In an article titled “These black people are making a political statement by not voting in the 2016 election”, Fusion’s national political correspondent, Terrell Jermaine Starr, presents the case on why it’s justified to not vote in the upcoming election. He gives us example after example of “brave” citizens who have decided it just isn’t worth the effort to go out and follow through with their civic duty. Predictably, Starr tears into GOP presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump and shares with us why he also feels so strongly about this anti-voting trend.
Starr’s first example is a man by the name of Larry Fellows, who the author says “didn’t vote in the Missouri primary and may skip the general election, too. He believes his government has failed him at every level—starting with his home community of St. Louis County, where a grand jury declined in 2014 to indict the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown.” Yes, Michael Brown, the 6’5 289-pound man who was shot and killed while assaulting a police officer and reaching for the officer’s weapon – is the reason Fellows doesn’t want to vote anymore. Amazing.
But wait! It gets even more amazing: “After his Twitter feed was inundated with images of Brown’s lifeless body lying in the street, Fellows was one of the first people to join the protests in Ferguson. He eventually quit his job, accumulating debt and even losing his apartment, to protest full-time. He hoped his activism would pressure local authorities into indicting the officer, Darren Wilson. When that didn’t happen, Fellows’ confidence in the system eroded to the point that he refused to vote for anyone.” I’ll let you make of that statement what you will, as it really needs no explanation.
The author of the article also says the lack of change occurring in Democrat-run cities like Baltimore, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia are another factor leading to black voters being de-incentivized to go out and cast their vote. The reason being: the Democratic Party is “the party that is supposed to have black Americans’ interests at heart.”
“Their logic is that there is no point engaging a political process that will not benefit black people, no matter who the candidate is.”
Another person the author interviewed showed her disdain for the political process by noting how she, as the author puts it, “remembers wanting to be part of the presidential political process was 2000, when George W. Bush and Al Gore were vying for the White House. Bush’s eventual victory convinced her that the election was rigged.” Apparently, not even the election of Obama in 2008 was enough to convince her otherwise because as she says – “Eight years later, black children are looking at everybody their age being killed by police.” This article is a joy to read through by the way - you really can’t make this stuff up.
The author then proceeds to call Donald Trump a racist, “His attitude toward the Black Lives Matter movement has been confrontational. He referred to activists protesting the death of Freddie Gray as ‘thugs.’ Trump antagonized black protesters at one of his rallies by saying that ‘all lives matter,” a refrain with anti-black undertones.” Did you catch that? According to the author, saying “all lives matter” makes you a racist now.
“Even today, Republican-led state legislatures are passing laws that critics believe are designed to discourage minorities from voting,” continues Starr. What does he use to back up this claim you ask? “This Election Day, 17 states will have new voting restrictions on the books, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. These include strict photo ID requirements, cutbacks in registration, and limits on mail-in ballots.” Yes, now just being required to show your photo ID – something required to rent a car, open a bank account, donate blood, and even buy a gun or adopt a pet – is considered by the left to be a deliberate way of suppressing the minority vote.
The article (posted in the “news” instead of opinion section of Fusion’s website) is a classically biased and shamelessly left-leaning piece of propaganda, and to label it as anything else is irresponsible. Fusion is aiming for the millennial audience and the fact that they’re throwing out stuff like this and passing it off as un-biased journalism is still more evidence of why they are in real trouble.
Shame on you Fusion.
