Abrams Says Cops 'Scare' Black Voters but Ignored Armed Black Panthers Campaigning for Her in 2018
Voter suppression is one of the left’s favorite talking points, predictably rolled out after each disappointing Democratic defeat.
Most recently, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker claimed that suppression of the black vote was to blame for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss in Michigan, a statement that The Washington Post awarded four “Pinocchios” for its inaccuracy, saying Booker “failed to back up” his comment.
But another Democrat, former Georgia state lawmaker Stacey Abrams, is pushing the “suppression” charge one step further, declaring that Republicans have tried to “intimidate” residents of minority neighborhoods in an attempt to prevent them from voting.
Appearing on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” Abrams described to host Rachel Maddow her Fair Fight 2020 initiative that “will train staffers in 20 competitive and battleground states to protect against voter suppression ahead of next year’s elections,” according to Politico.
But Abrams is aiming at something much larger than mere “suppression.”
Instead, she’ll be attempting to thwart the evil plots of the Republican National Committee.
“[A district court judge] just lifted a consent decree that’s kept Republicans and the RNC from going into local communities and intimidating voters by having off-duty officers tell people that they’re monitoring their votes,” Abrams told Maddow.
“For the first time since 1981, the RNC will be allowed to cheat and lie and go into polling places and scare voters, particularly voters of color,” she claimed.
Watch Abrams’ statements below:
RNC communications director Michael Ahrens told The Washington Free Beacon that Abrams’ claims were “totally baseless and irresponsible.”
“The RNC’s job is getting more people to vote, not less,” Ahrens added. “If Abrams actually cared about the integrity of elections, she’d finally concede the governor’s race she lost by 55,000 votes. Even liberal election law experts have dismissed her claims as irresponsible and without merit.”
Abrams’ claims, however, were not only baseless; they were also more than a little hypocritical.
Where was Abrams when activists from the New Black Panther Party stood on Atlanta sidewalks wielding rifles and shotguns — and toting Abrams’ own campaign signs?
The national chairman of the New Black Panther Party, Hashim Nzinga, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that “we were campaigning for the candidate that we feel is best to represent our community. And the pictures were taken where we work the best: in our community.”
While the party members may not have been intimidating voters in this particular circumstance, the Black Panthers have a long history of doing so elsewhere.
In both the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, critics at polling stations in Cleveland, Ohio, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, complained of the “intimidating presence” of New Black Panther Party members, Fox News reported.
In 2008, two party members were charged with voter intimidation, though the Department of Justice eventually dismissed the charges against one.
If anyone’s “scaring” potential voters, it’s the guys armed with billy clubs and guns — not bureaucrats at the RNC.
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