Although African Americans voted at record levels during the 2008 presidential race, we fell off dramatically during the midterm elections of 2010 and this inaction gave us our own NWA — the group America loves to hate, the tea party members of Congress. In 2010, preliminary national exit polling, the youth vote — 18-to-29-year-olds — that helped catapult President Obama into office comprised just 9 percent of voters this year, compared to 18 percent in 2008.
Yep...it's the fault of black folks. The question I have for this is as follows: Where did these Tea Party Republicans in congress come from? Since we are speaking of Congress then we know that unlike the Senate these individuals represent relatively small districts within states. We also know that these districts are usually drawn up in a way to favor one party over another. They create Republican "safe" districts and Democrat "safe" districts. We know that black folks vote overwhelmingly Democrat. We're not talking 60% or 70% but 90+%. It is safe to say that in the district level black folks were not voting for Tea Party candidates AND that Tea Party candidates could not even make a showing even WITH low voter turn out. Since there are no Democrat Tea Party members that I know of, then these people came from Republican districts where it is also safe to say have little if any black folks in them. Of the ones who may have black folks odds are they either did not vote for the Tea Party candidate or they are Republicans and agreed with the particular candidate in which case they voted their conscience which we cannot complain about.
So given all this, why even try to write an article blaming low black voter turn out for the relative success of the Tea Party when it is highly unlikely that black voters had ANY impact on those district races? Oh right...gotta do the guilt-the-vote thing.