Tangle - Kamala Harris's agenda for black men.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today's read: 13 minutes.

Clarification.

In last Friday’s edition on ballot initiatives in the 2024 election, we included a proposed constitutional amendment in Utah that would allow the state legislature to amend or revoke ballot measures once they are passed. Several readers from Utah wrote in to let us know that the amendment had been voided by a state judge, who determined the measure’s language omitted key information about what the amendment would entail. The measure will still appear on the ballot, but the judge said the results “shall be given no effect." Thanks to the readers who shared this update.

I'm making my predictions.

With the election just weeks away, I think it’s time for me to put my name to a few predictions. So this Friday, I’m going to predict a few 2024 election results — who will win the White House, which parties will control the Senate and House, and a few things we can expect in the days leading up to and after the election. If you have issues you want to see covered, feel free to reply to this email and throw in some suggestions to the team.

Quick hits.

1. A county judge in Georgia blocked a rule passed last month by the State Election Board requiring a hand count of election ballots. (The decision) Separately, a different Georgia judge ruled that officials must certify their county’s election results, responding to a State Election Board rule allowing election officials to conduct a "reasonable inquiry" before certification. (The decision)
2. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin sent a letter to Israeli leaders saying U.S. military aid could be restricted if Israel does not take steps to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza in the next 30 days. (The letter)
3. North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R) filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN over a story it published last month revealing controversial online posts allegedly made by Robinson. (The lawsuit)  
4. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) said at least 92 people are still missing after Hurricane Helene as search-and-rescue operations continue. (The comments) 
5. Survivors and relatives of victims of the 2023 mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, in which 18 people were killed, began the process of suing the U.S. Army for its alleged failure to stop the Army reservist accused of the shooting. (The case)

Today's topic.

Kamala Harris’s latest economic proposals. On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled new proposals focused on helping black men build wealth, capitalize on economic opportunities, and protect their rights. Details of Harris’s plan include:

• Providing 1 million forgivable loans of up to $20,000 to black entrepreneurs and others who have a good idea but lack the resources, connections, or access to capital to get their business off the ground
• Launching a National Health Equity Initiative focused on black men
• Legalizing marijuana at the federal level to break down unjust legal barriers that hold black men and other Americans back
• Lowering costs by enacting the first-ever federal ban on corporate price-gouging for food and groceries
• Lowering rent and providing down payment assistance to triple the number of new first-time black homeowners

To support this agenda, Harris says she will provide the forgivable loans through a partnership with the Small Business Administration, invest in programs to promote apprenticeships and recruit more black teachers, and support a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency.

In the final stretch of her campaign, Harris has become increasingly focused on turning out black men to vote. Polling continues to show her trailing President Joe Biden's 2020 numbers with black voters — and especially black men. Harris is currently leading Trump among black voters by a 78%–15% margin, according to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll. Biden, however, won roughly 90% of black voters in 2020.

Harris’s surrogates have also been speaking to black voters on the campaign trail, including former President Barack Obama. Last week, Obama made waves when he addressed black men at a campaign speech in Pittsburgh, saying it was not acceptable to sit out this election and suggested some are holding out on supporting Harris because she is a woman.

“Donald Trump’s outreach is gold sneakers, T shirts of mug shots and insults and putting other communities down," Harris's campaign communications Director Michael Tyler said in a statement to CNN. "The Vice President is actually speaking to what Black men can achieve under her presidency.”

The Trump campaign responded to the new proposals by saying Harris "is in full-blown desperation mode as she spends the waning days of the campaign attempting to stop the bleeding among voting blocs most traditionally aligned with Democrats."

Today, we're going to break down some reactions from the right and left to Harris’s latest agenda rollout, then my take.

What the right is saying.

• The right is highly critical of the proposal, suggesting it would be both ineffective and unconstitutional. 
• Some say it’s a shallow attempt to shore up support among black voters. 
• Others call the plan an offense to Americans of all ethnicities. 

The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote about “Harris’s pitch to black men.”

“Kamala Harris has a political problem winning the support of young black men, and on Monday she issued a last minute S.O.S. by unveiling an ‘Opportunity Agenda for Black Men.’ At least she’s not accusing them of sexism as Barack Obama did last week, but her grab-bag of policies isn’t likely to pull many from Donald Trump,” the board said. “Her plan calls for $20,000 in forgivable government loans for one million minorities to start businesses. These are de facto grants because nearly all are likely to be forgiven. It’s better that she’s focusing on wealth creation rather than solely income redistribution. But allocating government loan forgiveness on the basis of race is unconstitutional.”

“Harris also pitches more government ‘investment’ in black male teachers on the identity-politics theory that minorities learn better when they are taught by people who look like them. Black male mentors for young people are important, but the better way to help black boys would be to break union control over public schools, which disproportionately harms low-income and black students,” the board wrote. “It’s good news that Ms. Harris and Democrats are being forced to compete for black voters, who look fondly on Mr. Trump’s first-term economy. But she may need a better pitch.”

In RedState, Jeff Charles argued the agenda exemplifies Democrats’ habit of making “promises they have no intention of fulfilling.”

“Harris’ plan includes provisions aimed at addressing systemic inequalities, economic empowerment, criminal justice reform, and improving access to healthcare. The proposal is supposedly designed to decrease disparities in incarceration rates, improve educational opportunities, and support Black small business owners and entrepreneurs,” Charles said. “It all sounds so lovely, does it not? But there is plenty of reason for doubt. When you look at how Harris has been polling with Black Americans, especially men, it is easy to see why she is making this proposal.”

“15 percent of Black voters plan to pull the lever for former President Donald Trump, which would be a six-point increase from 2020… These numbers should be terrifying the Harris/Walz campaign. Democrats have traditionally seen success when they win at least 90 percent of the Black vote. But this data shows that the campaign is in trouble,” Charles wrote. “Of course, if this proposal works and enough Black people vote for her to win the election, it won’t mean a damn thing. Harris will simply say, ‘Thank you, Black folks,’ and then ignore their concerns for the next four years until it is time to pretend to care about them again in 2028.”

In National Review, Noah Rothman called the plan “bigots for Harris.”

“We should expect our politicians to resist the temptation to balkanize the electorate for the sake of fleeting, parochial electoral advantages. But we don’t. So it’s hardly a surprise that Kamala Harris is responding to her failure to attract sufficient support from young black men by violating the spirit of America’s proscriptions on the distribution of public goods to preferred constituencies based on their accidents of birth,” Rothman said. “Some of the proposals in this overture are innocuous…  Others are slightly more sinister. Why is it, we might wonder, that black males in particular are thought to be especially enthused, as compared with other demographics, by the federal legalization of ‘recreational marijuana’ use?”

“Who is Harris’s ‘opportunity agenda’ for? It’s not for those who believe opportunity should be universally accessible. It is not a plan to identify, much less break apart, whatever structural impediments presently prevent black men from realizing their full potential. It’s rhetorically exclusionary, and it is designed to appeal to those who believe some Americans deserve to be excluded,” Rothman wrote. “You’d think Kamala Harris might have learned a lesson from the failure of faddish concepts like equity to catch on. It seems all her team has internalized following this experience is that racial favoritism needs a savvier marketing strategy.”

What the left is saying.

• Many on the left support the tenets of the plan, arguing they would address real challenges in the black community. 
• Some say Harris is smart to focus her outreach specifically on black men. 
• Others note that black men were leaving the Democratic Party before Harris’s candidacy. 

In Newsweek, Jason Nichols called the plan “strong.”

“For several years now, sincere, Left-leaning Black male political analysts have been warning Democrats that they could lose enough Black men's votes to alter the outcome of a presidential election. As Democrats have reached out to many other demographics, advocating for them with rhetoric and policy, a small but growing number of Black men have felt left behind and ignored,” Nichols wrote. “That's why on Monday morning, Vice President Harris charted a new course for Democrats by directly reaching out to Black men and addressing their economic concerns.

“The Vice President has made supporting small business growth a key staple of her campaign. While Donald Trump touts his utterly failed Opportunity Zones program to African Americans, Harris' plan is to invest in Black men realizing the American Dream of innovation and ownership,” Nichols said. “To be extremely clear, if Vice President Harris loses this election, it will not fall upon the shoulders of Black men. African American men trail only Black women in their loyalty to the Democratic Party… Still, Vice President Harris is working to earn Black men's votes by addressing their economic, social, and healthcare needs with her new plan. The only concern is if it will reach the intended audience quickly enough to garner their enthusiasm.”

In The Root, Harris’s former speechwriter Gavin Reynolds praised her “new agenda for black men.”

“For the 32% of Black voters who are still looking to learn more about Vice President Kamala Harris, they learned two things about her today: she listens, and she keeps her word. Demonstrating her commitment to earning our votes, she released a comprehensive agenda outlining the ways in which she will help Black men get ahead and lead in their communities,” Reynolds wrote. “She knows devastating diseases like prostate cancer and diabetes disproportionately affect Black men, who also face unique barriers to care. That’s why her plan calls for capping drug costs – because she believes nobody should have to choose between their groceries or their medicines.”

“The Vice President has long been on the frontlines of the fight to expand access to capital for Black men. I was in the room when she convened young men of color for some ‘real talk’ about entrepreneurship last year,” Reynolds added. “Harris knows nobody should go to jail for smoking weed – although far too many Black men have. Her plan calls for the legalization of recreational marijuana and for the creation of a legal marijuana industry in which Black men can benefit. On that issue and so many others, justice will be delayed no longer.”

In The New Yorker, Jelani Cobb wrote about “what the polls really say about black men’s support for Kamala Harris.”

“Harris is doing better with Black male voters than Joe Biden was earlier this year. According to a recent Pew survey, seventy-three percent will vote or are leaning toward voting for her. Even in mid-July, before Biden dropped out of the race, Harris’s favorability rating among Black voters in battleground states exceeded his by five points,” Cobb said. However, “a higher share of Black men than Black women identify as conservative. The declining number of Black male Democratic voters, like the Party’s diminishing appeal to Latino and working-class white voters, may portend an ongoing realignment.”

“Accordingly, the Harris campaign has been preparing a package of policy initiatives that relate to the issues—entrepreneurship, homeownership—that consistently emerge in focus groups with Black male voters. But there is another dynamic that warrants mention: Trump’s bombastic allure skews disproportionately male, and although young voters generally support Democrats, there is some evidence that young men may be a stealth asset for him in November,” Cobb wrote. “And Trump is more popular with Black men under the age of fifty than with any other segment of African Americans.”

My take.

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• Harris’s plan seems a little desperate, considering the timing of the rollout and her polling among black men.
• It also might be ineffective and unconstitutional in its targeting of grant recipients based on race.
• On the other hand, she is rolling a plan out only a few months into her campaign, and some of her proposals seem like perfectly good ideas.

In politics, spokespeople are essentially propagandists, and it's pretty rare that I take their words at face value.

So, it's also pretty rare that I find myself in agreement with them, but my initial reaction to this announcement was similar to the one expressed by Steven Cheung, Trump's spokesperson: This reeked of desperation.

All in all, Harris's agenda for black men reads like a web page I could have stood up in a few hours of focused work. About half of the space is dedicated to a "greatest hits" of Trump's most offensive comments about black people and immigrants, with some specious claims about his time in office (like that crime in black neighborhoods "soared" while Trump tried to "cut funds for public safety").

Much like a good deal of Harris’s agenda (and Trump's, for whatever it's worth), the plan is low on details and high on offerings. 

One million fully forgivable loans sounds great, as does $20,000 to every person who asks for it; but how she’ll pay for that is unclear, as is how the program will pass constitutional muster (you can’t just hand out taxpayer dollars on the basis of race).  A "regulatory framework" for cryptocurrency sounds very nice, but its impact on the value of digital currencies will depend wholly on what the regulatory framework actually is. As for promises of "lower rent" or a "ban on corporate price gouging," these are things Harris has already committed to. And, of course, they are things she and Biden would be doing right now if they could get Congress on board. 

Proposing to legalize marijuana at the federal level as part of an agenda for black men was perhaps most controversial. Some read it as insulting or even racist, advancing a stereotype about black men and drug use. I actually don't think this part of her proposal is somehow offensive or really all that complicated — there is a very real and obvious disparity in how marijuana crimes are prosecuted against black people compared to people of all other races, and decriminalizing cannabis federally (as well as expunging non-violent marijuana-related offenses) seems like a perfectly good way to address that disparity. Sweeping decriminalization is race-blind but also race-conscious, which is a formula I prefer for addressing issues like this.

On the other hand, I still have reservations about legalization. Despite — or perhaps informed by — my own history of cannabis use, I can see a lot of scenarios where making marijuana more readily available goes sideways, and I think we are already seeing those scenarios play out in some states that have legalized recreational marijuana. The more important points, though, might be that 1) Harris was partly responsible for black men being imprisoned on marijuana charges in California and 2) Harris has no clear path or plan toward fulfilling such a promise. At least not one she has articulated here.

Throw in an awareness of Harris’s lower support among black men compared to Biden’s in 2020, and it’s easy to see this plan as a little desperate. But that’s not to say there isn’t any merit in it. In fact, there are several things about this agenda that I support: Directionally, it aims to increase long-term wealth for black Americans through business creation and career development. I’m entirely supportive of that — and as an entrepreneur myself I can attest to the value and fulfillment of creating your own business. Her plan also takes aim at health disparities among the black population like prostate cancer and sickle cell disease, which are worthwhile causes. Other than providing those entrepreneurial benefits through a racial gate, I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with those ideas. 

The best counterpoint to the argument that any of this indicates desperation is that Harris is simply playing the cards she’s been dealt. In the first few weeks after she announced her candidacy, all anyone talked about (including Trump) was how running a shortened campaign was a massive advantage; Harris caught Trump flat-footed, did not have to exist in the spotlight for a full year, and got all the benefits (money) of Biden's campaign transferred directly to her.

On the other hand, this is the downside of running an abbreviated campaign like the one Harris has run: She had much less time to build specific plans designed to turn out and attract specific voting blocs. This plan might look desperate or late relative to our proximity to election day, but it's also an agenda aimed at a core constituency released just a couple months into her campaign. It is both timely and late, which is a rather remarkable feature of the abbreviated campaign she is running.

Will it work? I have no idea. Among black men I interact with socially or black writers whom I follow, the plan was received with a shrug, and I don't expect it to get too many people off the couch and into the voting booth. But as we've said over and over, this race looks to be extraordinarily close — and any movement at all toward Harris is worth her time and effort.

Take the survey: What do you think of Kamala Harris’s agenda for black men? Let us know!

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Your questions, answered.

Q: Thank you, Tangle team, for all your incredible work. Lately, I've been hearing that Trump's physical wellbeing has been deteriorating. I've personally noticed that his speech has become more garbled and he's hunching over more/leaning on the podium. Of course, I could be seeing selective images and clips, but I have to say, some of what I've seen has shocked me to "Biden's catastrophic debate" levels. He really doesn't look well. Have you noticed this or has anyone done unbiased reporting on this?

— Elli from Oak Park, IL

Tangle: Many pundits have written about Trump aging or not performing well in live Q&As or debates compared to four or eight years ago. And rightfully so: With Biden out of the race, he’d be the oldest potential president we’ve ever had — if re-elected, Trump would be 82 when he leaves office. 

I don’t really think it’s possible to give an “unbiased” look into Trump’s aging. We all have grandparents or elderly family members whom we’ve watched age, and we are all informed by those experiences. When I’ve talked about Biden’s very obvious slipping, I’ve often referenced the similar trajectory I had seen my family members take, and that informed some of my commentary.

As always, you can view Trump’s aging through a couple of different perspectives. You can say that, of course, a 78-year-old will provide some moments that won’t look good. Furthermore, Trump does a ton of media, providing no shortage of opportunities for a gaffe or poorly answered question to be edited to look as bad as possible. 

I just watched a 90-minute interview he did with the comedians from FLAGRANT, and while he had all his usual exaggerations, boasts, lies, insults and rambling, he also stayed engaged for an hour and a half. I came away thinking he sounded pretty cogent, and I have a tough time imagining Biden getting through a similar interview.

On the other hand, you can say that it’s not just his worst moments that look bad. Indeed, there is no shortage of opinion pieces saying that his messages are becoming more rambling and his appearance looking more frail. Trump’s critics are calling out the grave concerns over Joe Biden’s aging as a double-standard, citing Trump’s obfuscation of his medical record as an abnormal and alarming development.

Personally, I think he definitely looks different than he did eight years ago. And after the eight years he’s had, who wouldn’t? He served a term as president, survived an attempted assassination, is under indictment in several federal cases, and has been in the campaign spotlight constantly — he is showing reasonable and normal effects of a decade of aging. 

The big question (to me) is whether or not you think he’s “deteriorating,” which is always going to be subjective. If you want to make that call, I think the best thing you can do is just watch some of his 2016 debate against Clinton and some of his 2024 debate against Harris and decide for yourself.

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Under the radar.

On Wednesday, the Nebraska Supreme Court will rule on a lawsuit seeking to restore voting rights to thousands of state residents with felony records, a decision with major implications for the state’s election. Earlier this year, Nebraska lawmakers passed a bill restoring the voting rights of those convicted of felonies upon the completion of their sentences, but Attorney General Mike Hilgers (R) said the new law is unconstitutional. Hilgers’s opinion prompted Secretary of State Bob Evnen (R) to order county election officials not to register those with felony convictions, which led the American Civil Liberties Union to sue to halt the order. Roughly 7,000 Nebraskans could be impacted by the state Supreme Court’s ruling, many of whom reside in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, a swing district that casts its electoral vote independently from the rest of the state. The Associated Press has the story.

Numbers.

• 95%. The percentage of black male voters who supported Barack Obama in 2008, according to NBC News’s poll of early and Election Day voters.
• 87%. The percentage of black male voters who supported Obama in 2012.
• 82%. The percentage of black male voters who supported Hillary Clinton in 2016.
• 80%. The percentage of black male voters who supported Joe Biden in 2020.
• 55%. The percentage of black male voters who have a favorable view of Joe Biden, according to a September 2024 AP/NORC poll.
• 68%. The percentage of black male voters who have a favorable view of Harris.
• 18%. The percentage of black male voters who have a favorable view of Trump.
• 66%. The percentage of black male voters who think Harris would make a good president, according to a September 2024 AP/NORC poll.
• 21%. The percentage of black male voters who think Trump would make a good president.

The extras.

• One year ago today we wrote about Israel-Palestine protests in the U.S.
• The most clicked link in yesterday’s newsletter was the story about Trump sending Putin Covid tests.
• Nothing to do with politics: An alleged scam reaping millions in Spotify royalties using AI songs and robot listeners.
• Yesterday’s survey: 1,402 readers responded to our survey asking about the government response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton with 36% calling the response good. “The local and state governments and independent organizations should have the primary role in relief efforts. The federal government should only play a minor supportive role,” one respondent said.

Here are the results from when we asked readers for their opinion on the federal response to Helene two weeks ago:

Have a nice day.

Two Massachusetts-based scientists, Dr. Victor Ambros and Dr. Gary Ruvkun, recently received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of microRNA. According to Jon Lorsch, director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, their discovery “opened up a whole new understanding of how diseases happen, which means that we have new possibilities for reversing them.” Their microRNA research is now being used for clinical trials of treatments for heart disease, cancer, and neurodegenerative disease. The New York Times has the story.

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