You Have to Give It to President Obama...He's Consistent

If I had to use just one word to describe President Obama, it would be consistent. You have to hand it to President Obama, he has consistently enjoyed incredible support from black voters without promising anything. To look at it on the bright side, he also hasn't broken any promises to this constituency.  As I detailed in an earlier post, practically every other voting bloc has been brought to the table and have been able to make significant gains for their particular agenda, the exception being black voters.  

Let me stop you right now if you're one of those people that insist, "They blocked Obama's agenda so he couldn't help us". No, they didn't. The fact is democrats controlled both houses during Obama's first two years in office, at one point they even had a filibuster-proof majority. And even after the republicans regained control of the Senate, they really didn't mount much opposition to his agenda. President Obama has been quite successful in getting what he wanted.  He sometimes went through congress (Obamacare, repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"), he sometimes relied on the Supreme Court (gay marriage), and other times he used Executive Orders and Executive Memorandum to get a tsunami of things (immigration, climate change commitments and workplace regulations for starters), though the courts have at times put the breaks on some items.  

Yes, President Obama has been very consistent.  On the issue of gun violence, the president rarely misses an opportunity to speak out (or cry) in the wake of a mass shooting. Interestingly, the FBI defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four of more people are victims of gun violence. So technically, there have been a lot of mass shootings in Chicago over the past eight years, such as the mass shooting in the Back of the Yards neighborhood in 20013 which left 13 people shot including a three-year-old that was shot in the face.  Generally speaking, whenever a mass shooting occurs, President Obama is all over it, unless it happens in Chicago. When it happens in Chicago, he has consistently remained silent. Please don't confuse his televised town hall on guns held in Virginia back in January with tackling Chicago's problems. That was just another in a long series of speeches on gun control.

I just find it amazing how President Obama has absolutely no problem scolding blacks or demanding blind support for his policies, yet he's offered nothing regarding the crisis in Chicago. Politics is about quid pro quo. It's a give and take, not a take and take. If you're thinking there's really nothing that he can do, actually there is. President Obama, more than any other president, could have (had) a significant impact when it comes to addressing the root cause of the culture of violence that has beset Chicago. (Here's the root cause) The president has at his disposal any and every tool necessary to address this issue.  But, he hasn't made an effort and he probably won't. That's consistency.   

If we were talking about any other president turning a deaf ear to the horrifyingly high number of murders in a major American city, especially his hometown, the public's outrage would be seismic. Time magazine reported yesterday that Chicago alone is responsible for half of the nation's increase in murders. Given that Obama has adopted Chicago as his hometown, and he owns a home on the south side, and that the vast majority of the victims of the city's violence are blacks, you'd think he'd feel compelled to make Chicago's near-genocidal murder rate a priority, a cornerstone of his legacy.  

Well, President Obama may have missed the opportunity to lead the way in addressing the epidemic of violence plaguing Chicago, but he sure didn't miss an opportunity to once again demand that blacks do what he wants. Oh, well, at least he's consistent.

(meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus 2016)

(meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus 2011)