The lead up to the 2020 election has been, in large part, a mess. Though an ABC News/Washington Post poll suggests low enthusiasm for a Biden-Harris presidency, Biden still leads by a narrow margin over Trump in the projected data. 

The enthusiasm deficit coupled with a series of blunders from when Biden has addressed Black America has many people framing the Black vote as the sole rescuer of the nation. But this isn’t the first time the polls have been against Trump, and it wasn’t the Black vote who didn’t deliver. With so much attention on the Black vote, is anyone asking, “Can the white vote be trusted?”

In 2016 Hillary Clinton was supposed to easily win over Donald Trump. She was projected to figuratively drag him over the United States by his combover. That didn’t happen. After the dust settled, pundits, the country and even Donald Trump himself were left astonished that the polls had been so wrong. 

The post mortem of the election revealed three things: Black women overwhelmingly voted for Clinton despite skepticism, non-Black POCs voted for Trump more than anyone expected and white people (specifically white women) lied about who they intended to vote for — pulling an okie-doke and voting for Trump in the final hour.

Donald Trump’s offensive language and ideologies, which were brought to the national forefront before the 2016 election, are the things of legend. He was caught openly talking about sexually assaulting women. He mocked people with disabilities. His rallies were, and continue to be, an angry mob that resembles Orwell’s 1984 “two minutes hate” — everyone screams and foams at the mouth at both nothing and everything. Trump's gatherings have been linked to inciting violence, yet this didn’t faze white America. 

Though 2016 voter turn out dipped from the previous election, approximately 88% of Black Americans (96% Black women) voted for Clinton while 58% of the white vote (53% white women) went to Trump. The dynamic spawned an entire genre of think pieces that saw young white progressives lamenting their betrayal and offering tips and tricks about talking to their pro-Trump family. Many approached this as a learning lesson that white America could all kumbaya over and grow from.

So, how exactly did Donald Trump get to almost exclusively become the responsibility of Black America?

The Clinton’s War on Drugs served as the precipice for disproportionate incarceration rates of Black Americans and rightfully had many people questioning if Clinton deserved the Black vote. That being the case, she still got it because Donald Trump was a raving lunatic and a racist one at that.

2016 feels like lightyears away. Hell, this year alone has felt like a decade. And now that we’ve seen how bad a Trump presidency is and that, as former first lady Michelle Obama warned at the DNC, “If you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me — they can, and they will,” we have to question where white America’s head is at with a little over two months until the election. 

This week wraps up the Republican National Convention and it has been, in a word, terrifying. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley used the opportunity to lecture how America is not racist, and the narrative has been cooked up by liberals. She immediately contradicted herself going into a monologue about the discrimination and racism her immigrant family faced. The irony was lost on her. Tiffany Trump, a recent law school graduate and daughter of the wealthiest president in history, said that she could relate to new grads looking for a job. Presidential advisor Kimberly Guilfoyle delivered a speech that saw her screaming into the abyss like a communist dictator and smiling maniacally. 

Is the white collective as a majority going to vote for these people, again? Are white people still trying to get their families together at the dinner table to discuss this? Are there any new think pieces?

This political theatre would be funny if it wasn’t our reality. The extra emphasis on the Black vote, despite the numbers revealing white American unpredictability, is giving attempts to center Black people as saviors of the US — like we don’t already have a full plate — while absolving white America from voting in the best interest of the union, not just themselves. If Black Americans are positioned as saviors, another Donald Trump term will imply that we are responsible for the country’s shortcomings — and we all know that's not true. 

Black Americans are not superheroes. Our vote will always matter, but to remove Trump from office it will require that white America pulls their weight with their ballots.

Biden-HarrisBlack-VoteBlavity-OriginalDonald trumpElection-2020