election 2020
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Mayor Bloomberg’s ‘Black People Like Me’ Super Bowl Ad Was Just as Cynical as Donald Trump’s
Two white billionaires, President Donald Trump and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg pitched their 2020 campaigns during Super Bowl LIV last night. Both prominently featured black subjects—Bloomberg’s highlighted his record on gun control and combating gun violence, while Trump highlighted Alice Marie Johnson, a black woman Trump pardoned after being petitioned directly about…
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Barbara Smith, Who Helped Coin the Term 'Identity Politics,' Endorses Bernie Sanders
DES MOINES, IOWA—Barbara Smith, founding member of the black feminist Combahee River Collective that coined the term “identity politics,” has endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders for president, The Root has learned. In an exclusive interview, Smith, who endorsed Sanders in 2016, said her reasons for endorsing him again were clear. “Of all of the people who…
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Why Your Presidential Candidate Is Trash (Yes, Yours Too)
I fondly remember the days when I was “in the tank” for Bernie Sanders. My time as a shill for Bernie only lasted for a few weeks after I “attacked” Pete Buttigieg with “wokeness,” which was followed by the time I “smeared” Joe Biden, which was months after I unfairly distorted Kamala Harris’ record. But,…
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Booker Learns to Dance, Biden Affirms His Stance and Klobuchar Is Saying There’s a Chance: 2020 Presidential Black Power Rankings, Week 23
It’s the beginning of the end, everybody, so get your popcorn ready. While this is the first Black Power Ranking of 2020, it is also a week when many things either came to an end or are at the start of ending. This week, Julián Castro officially dropped out of the campaign for the 2020…
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Warren Uses the Force, Klobuchar Beats a Dead Horse and Buttigieg Needs to Change Course: 2020 Presidential Black Power Rankings, Week 21
In a galaxy far, far away, on a planet teeming with life but suffering from global warming, dirty oceans and way too many streaming services there, existed the early stages of an empire. Oh, they didn’t know it was an empire yet; there were no stormtroopers marching down the street, only a curious proliferation of…
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Hundreds of Thousands of Voters Purged From Rolls in Wisconsin; Issues Crop Up in Ohio and Georgia
A Wisconsin judge ordered the state’s Elections Commission to strike more than 200,000 voters from its rolls after they did not respond to a mailer asking them to verify their address within 30 days. The decision may force the crucial swing state to throw out hundreds of thousands of registrations before the 2020 election (the…
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Our Democracy Is at Stake in 2020 and Young People of Color Are Paying Attention
Congress held public impeachment hearings last week on whether President Trump abused his power to enlist a foreign government in smearing his political opponent. While some may see this process as far removed from their day-to-day lives—a parade of old white men being accused of crimes, defending other old white men who may have committed…
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Deval Patrick Is Running for President Because…Reasons
Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, rumored since last year to be contemplating a run for the White House, officially joined the 2020 Democratic presidential race today, prompting untold scores of people to ask: “Sir, are you serious??” In an announcement video published online Thursday morning, Patrick stressed the need for unity and building a “more…
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Beto, His Campaign Pockets Light and His Poll Numbers Low, Bows Out of His Run for the Oval Office
Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke on Friday took himself out of the running for the Democratic presidential nomination, bowing to low campaign coffers and even lower poll numbers. The once-darling of the Democratic Party, who won acclaim last year when he came within mere points of beating Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in historically red Texas,…