Louisiana’s New One-Party State Proves the Need for a New Black Political Party
October 14 destroyed what was left of the Democratic Party in this state. This should be thought of as a new opportunity for organizing instead of a defeat.
The state of Louisiana just got out of Gubernatorial elections and the results are not shocking. The Republicans annihilate the Democratic party. Wilson, the most popular Democratic primary candidate for governor did not fare too well, only receiving twenty-five percent of the vote compared to Jeff Landry’s fifty percent. It seems that the entirety of Louisiana’s white population rallied around the Republican politician. It did not help Shawn Wilson that he was the Secretary of the Department of Transportation in a state which has some of the worst infrastructure in the United States. But weakness of the candidate was just one of the issues that have plagued the Democratic party during that destructive election night. The strength of the Republican party and the control it has over the white vote was apparent. It was clear that one party was the white man's party while the other was barely a party. Black Louisiana needs to rethink its commitment to the Democrats and think about a new political formation. This election highlighted the reality that the democratic party is not a useful vehicle for black political power and a new one needs to be formed.
Let’s look at the current state of Louisiana’s government. The Louisiana house and senate are both controlled by the republican party, with near seventy percent composition in both chambers. There was essentially no change in which party controlled which seats. The republican party has a stronghold over the Louisiana supreme court, with five out of the seven being republicans. With the election of Landry, the republican party seems to control all aspects of Louisiana’s government and have established a one-party state. With this power, they can push all of the economic and social policies they please with little opposition. The key areas we should look at are Louisiana's prison industrial complex, environmental degradation, and tax code. We will see an increase in taxes that impact working people (fines/tickets, property taxes, sales taxes) and the cutting of taxes that impact wealthy people. We will see more executions (Edwards was anti-death penalty) in the coming months and an increased incarceration rate along with the bolstering of the police state (6). We will also see more oil drilling and the collapse of any care for those in Cancer Alley (it was little to begin with).
Donald Trump and the victory of Jeff Landry should underscore the reality that the Republican party is the white man's party. This is especially true in the state of Louisiana where 93 percent of Republicans are white compared to 34 percent of democrats and 75 percent of registered black voters are Democrats (7). The Democratic party is not a black political party, but the largest constituency of the Democratic party is the black population, particularly the black working class. The democratic party is primarily a fundraising organization whose main political blocks are the black working, middle and upper class and the small white, liberal middle class that exist in this state. The black population has historically viewed the democratic party as the only organ for political power within this state and within this country. It’s either blue or nothing, but the problem is many black voters are choosing nothing because the Democratic party establishment offers nothing to the majority of black voters.
The Democratic party's failure on October 14 is due to the inability of it to galvanize the black vote it so depends on. According to reporting by NOLA, the democratic party formula is thirty percent of the white vote and ninety percent of the black vote. What we have seen is the party become complacent and it started to believe that they will get the black vote regardless of what they do. Instead of focusing on issues that are relevant to black working-class people, they depend entirely on “Get out and Vote” propaganda/tactics while trying to win white voters. This issue is compounded by the incompetence of the state democratic party, which didn’t even challenge forty-four republicans for their state house and senate seats. The democratic party is not able to fundraise as it only spent $28,000 on the primary while the republicans spent $1.2 million. Its inability to bring forth candidates and it isn’t able to get its black constituency to vote is not the only problem. The statewide Democratic party is very divided on issues regarding the corruption of chairwoman Bernhardt and the division between establishment democrats with populist democrats. These issues lead to the collapse we saw on October 14, but signs of it could have been seen in the 2022 mayoral election in Shreveport, Louisiana.
They have shown their own weakness in the 2022 mayoral election in Shreveport, Louisiana. In 2022, the candidates were Adrien Perkins, Tom Arceneaux, Mario Chavez, Gregory Tarver and Levet Fuller. One of these candidates (Arceneaux) was a republican, Mario was an independent and the rest were Democrats. The results of the primary were Tom 28 percent (14,700) of the votes, Tarver was 23.6 percent of the Vote while Mario received 18.3 percent of the vote. Levette Fuller and Adrien Perkins received 9.7 percent and 17.6 percent respectively. The Democratic party won 53.2 percent of the popular vote in Shreveport while the Republican party won 28.5 percent of the vote. The democratic party, instead of rallying around a single candidate, closing ranks and mobilizing its constituents (the black working class), decided to splinter based on personal issues that some political figures have with each other. Tarver won enough votes to go to the runoff with Tom Ar. Adrien Perkins. All of Shreveport's Black former mayors, Cedric Glover and Ollie Tyler, all endorse the republican candidate, crossing both racial and party lines due to issues that should not be a factor. Tarver ultimately lost due to the betrayal of these figures of their own party and him being a foolish candidate to have in the Runoff. Instead of focusing on issues that are relevant to the Democratic party's working class black constituency, he doubled down on issues that are more intune with Shreveport's conservative white middle class. The perfect example is Tom Arceneaux’s argument that blight is more of a problem for Shreveport (which it is) than any “crime” problem. Tarver’s focus on being “hard on crime” alienated most black voters, especially youth while not even getting him any white republican votes. Those that did vote for him were just die-hard Democrats or die-hard anti-Republicans.
The Democratic party has been seen as the vehicle for black political power since the end of the Civil Rights Movement. The relationship between the Democratic party, the republican party and the black population is stated by Malcom X in his fox and wolf analogy. We have been voting for foxes to keep the wolves at bay. It has been shown since the election of Biden in 2020 that in Louisiana that many of the foxes have actually been wolves and that the true foxes are idiots. A new-grassroots, social-democratic, black political party needs to be formed so that the black population of Louisiana can actually engage in politics and bring forth our interest in government. What can be done now is simply talking to people about the need for a new black political party and the weakness of the Democratic party.
References:
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_House_of_Representatives
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_State_Senate
(3) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/14/us/elections/results-louisiana.html
(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Shreveport_mayoral_election
(5)https://www.nola.com/news/politics/elections/struggles-of-louisiana-democrats-lead-to-election-collapse/article_3ba82e7e-6f6f-11ee-a4c0-0f61a2cb8044.html?fbclid=IwAR1enIuM-Q-eNAx8RXb9t-cJ-_9_eoNPatbweUNWjSXp1ImJY7JnU4DnEWY
(6)https://jefflandry.com/values/
(7)https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/Pages/RegistrationStatisticsStatewide.aspx