A final point, please don't take this to mean that I think we need some cataclysmic intra party war - that will only help the GOP. And that will only hurt the country. But people need to understand that there is an active effort by the mainstream within the party, that wants to remain more centrist and beat back the populist/progressive wave, to subtly shift blame for the loss away from the central characters and their underlying political positions. They know black voters are extremely loyal to the party; and because black voters have little to no expectations even of the Dems, they know that even if they push this narrative that if only black people had turned out in 16 like they did in 08 and 12 that we wouldn't be dealing with a pres. trump, that we are not going to turn away from the Party. In other words, we can safely be blamed without a significant loss in votes.
And not surprisingly, neither of these presumably highly educated writers have the self awareness to make the connection between the barber's statement that "no president in his lifetime, INCLUDING (my emphasis), had significantly improved the lives of black people" and why black people in states where their governments are actively taking measures to take away their right to vote and where even when they DO turnout and elect Democrats, they still feel like their lives are not improving, might suffer from a "lack of enthusiasm."
