Shame Doesn't Win Elections

The Democratic Misstep with Black Men and Marginalized Voters

I like to believe I know a bit about politics. As a young man I worked on Barack Obama’s two presidential campaigns, stood in rooms thick with ambition and anxiety, and served as a national surrogate for two other campaigns, but just days away from the 2024 presidential election, I’m at a loss. And if we’re honest—so is everyone else.

Polls, fundraising, and endorsements no longer predict the future with the precision we once trusted. The numbers have become a murky reflection of a country fractured by its own contradictions, a nation shifting beneath our feet in ways typical electorate markers can't quite measure. The machinery of our “democracy”—long believed to be methodical, knowable—now feels uncertain, unreliable.

But what I can say about this election with certainty is that shaming people won’t win it.

Shame never wins. And yet, it seems to be the strategy some Democrats are doubling down on, wielding it like a blunt instrument, as if they can guilt voters into submission. Barack Obama’s recent comments are a prime example of this tactic. Standing in a Pittsburgh campaign office, he addressed Black men directly, chastising them for their supposed reluctance to support Kamala Harris, hinting that their hesitancy is rooted in sexism. “You're coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses,” he said, suggesting that their lack of enthusiasm was “not acceptable.”

When I first heard Obama’s comments, I felt a surge of frustration. It wasn’t simply the familiar discomfort of watching a figure many respect resort to chastisement, but the deeper recognition that shaming—especially shaming Black men—won’t get Kamala into the White House. The strategy felt as though it was crafted with little understanding of its audience. Historically, Black men have been the second most loyal voting bloc for Democrats, surpassed only by Black women. This allegiance isn’t new, nor is it shaky. Black men are expected to remain overwhelmingly steadfast in 2024. Time and again, Black men have shown up for the Democratic Party at rates that far surpass those of most other demographics. Nearly 20% higher than Hispanic women—the next closest group. And yet, here we are, confronted with rhetoric that treats this group as if they are a weak link.

I won’t dance around it—yes, sexism and misogyny are woven into the fabric of how many men, Black or otherwise, engage with politics. Some Black men won’t support Kamala because she’s a woman, and that’s a fact we can’t deny. But to fixate solely on that narrow truth is to obscure the far deeper, more complex reality of Black men’s relationship with this country’s politics. To look at it that simply is to ignore the weight of history that Black men carry into every election cycle, every campaign speech. It is to dismiss the glaring truth that many Black men are not supporting Kamala—or Trump—not because of gender, but because U.S. politics have failed them, again and again.

Consider how Nixon’s so-called War on Drugs or Clinton’s 1994 Crime Bill decimated entire Black communities, leaving generations of Black men locked away or left to navigate a society that viewed them as disposable. Recall the terror of redlining, the economic disenfranchisement that ensured Black men could work their whole lives and still never own a piece of the land they built. These failures are not ancient history—they are living wounds, passed down from father to son, brother to brother.

Then-President Bill Clinton (left) hugs then-Sen. Joe Biden on Sept. 13, 1994, during a signing ceremony for the crime bill on the South Lawn of the White House.

Some Black men aren’t supporting Kamala, or anyone else, because they’ve been burned too many times by a system that takes their votes and offers little in return. They’ve been told to wait, to hope, to trust—yet every election cycle, their lives remain largely unchanged.

What also troubles me about the shame-filled messaging of top Democrats is not just a question of whether it’s fair to paint Black men with such broad strokes; it’s also about whether it’s politically sound. The Democrats have long relied on Black voters to deliver elections. But shaming a group that consistently shows up for you—one already dealing with its own complex relationship to this nation—seems, at best, shortsighted and, at worst, harmful. The reality is that Black men don’t need to be browbeaten into showing up; they need to be engaged, respected, and heard.

Shaming might make for a passionate soundbite, but it’s not a strategy. It erodes trust.

If we were to entertain the notion that Black men are not a consistent Democratic voting bloc, and were instead largely going to vote for Donald Trump, the question naturally arises: why shouldn’t Black men deserve to be courted by the Democrats like any other group? In the realm of politics, every interaction is transactional at its core. A candidate wants power through your vote, and in return, they must make a case for why you should trust them with that vote—typically in the form of policies, promises, and, crucially, respect. Yet, what we’ve seen too often is the opposite—finger-wagging, condescension, and the expectation that certain communities, especially marginalized ones, will simply fall into line.

The relationship between the Democratic Party and marginalized groups often feels paternalistic, and Black men are not the only ones who experience this. Look at Arab Americans, Muslims, or those with familial ties to Palestine and Lebanon. These are communities that have been devastated by U.S. foreign policies that Democrats have supported. Yet there seems to be an assumption that despite this harm, they should simply align with the Democratic Party.

I get it, I truly do, Donald Trump is a white supremacist and there are only two viable candidates. Him and Kamala Harris. Pick your fighter. But this sense of entitlement to marginalized votes is deeply troubling because it strips these communities of agency. It reduces their concerns to a predictable political calculus—assuming Trump’s existence is the only thing that matters. Which in of itself is quite a privileged take. Some people on the margins have been dying, struggling, barely surviving whether the President is Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama, Trump, or Biden. Blue and red have blurred into a generational purple bruise for many communities.

Which all leads back to the question: what are you offering people so that they vote for you?

Democrats understand the transactional nature of politics because they’ve perfected the art of it. You see it in how they cater to former Trump supporters—people who proudly backed a man who made it his mission to degrade and dehumanize those on the margins. And why? Because the Democrats seemingly believe that these voters, along with the racist Reagan Republicans and warmongers like Dick Cheney, are somehow more valuable to their victory than the communities who have been loyal to them for decades. These voters are worth making promises to, worth bartering with. All while remaining silent and not shaming them for the way they historically done everything in their power to uphold white supremacy.

So what does that mean for the rest of us? Why isn’t the red carpet being rolled out for communities that have historically supported the party? For the Black men who want to know how this country plans to stop killing them? For the Palestinians who watch their homeland bombed with the backing of U.S. tax dollars?

Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns alongside former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney in Ripon, Wisconsin, U.S., October 3, 2024. 

This race is as tight as can be, and Democrats will need to scrape and claw to get any and every voter they can. But that won’t happen if people representing Kamala Harris are leading with shame. Shame doesn’t heal wounds; it doesn’t stir hope. Shame is a wall, not a bridge, and right now, this country needs bridges more than ever. It needs hands reaching to the margins, not fingers wagging in judgment. Democrats need to do more than chastise people into submission. They need to engage—not just with words that hover over heads like sermons, but with a vision that roots itself in the ground people walk on. They'll have to listen, truly listen, to the communities who have been expected to give and give, as though loyalty is a birthright for them to claim.

It’s not enough to scare people into the ballot box; fear won’t create change. Only hope can do that. And hope is found in the promise of a better tomorrow, in policies that make life worth living, in leadership that sees us as more than votes to be counted. If Democrats want Kamala Harris in the White House, they must offer more than the specter of Donald Trump. They must offer a reason to believe, to fight, to trust. Not in them, but in the possibility of a country that cares about us, that values our lives, that believes our futures are worth investing in.

A Note: In the aftermath of Barack Obama's comments on Black men, the Harris campaign has introduced what they call the “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men.” But upon scrutiny, this agenda's policies are not uniquely crafted for Black men; they are, in fact, accessible to all. They merely happen to intersect with the needs of some Black men.

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