinks he can better relate to Black voters by passing himself off, falsely, as coming from a family that lacks formal post-secondary education. It’s the latest evidence that Biden is a phony.

Later on May 19 in Detroit, at an NAACP dinner, Biden made another false claim about his record: “When I was vice president, things were kind of bad during the pandemic, and what happened was, Barack said to me, ‘Go to Detroit and help fix it.’” In fact, Biden was not vice president of the United States during the pandemic. A confused Biden seems to have gotten mixed up between the pandemic and the financial crisis, which happened more than a decade before the pandemic.

The Times buries the news about the rappers in the middle of a long article, and, so far as I can tell, it doesn’t even report at all the two false claims made in Detroit, notwithstanding their obvious newsworthiness. That’s fine; it creates an opening for The Editors to bring you the news that the Times does not.

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