Well, there’s no one better to answer all these questions than Ben Jealous. He’s the former president and CEO of the NAACP and the current president of People For the American Way. Ben, great to see you after all these years. Welcome to Washington Post Live.
MR. JEALOUS: Thank you, Jonathan. Really nice to see you, sir.
MR. CAPEHART: So, let’s talk about this early vote. More than–by the time Election Day happens we might be hitting close to 100 million early votes, a lot of them being people of color, specifically African Americans. Can you talk about the early vote, the Black vote, and what role both voter suppression and also the pandemic has played in getting African Americans out to the polls early?
MR. JEALOUS: Well, I think, you know, the pandemic has really accelerated change towards mail-in ballots, and that should ultimately be a very good thing for our democracy. In the first cycle or two of shifting to mail-in ballot, historically it has shown that if you don’t do a massive push to get voters to switch, it tends for favor older, wealthier, and therefore more conservative voters–voters, if you will, that are more used to dealing with the mail, who have a stable address. Younger votes tend not to deal with the mail as much, and voters who are low-income tend to move often. So, anything that’s really tied to a specific address becomes a challenge.
And that’s why we have been focused on reaching out specifically to Black male sporadic voters under 50, about 25 states, because we identified them as sort of like the group that if we really didn’t lean into helping them, could get left behind. At the same time, it was urgent because when you look at voter intimidation, when you look at intentional disinformation, Black voters, young Black voters, and to some extent Black men have been a special focus for some time.
What has me excited about Election Day, that this wave could keep going, is, quite frankly, the Black vote has been so targeted. What we saw in 2012 when the tea party was first coming–you know, becoming a thing in presidential politics and now the Trump campaign builds on the tea party the way QAnon builds on pizzagate, what you see is that–what we saw in 2012 was that the early targeting of the Black vote inspired people to turn out. Now we understand intrinsically that the best antidote to massive voter suppression is massive voter turnout.
And it’s easy to take something for granted like an old bicycle in your front yard until somebody tries to steal it. But the moment that they try to steal it, suddenly you realize it’s a lot more valuable. So, I’m hopeful that tomorrow the high turnout that, if you will, COVID has inspired during this early voting period will continue on Election Day and really be pushed, ironically, by the massive voter suppression attempts.
MR. CAPEHART: Well, let me have you zero in a little bit more on what you were saying. You’re targeting Black male sporadic voters, those voters who feel like they’re being left behind. And it made me think of what President Trump has been doing in terms of reaching out specifically to African American men. I would love your perspective on what the president is trying to do and how successful he will be, because in 2016, sure, predominately, overwhelmingly the African American vote went to Hillary Clinton. But more Black men went for–went for Trump than Black women did. And if you look at some recent polls, he’s up, President Trump is up into double digits in African American support.
MR. JEALOUS: Yeah, right. Yes, there’s a question–hovering around 10 percent. And Black men, I believe, in 2016 went from around 13 percent, and this year it looks like it could be as high as 15 percent. I mean, Trump really has kind of three themes, if you will. You know, one is that we need to make our nation strong, the second is one of white supremacy, and the third is one of patriarchy. And it’s easy to see how two of those can really appeal to men of any color. And so what you see is because of his leaning into patriarchy–that White men, Black men, brown men are all more likely to vote for him than White women, Black women, brown women–the fight, if you will, for Black male voters can only be a good thing, you know, that we’re not being taken for granted. I think you’ve seen the Biden campaign really realize that they can’t take Black men for granted.
In 2018, we really got a jarring reminder of the need to really increase the Black male vote. When I was on the ballot here, Stacey and Andrew were on the ballot for governor in Georgia and Florida, Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum. And in their case, they were also up against challengers. It was a very tight margin. Each of them would have won if Black men had turned out at the same rate as Black women. We would have Black Democratic governors in Georgia and Florida right now if Black men had showed up at the same rate as Black women. And so, it was in that moment, stepping into the role here at People For, that I was like we just simply got to do with the Black male vote what we’ve done with the Black female vote for decades, which is to realize it’s a special project of high importance with transformative possibilities. Black men will likely decide this race for president by either showing up or not showing up. If Black men had shown up in Florida 2016, Hillary would have won.
MR. CAPEHART: And to remind people, yes, you were on the ballot in Maryland running for governor. You know, one thing, Ben, that I didn’t mention in terms of the impact on the Africa American vote, I mentioned the pandemic. The Black Lives Matter protests around the country and the–sort of the galvanizing energy that that had around the country, what–talk about the impact of those protests, those demonstrations on energizing the Black vote.
MR. JEALOUS: The generations are baptized into civic engagement by protest movements. For my mom’s generation it was SNCC, or my generation it was the free South Africa movement. For this rising generation it’s the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s critical for getting young people more engaged. We’ll see a lot of great leaders come from the Black Lives Matter movement. One of the things that we have done at People For to try to help encourage that, this year we decided to endorse more than a hundred young people running for office across the country, specifically inspired by a desire to end police brutality in their communities. And I would say it’s only a matter of when, not if, we finally see an end to police killings. Moving into this more political phase of the movement will be critical to that.
We go back to how lynch mob violence was ended, you really dig into the folk histories, if you will, the local histories, what you see is early Black civil rights movement, first half of the 20th century in states like Pennsylvania and New York where Blacks could vote and lynching was a problem, really making it clear to local leaders–judges, mayors, sheriffs–that they wouldn’t be able to keep their job if they didn’t start holding lynch mobs accountable.
And similarly, I think this Black Lives Matter movement has inspired a movement of politics, of saying to mayors and the like if you’re not going to hold these officers accountable, if you’re not going to hold the chief accountable for these unnecessary killings of our neighbors, then you’re just going to have to go. And you saw a sign of that when the Laquan McDonald coverup came out and Rahm Emanuel’s popularity suddenly dropped to single digits.
MR. CAPEHART: Right. And that was in Chicago when Rahm Emanuel was mayor of Chicago. But, Ben, let’s talk more about what People For the American Way is doing to basically try to get people out to vote, African Americans out to vote in particular. And from what I understand, you’ve got digital campaigns, you’ve got peer-to-peer texting technology. I’m a bit of an old man. Talk to me about peer-to-peer texting. What’s this about?
MR. JEALOUS: First of all, the biggest news that was broken here is that you’re an old man, Jonathan. You look much than you are, brother. I wish I had that problem. What I’d say is that, you know, so historically, People For, like so many other groups, has been involved in something calls Souls to the Polls, which is supporting Black churches, but really to put congregants in vans and neighbors in vans and get them to the polls.
COVID, you know, if you think about it as a church bus, COVID slashed like three tires in that bus. And so, we sat down and we said how can we use technology, how might we use technology to do something even bigger and bolder when we can’t like reach out and touch anybody? And what we came up with, especially with a focus on younger Black men, Black men under 50, and with a really with kind of heavy focus under 35, was peer-to-peer texting technology. So, we tried it out. Well, here we are. We’ve been doing this for a couple of months. We have now reached over 2.5 million Black men in 25 states. What that means is, we’ve reached every Black male registered but unlikely or sporadic voter under 50 for whom a cellphone number exists in any consumer database that we can tie back to the voter roll. We have reached them multiple times, and with about 10 percent of them we’ve had a real conversation about how to vote, when to vote, and why to vote. So, about a quarter million Black men we have really helped kind of find their way into voting while pushing and, if you will, passing out digital flyers to about 2.5 million. It’s been incredible. Our band of 25 organizers and small group of volunteers can send out a half million texts per day.
MR. CAPEHART: So, if I heard you right, a quarter of–2.5 million people, Black men you’ve reached out to. A quarter–250,000 of them you have walked through the process. And you know that–does that mean you know that they have registered to vote?
MR. JEALOUS: So, yeah. So, all of them were registered to vote. These are unlikely voters.
MR. CAPEHART: Got it, okay. Got it.
MR. JEALOUS: So, they’re registered but they don’t always show up. Specifically, they didn’t show up in 2016, right?
MR. JEALOUS: So, went after the brothers who didn’t show up in 2016 and just said, look, your vote’s super important. We need you to show up. It was actually 3 million. Ninety percent opened it. That was the 2.5 million. So, if you–
MR. CAPEHART: That’s a good rate.
MR. JEALOUS: Yeah, it’s a tremendous rate. And then 9, 10 percent of them responded and said I need help voting. How do I get my mail-in ballot? Where is my polling place? Is it, you know, too late? There’s a lot of confusion out there. And we were able to walk them through how to actually vote. So, we’re–our hope is that we’ll–you know, because we have all those folks tracked that we’ll be able to show that all the ones who had a conversations with us voted and that generally there was an increase in this demographic voting in those 25 states.
MR. CAPEHART: Well, Ben, if you’re–if you’re communicating with them and they’re asking you for help in terms of voting, are you hearing other messages from them? Are they telling you either, you know, why they haven’t voted in the past, or issues or concerns that they have for the upcoming election?
MR. JEALOUS: You know, so we’ve also held townhalls in about 10 states across the country, again, with Black men on the phone. There, we’re actually able to poll them. It’s of like a mass focus group, 4,000-5,000 men on the phone. And what you see is that jobs is super important. This economy is super important, and also concerns about healthcare. The–and the way that’s reflected in our texts is that our texts really make it clear that the future of the economy, the future of healthcare is very much on the ballot this year. And so, there’s kind of a common response and some deep listening that we’ve been doing with Black men around the country in helping them understand that if we really want to see things get better, you know, then they’ve got to turn out to vote and make their voices heard at the ballot box.
MR. CAPEHART: You know, I’m also wondering if–I mean, we just went through a very fast confirmation process for now Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and for a lot of people, you know, judges, judges for the Supreme Court on down, is a big issue. And I’m wondering if you’ve heard about–heard any concern from the Black men that you’ve reached out to. And I’m asking that because there’s a question from Marian McElroy from Illinois, and her question is: “How do we get more young African Americans to understand the importance of voting”–which we’ve been talking about–“and its impact on the appointment of federal judges.”
MR. JEALOUS: You know, one thing, and kind of shifting to talk about the–kind of the more partisan work that we do here at People For, because we do both–we actually have to build a movement around judges that goes from the county level to the federal level. Only having the conversation be about the federal level makes it, you know, a very infrequent conversation and often a very sort of theoretical conversation. People can’t really feel it. The conservative movement has built a movement to install conservative judges at the county level, the state level, and the federal level. And progressives and folks on the left need to be doing the same thing. Folks can totally get how a bad judge in their county impacts their lives. And if they understand that, then it’s easier to have that conversation of what’s happening at the federal level.
I’m terrified about the impact of Amy Coney Barrett. I mean, to be clear, what we can expect is that, you know, first she’s going to go after the Affordable Care Act, then they’re going to go after protections against the undocumented, and then quickly it’s going to get into affirmative action and core civil rights protections. And so there, unfortunately, is going to be nothing like a whole of lot of bad news coming out of the Supreme Court I think to really educate people. But in sustaining, that means we’ve got to build a movement of people who are focused on making sure we have good judges at every level. That’s how we’ll sustain it.
MR. CAPEHART: You know, I’m wondering, what do you say to those would-be voters out there who feel like the system hasn’t changed and their vote doesn’t make a difference, especially in places that aren’t swing states and that will most certainly either go blue or red? What do you say to those folks who are like, yeah, I’ve seen what’s been going on, but I’m still on the fence as to whether I’m going to vote, or I’m not going to vote at all because I don’t think it makes a difference?
MR. JEALOUS: It always starts by actually asking them what’s important to them and listening to them and then responding to that very specifically. We see a lot of people who are, you know, on the fence about voting, not voting, and even who to vote for is what’s happening with COVID, because they feel it and they deal with it every day. And they’re aware that the rest of the world is handling this better and that we could have handled this better.
You know, I was on the phone with Dave Chapelle the other day, and he was walking through how he broke–stopped an outbreak at his performances he was having this summer. So, you know, there is a very brass-tacks conversations that is happening across this country. And folks who are trying to, you know, keep their work going, their business going, they’re well aware that things could have been handled better. That’s a real conversation.
The next real conversation is about healthcare. It’s such a–it’s so fragile right now. The Affordable Care Act is very much in the crosshairs of Amy Coney Barrett. It’s very much in the crosshairs of Donald Trump. That also, I think, really cut deep this year. It’s why you see so many Republican senators at risk right now, and hopefully on their way out.
And then the issue of jobs. I think that’s where we as Democrats have really fallen down, is that for working people, Black and White, we have just not risen to be what–all that we can be as far as making this economy work for all of us. And given where the country’s headed now economically, we’ve really got to get back to brass tacks and have the courage to figure out how you make an economy at this moment in the technological age, in this moment in the world and in this moment in this pandemic work better for all of us.
MR. CAPEHART: And you’ve written and spoken a lot about Black voter suppression, intimidation, misinformation, cases of outright disenfranchisement in certain states where failure to pay fines have led to ineligibility, basically a modern-day poll tax. How have you been working to remedy this injustice?
MR. JEALOUS: Right now, the biggest thing is to turn folks out. You know, my old buddy John Lewis, what he would tell us if he was here is, when they make voting harder, you just got to vote harder. You’ve got to push more folks out, because you have to overwhelm them at the ballot box so that you have something to work with, so that you have leaders that you can influence, and who have the courage, say, to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Restoration Act HR4, or the–or, you know, the big omnibus bill to get money out of politics, you know, that John Sarbanes has been pushing, or even make D.C. a state. And so right now I’ve been keeping voters and activists is very much focused on let’s keep our heads down, let’s push everybody out to the polls. Imagine what happens if all of a sudden Ossoff and Warnock are representing Georgia, you know? Imagine what happens if Lindsey Graham has to find a new job finally. And these are all things that are within the realm of possibility, you know, for at least the next 24 hours. So, we’re keeping our heads down and pushing everybody out to the polls.
MR. CAPEHART: You know, there was a story I read over the weekend, and I sort of gave it a little side-eye because this is sort of the quadrennial story about Democrats panicking over fill-in-the-blank constituency not coming out to vote in early vote. And in this case, it was the African American vote not coming out in the numbers expected in the early vote in Georgia, and I also think in Florida. What do you think accounts for that? Is it voter suppression, particularly in Georgia?
MR. JEALOUS: I actually think we’ll see overwhelming turnout on Election Day in Georgia. There’s no doubt that the state government there has tried to make it as hard for people to vote as possible. The governor’s a former secretary of state. He’s a real voting rights villain if there ever were one, and he is absolutely trying to gum up the machine and make it harder for people to vote.
Generally, again, as we talked about earlier, the kind of more low-income your community, the–frankly, the more you ultimately–it’s kind of ironic, the more you benefit from early vote, the more you benefit from vote by mail, but it takes several cycles, and also, at the same time, the more likely that you’re just simply going to make a plan for Election Day turnout. So, my hope right now is that what you’ll see is that on Election Day it will be more of a working class cut. It will be, therefore, a more diverse electorate that shows up.
And ultimately, by the time that we’re counting the votes, what you’ll find is that turnout was very high. It’s been the arc in past cycles. I think it’ll be the arc this time. One of the things, again, that makes me hopeful is that if folks know that–people who, like, work two, three jobs, like a lot of Black folks do, know it’s just going to be hard, that they’re just going to make a plan to be there all day on Election Day and negotiate that with the boss, it’s different, you know–if–frankly, if you just work one job and you’re a professional and the office is cool if you just kind of pop up in late any day, you know, please go early. But for folks who are really working two, three jobs, I think what you’ll find is that they’ll turn out. They know that their vote’s important, but they’re just going to make a plan for Tuesday.
MR. CAPEHART: And what do you make of the assertion that, to your point, waves upon waves of African American voters showing up at the polls tomorrow in person because they don’t trust the mail and they don’t trust the ballot boxes, that they want to be there on the day, vote in person so that they know for sure that their ballot is in?
MR. JEALOUS: Oh, it’s huge. It’s huge. The level of anxiety that we’re seeing in texts back and forth about is it even safe for me to vote by mail. The president has an incredible propaganda effort between his attacks on the Post Office and his just bald lies about vote by mail–something that he uses, and the entire U.S. military uses and that works very, very well. And yet, he lies about it incessantly. And it’s had an impact. There’s been a lot of anti-vote by mail propaganda, so there are a lot of voters. Yes, their vote is precious to them, and they know they just better do it in person no matter what the risk is.
You know, at the same time, you know, talking to Stacey Abrams down in Georgia, they’re preparing–they have volunteers at every single polling place to make sure that it’s safe, because they know that, you know, not only has President Trump encouraged people with guns to show up at the polls, but that there are actual militias making plans. And so, you’ve seen an unprecedented turnout. Many of the pastors that we organize here at People For are in these collars and lawyers efforts where the pastor, you know, in their collar and a lawyer show up at the polls just to be there all day, keep folks calm, mediate where needed, make sure everybody is safe and make sure that nobody is able to intimidate voters from voting.
MR. CAPEHART: You know, Ben, as I said in the intro and as I’m sure people know who you are and recognize you–I mean, right now you are the president of People for the American Way, but before you were president and CEO of the NAACP, the preeminent Africa American civil rights organization.
MR. CAPEHART: I would love for you to give your perspective as a civil rights leader on where we are right now in this country on the eve of clearly the most important election in our history, where I have said many, many times on Washington Post Live, in columns and on television that this election, to me, is a choice not just between President Trump and former Vice President Biden but a choice between American democracy and white supremacy. Your view?
MR. JEALOUS: You know, I tend to take a long view. My family is from Baltimore, or really from Southern Virginia by way of Baltimore. And my grandmother, who turns 104 a week after the election–and this is–this is her–she’s my heart. Those are my kids, they’re my heart, too. But my grandma descends from Thomas Jefferson’s grandma, by her other grandchildren that were her slaves, right? And she’s–the life of somebody who’s turning 104 takes a very long view of things, kind of lives in the balcony of history. She carries with her 200 years of American history told firsthand, 104 years she’s lived herself, including training a young Barbara Mikulski as a social worker, and the hundred years that she inherited from her parents–from her grandparents and great-grandparents who were born slaves.
And what she’d tell you is this, that if we were just a quarter century from the end of White domination at the polls, where literally every group in 25 years is going be a minority in this country, every group’s going to have to succeed democratically by finding alliances demographically, that you would expect those who are most invested in the old way of doing things, in the old order, to be acting like a fox backed into a corner right now. You know, foxes are usually kind of mischievous, sort of meek characters. I mean, you back them into a corner and they become vicious. And the far-right wing feels backed into a corner demographically right now. And so, you see them lashing out.
And my grandma, you know, grew up in a farm in Southern Virginia, and what she’d tell you is that the moment a fox lashes out is the moment before you’re about to win. That’s the sign of a fox knows that everything is about to change in a way the fox is not prepared for. And so ultimately, I live with hope that what really comes from the knowledge that we’re headed to a better place as a nation, a place that Frederick Douglass described 150 years ago when he said that the destiny of America is to be, quote, “the most perfect example of the unity and dignity of the human family that the world has ever seen.” We just are going to have to pass through a very dark period before we get to that dawn.
As organizers, as activists, our job is to hasten the dawn, is to make the better future come faster. And that’s why we’ve sought to work not just in a way that’s hard but that’s smart to get as many voters to turn out as possible, because if voters in Georgia, if Black voters and brown voters in Georgia and Mississippi, Florida vote tomorrow the way they did for Obama, for instance, well, you’ll see a better future come faster for this country.
MR. CAPEHART: Ben Jealous, you gave probably one of the most beautiful analogies about your grandmother, that she lives in the balcony of history, as 104 years old. Quite the compelling story, and very good perspective for us to have.
My last quick question to you is, just given everything you’ve said, especially as you and other activists, your job is to hasten the dawn of the dark period that we’re going through, do you think the United States, as a democracy, can survive another four years of this kind of darkness?
MR. JEALOUS: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. You know, I come from very–two very old American families. The one, my grandmother’s, goes back to the James River plantations and the old families of Virginia, and my father descends from seven officers in the Massachusetts Regiment of the American Revolutionary Army. And when you come from families that have a strong, long oral tradition, what you know is that we have gone through fraught and terrifying moments before, that our democracy has existed many times on the edge–on the edge of a blade. And yet, we’ve ultimately always gotten to a better place. We’ve ultimately survived because of the resilient spirit of the American people and because of our–this desire to ultimately be one. We fight and then eventually we–that period ends and there’s a great period of coming back together. And I have faith that we’ll get there. Donald Trump has many of us feeling like–frankly, like we’re on the brink of civil war. But this country’s gone through a civil war and, frankly, prospered on the other side. I don’t think we’re heading into civil war this time. I just simply think that we’ve all got to turn out and vote and make it clear that the majority of American people want to be one strong inclusive nation. That’s the future, and it’s the best future for all of our children.
MR. CAPEHART: An incredibly–incredible optimistic view of where we can go. Ben Jealous, president of the People For the American Way. Thank you very much for coming to Washington Post Live.
MR. JEALOUS: Appreciate you. Thank you, Jonathan.
MR. CAPEHART: And as always, thank you for tuning in to Washington Post Live. If you want to see highlights from today’s program or see other conversations in our Race in America Series, head over to washingtonpostlive.com.
In the meantime, later this afternoon we continue our Post Live Election Daily show with Indiana Senator Todd Young and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington State. As always, I’m Jonathan Capehart, opinion writer for The Washington Post. Thank you for watching Washington Post Live.
