Why Democrats’ fixation on minority voters failed

I voted for Hillary Clinton. I placed a sign in my yard to show my support. I even wrote a letter in this paper that supported her candidacy. I was extremely saddened when Donald Trump won. As a 67-year-old retiree on a fixed income, I certainly hope the next four years will be peaceful and prosperous and alleviate all my misgivings, fears and doubts about the agenda Mr. Trump and his followers advocate.

I believe the election represented not so much an endorsement of Trump and Republican values as a rejection of Clinton and Democratic values. Mrs. Clinton and the Democratic Party nationwide and in South Carolina have bought hook, line and sinker into the “browning” of America.

The white portion of the electorate was down to 69 percent last year, from 78 percent in 2000, and the Democrats were lulled into believing that if they could get their overwhelming majorities of the black, Hispanic, Jewish and Asian vote, they could cruise into the White House. But exit polls suggest that Clinton won less of the white vote than Barack Obama did in 2012 and 2008 — and did worse in South Carolina than in the rest of the nation. The big question is: Why?

Even though I wasn’t willing to abandon the Democrats, I feel the same frustration and even anger that I’m sure many other whites feel: The Democratic Party in South Carolina and many other states is a joke. It has become the party of many different groups of hyphenated Americans while taking white Americans like me for granted.

It seems like every time national Democrats come to South Carolina, they go to either Allen or Benedict College, the restaurant owned by the two black ladies out in northeast Columbia, black churches or some other gathering of black Americans.

I’m sick and tired of this snubbing, but not enough to fall into the Trump/Republican camp. Clinton and her fellow Democrats have sold themselves out to various minority groups for 30 pieces of silver and now find themselves on the circumference of mainstream American values.

It will take bold, intelligent and innovative action by Democrats or a collapse of the Republicans to combat the Trump agenda of divisiveness. I would much prefer the former.

This story was originally published January 16, 2017 at 5:12 PM with the headline "Why Democrats’ fixation on minority voters failed."