‘They Need Fresh Thinking’: These 13 Black Democratic Voters Want to See Younger Candidates

“You have to start from a place of literally building this country brick by brick, and someone is going to have to speak to that,” one participant in Times Opinion’s latest focus group said of the next Democratic presidential candidate.

Last month, Times Opinion spoke with 13 Black Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters, from an array of perspectives and experiences, about President Trump, the state of the country and the direction of the Democratic Party.

These voters expressed deep worry about societal changes under Mr. Trump. Participants described politicians and fellow citizens emboldened to say and do unkind or extreme things they wouldn’t have 10 years ago, and lamented public officials unwilling to stand up to Mr. Trump. Some were particularly frustrated with decisions such as going to war with Iran, and several were concerned about the direction of civil rights. “We — and not just us as Black people, but all marginalized people — are losing rights left and right,” one participant said.

So much current political discourse is about what Democrats should do next, about what direction the party should take — a question that can’t be answered without the input of Black voters. And in this particular group, participants were frustrated with the lack of fight many perceived from the party. (Others felt the imbalance of political power prevented them from stopping much.)

The group didn’t agree, necessarily, about whether it was most important for a presidential candidate to be more liberal or moderate, a fighter or a consensus builder. Wes Moore, Jon Ossoff and, in particular, Jasmine Crockett earned praise from some in the group. There was widespread agreement about one thing, however: The party needs younger candidates who are ready to stand up.

“Right now, we’re literally reverting back to the ’60s,” one participant said. “You need some younger, fresh thoughts. These older people want to do what they’ve always done, and it’s not working.”

In one or two words, fill in the blank: I’m feeling “blank” about the way things are going in the country these days.

Disappointed and bamboozled.

It feels like we’re turning back the clock on what this country has accomplished and what we’ve overcome.

How do you mean specifically?

It feels like the current administration is kind of reverting back to … the best way I can say it is, like, the pre-civil rights era, where we — and not just us as Black people, but all marginalized people — are losing rights left and right. And it’s a scary time to be here.

Anybody else have a different way that they want to articulate it?

The economy. Gas prices are at least a dollar more per gallon than they were, let’s say, three months ago. Food prices have been constantly going up. We entered into a war, if you want to call it that, or however they want to refer to it, with Iran. But what did we accomplish? The Strait of Hormuz was already open. So now it’s closed and opened at various times. If you just left it the way it was, we would be in a better position than we are now. So what do we accomplish by entering into a war?

I see it as a direct attack on our society, especially with Black Americans. They are wiping out the history. They’re changing voting rights. They’re wiping out districts where Blacks were. So we can still vote, but we have no representatives from those districts. I’m really worried about the status of Black Americans right now in the United States.

How long have people felt this way?

Since Donald Trump has been in office, it’s just been terrible. It’s frustrating that he’s allowed to do the things that he’s doing and nobody’s willing to stand up to him, to tell him that he’s wrong. He’s like a big bully on the playground. Congress is scared of him.

Both houses of Congress. Everybody. You go out throughout the United States, you’ve got governors, you’ve got senators. You’ve got everybody, everybody in the world. He sues everybody. Sues his own government. What president has ever sued their own government? No, and then the government — look at the I.R.S., what they just did here. They granted him some money and then they gave him the option: They won’t tax his family. Have they done that to regular Americans who work every day? Never. You have never seen such corruption.

I feel like I’m in a house that’s on fire and everybody else is pretending that it’s not. Certain actions that people would have been afraid to do maybe before November 2024, they now feel emboldened to do. I feel like institutions are now allowing actions where you would have been afraid to get fired, but now you know there’s a safety net.

Are these things that are affecting your day-to-day life, or do you feel as though all the noise is more constrained to Washington?

When I look around my community, I see a lot of despair. The fentanyl problem, the homeless people with children, and some are just struggling. Our grocery store is like an armed camp because people steal so much. You have armed security in there. And I think that is a sign of our government of the people, for the people, by the people, not really looking out for the people. Types of drug treatment programs are not being funded. And there’s a very, very big wealth gap. Cost of living is really crazy because we have a lot of techies. But on the working side, the wages are low.

Things are really just bleak in a lot of aspects. When I go out into the city, I do see a lot of people out in the streets. And I’m worried about inflation and job losses and conflicts, like Ukraine and Palestine, abroad. So it feels like things are going wrong in other areas of the world as well.

I said our best days were ahead of us. I’m more of an optimistic type of guy. Nothing lasts forever. This guy won’t be in office forever. I’m depending on the people to pull together and make the change that we’re looking for. Whether we’re still here to see it while we’re living, maybe our grandkids, great-grandkids, kids. But one day it’s going to be over, and it’s going to be better.

I said our best days are behind us because it’s going to take so much to get us back to where we were. It’s going to take so much work. And I mean, where we were a couple of years ago is so much different from where we are now. Today you’ve got people who are emboldened to do things and say things that they normally wouldn’t say or do.

I also said our best days are behind us. I was in the Navy for 20 years, and back in the ’80s and ’90s, everybody wasn’t perfect, but there was a tradition. The way the president acted, the way things were every day. Today, people, politicians are getting more and more extreme, because they see that if it worked for Trump, it might work for them.

What have people become emboldened to do?

I was in the grocery store and this Caucasian lady thought that she could just tell me to get out of her way or get out of the line. And I just looked at her like she was crazy. Like, I’m in line, just like you’re in line. And when it’s your turn, it’ll be your turn. Until such time, you need to wait. So she’s telling people to go back to where they came from. And let’s be honest. I didn’t ask to be here. I was brought here. My ancestors were brought here. We did not invite ourselves over here. I was born and raised over here, just like she was born and raised over here. But there’s certain things that people do and say that’s just out of pocket.

Jan. 6 — that’s a huge example of people feeling emboldened. That’s something people would have never done. And it wasn’t until this president came along and filled their head full of nonsense, and they went and did what they did. And I think now they probably feel even more emboldened because he pardoned all of them.

ICE going around getting the immigrants, once they got the go-ahead from Trump, do what you’ve got to do, scoop them up, I don’t care how you get them, they felt like, OK, well, we can go out and we can beat them up, we can do what we want to do because guess what? Our president had already said he’s going to pardon us.

I’d........

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