“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.” (Macbeth Act 5, Scene 5)

It is true that the Democratic Party offers no program for black prosperity or empowerment. It is also true that its history is steeped in the regressive reconstruction politics of the Ku Klux Klan. Its leaders and shakers are extremely dependent on the collective black vote, while offering minimal returns on such a huge political investment. Former President Lyndon Baines Johnson once said, while trying to rationalize his support for the 1964 Civil Rights Bill that:

“I’ll have them niggers voting Democratic for two hundred years.”

Such a quote speaks volumes about Johnson’s hypocrisy and political opportunism. It validated Malcolm X’s skepticism about the Democratic overtures to Blacks by its’ futile attempts to legislate brotherhood. Furthermore, it also corroborates his wisdom in urging Black Americans to register not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Independents.  Malcolm X was Blexit before Blexit was a concept. Black activists of the late 1960’s and 70’s also voiced their disapproval at the inanity of continuing to support a party that at its’ core, offered only liberal enlightened racism and benign political neglect.

Malcolm’s fervent pleas of Black political independence is distinct from the Blexit movement of Turning Point USA’s Candace Owens. Owens, The Director of Communications at the non-profit organization, advocates the wholesale departure of the black american voting block from the Democratic Party. Citing a long list of accurate grievances against the Democratic Party with a distorted and misleading view of history, Owens’ Blexit has emerged as the vanguard of young black conservatives. But the question that has to be asked is what is their agenda for the black community? Other than diluting the black democratic base, they apparently have none.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4dCMNi1lvc

They gathered in Washington D.C. nearly two weeks ago in a rally that culminated in a White House meeting with President Trump. The shocking thing about this rally was that, though they gathered to call a mass exodus of blacks from the Democratic Party, they presented no alternative other than the reactionary politics from the nether reaches of the Republican Party. They presented no policy issues other than those trumpeted by the President. And those at best, were the jingoistic political jargons and cliches that we have come to know so well in the conservative bubble of American politics.

What is more telling is that Blexit attempted to talk to black people largely without black media.  What good is a crowd without a megaphone? If their intention is to call black people out of the Democratic Party, shouldn’t they have used the most powerful mediums of black communication to do so? This meeting, called historic by its’ organizers, was historic only from the perspective of showcasing young black conservatives who would dare to be called such in the light of day from a voting block that has been the shameless pawns of an apathetic Democratic Party since the 1960s.

So what’s the alternative? What’s the benefit to the black community other than the conservative, amorphous ideals of God, Country, & The Free Market? If we are to understand Blexit, and by extension, its’ parent organization, Turning Point USA, we must take a cursory glance of the origins of Turning Point USA.

Turning Point USA was founded in 2012 by conservative activist by Charlie Kirk. It is an American conservative non-profit organization. One of its’goals, is allegedly to educate students about true free market values. It maintains a watchlist of college professors that it alleges advances a liberal agenda on college campuses. It is funded by a network of conservative think tanks and corporate leaders such as Billionaire philanthropist, and christian evangelical, Foster Friess.  Engaging into an in-depth explanation of its foreign policy agendas and domestic initiatives is a matter for another post. It suffices to say that neither Turning Point USA, nor Blexit has an agenda that empowers Black America beyond free market buzzwords.  

It appeared to have some sort of celebrity when Rapper Kanye West appeared on the periphery of the organization to support the Blexit ideal of breaking the Democratic Party stranglehold of the black vote. West would later recant his allegiance, stating that he felt he was being used to support a cause that he could never endorse. West’s defection left both Blexit and its’ reigning empress Candace Owens, without clothes. Owens is easy on the eyes but heavy on the fury. Her speeches elicit roaring ovations from the conservative masses that respond to her dog whistles of teleprompter talking points.

Like most conservatives, Owens and her legions are blatantly ignorant of simple history. And woefully ill informed about the basics of simple politics. Take for instance the exchange between a group of young black conservatives and Democratic Party cheerleader Roland Martin.  Martin, undoubtedly a democratic party shill, took them to school on the basics of federal funding of abortions, welfare, and the growth of black enterprises. He showed them for what they were: passionate, organized and robotic.

What remained were You Tube clips misrepresented as intellectual victories by social media personalities that had virtually no clue of the facts surrounding the issues they inherited from their benefactors. They were simply black faces pushing a free market agenda that will only benefit the guys that pay the bills. The clip exposed them as one issue automatons for wealthy reactionaries bent on restoring pre-Great Depression policies in American politics.

Their one saving grace is the issue of benign neglect of the Democratic Party to its Black American constituency. But they offer no alternative other than the living on a prayer chance that voting Republican, will somehow, offer Black America some abstract sense of political freedom. Historically, it would be only fair to mention that the Republican Party of yesteryear, were the liberals of the Democratic Party of today. Thus, in an oddly perverse way, Blexit offers a return to the very politics that fueled the bum rush of the black vote to the Democratic Party in the first place. Put it this way, if Candace Owens were Harriet Tubman, she would not be leading black voters to freedom up nawth, she would simply be leading blacks, without a gun, from one plantation to another.

Malcolm X once cautioned Black America against running from the wolf to the fox. Thus, it is equally reasonable to conclude that he would be just as concerned about today’s black community running from the fox, to the arctic polar bear of reactionary conservatism. Blexit, and by extension its’ mothership Turning Point USA, has no plan or agenda for black prosperity. Though the tone of its politics exhibit the sound and fury of righteous indignation, its program lives only in the phantom zone of phrase mongering.  So in actuality, it is simply just another tactic from a Democratic Party playbook. While it is conservative in theory, in application to the black community, it is strikingly liberal in its’ outcome. I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same. TILL NEXT TIME, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!LOL

TONY MACEO is a senior blogger at the negromanosphere, and the Chief Blogger at Power and Strategy.com. Like, share and subscribe to the website. Feel Free to check out the Chess Store or the Shop on the site. Become a Patron @ powerofstrategies on Patreon or support by paypal at wayofstrategy44@gmail.com