Appearing as a guest on Monday's CNN Tonight, liberal CNN political commentator and New York Times columnist Charles Blow charged that Republicans as a party are trying to "suppress" and take away the rights of America's black population as he argued against an African-American guest who suggested blacks should consider voting for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.
Blow: "These are not the same kinds of parties. These are just not -- trying to pretend that they are, and to pretend to pretend that 'the Democrats have failed you and therefore you need to turn away from that,' it takes away from the fact that the Republicans are actively engaged in trying to take away your rights, actively engaged in trying to suppress you right now."
The liberal commentator also repeated the tired charge that efforts from the right to restrict welfare are rooted in racism, as he acknowledged that more whites than blacks receive welfare, because most of the conservative base allegedly believe incorrectly that more blacks receive welfare.
After Bishop Wayne T. Jackson of the Impact Network made a case for considering Trump at about 11:05 p.m. ET, Blow began his response:
You can't make some kind of false equivalency that they're both kind of the same and that the Democrats and Republicans are somehow sort of the same, and that they are kind of "there's a pox on both their houses and we just have to figure out which is the less of the evils among the Democrats and Republicans." No.
He then moved to griping about voter ID laws as he added:
There are, right now, 20 plus states implementing voter restrictions to try to take -- to reduce the number of people who can vote, which we know will have a disproportionate impact on poor and minority communities, including black people.
The liberal columnist then tied welfare reform in with racism as he continued:
We know that we have seen over the last, you know, four or five years, people around the country trying to implement drug testing for, you know, kind of, welfare in states even though all the research says it's a waste of money, that people who receive welfare don't receive it in any -- don't use drugs in any greater amount, numbers than people who don't, none of that. But it is a direct way of appealing to a particular kind of sentiment, and people think that more black people are on welfare than other people.
Blow then accused the Republican party of "actively" working against the country's black population:
These are not the same kinds of parties. These are just not -- trying to pretend that they are, and to pretend to pretend that "the Democrats have failed you and therefore you need to turn away from that," it takes away from the fact that the Republicans are actively engaged in trying to take away your rights, actively engaged in trying to suppress you right now.
