Selling Out? The Rightward March of Black Elected Politicians

Are Black American politicians fighting the fascism they fear or aiding its rise?

The second Donald Trump administration is doing pretty much everything it set out to do from Project 2025 without much resistance from the oppositional Democratic party—most notably Black elected officials.

The Black voting bloc is ostensibly the most progressive political bloc in the United States. Yet many Black politicians on all levels of government appear disconnected from the needs, desires, and aspirations of Black people.

Black politicians deserve support from their constituents if they are genuine fighters for the people. This chaotic political moment requires more than putrid opportunism and careerist tepidness.

In a symbolic gesture, construction crews in Washington D.C. recently set out to dismantle the Black Lives Matter Plaza as Mayor Muriel Bowser folded to Congressional Republican pressure.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) recently all but conceded political defeat in a press conference where constituents and Democratic strategists were pressing for an active response to what many call a f ascist assault of the new administration.

Democratic Sen. Ralph Warnock in Georgia helped pass the Laken Riley Act into law expanding the powers of the Department of Homeland Security and ICE under the Trump Administration. This bill was opposed heavily by organizations like the ACLU, The Leadership Council on Civil and Human Rights, and the American Immigration Council.

Also in Georgia, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens continues to face deep criticism from activists and the community for his dogged support for “Cop City,” a police training facility that will specialize in preparation for urban warfare.

Fighting fascism requires a courageousness and creativity that is projected toward a more just and humane future for all. In fairness, there have been attempts at resistance.

At the recent State of the Union Address, Rep. Al Green from Texas disrupted Trump’s speech and was removed for it, breaking decorum but publicly showing his disdain for the administration.

In February, Rep. Ayanna Pressly at a rally to defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau explained, “We are going to litigate, legislate, agitate and resist, because you are worth it. So we will see you in Congress, in the courts, and in the streets.”

The work of the Solidarity Budget in Seattle and different Participatory Budgeting programs expand on the imaginations and aspirations of communities beyond politicians’ campaign rhetoric.

From Participatory Democracy campaigns to grassroots think tanks that advocate for reparations, communities are imagining, dreaming, fighting, and creating a future that speaks to their wants and needs.

Yes, there are efforts and the creativity of Black elected officials will be stretched as the new administration battles the judiciary.

But recent history shows it is an ongoing challenge. In my hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, both the first Black Mayor, Cavalier Johnson, and County Executive, David Crowley, who are Democrats, lobbied to bring the Republican National Convention in 2024 to Milwaukee. In a completely foreseeable set of circumstances, the GOP won Wisconsin, a swing state, in the national election last year.

The RNC brought in thousands of police from jurisdictions all over the country, and out-of-state police killed a Black man at a Milwaukee park more than a mile away from the RNC perimeter. City officials promised the community that all non-Milwaukee law enforcement would be only within the perimeter of the convention.

During this time, Johnson and Crowley seemed to be busy working with Wisconsin Republicans on a shared revenue deal that bolsters the carceral state and specifically ends using sales tax raised funds for any DEI initiatives within the respective jurisdictions. It appears they did not consider the shared revenue plan from Democratic Governor Tony Evers which was financially twice as generous and didn’t have the harsh and racist restrictions on fund use.

More recently at his Black History Month speech at Gracie Mansion, New York Mayor Eric Adams likened himself to Jesus as he faced calls for his resignation, in light of the Department of Justice dropping his corruption case. Adams, a former New York Police Department cop, bizarrely took aim at “Negroes” who were critical of him as he compared himself to the biblical figure.

Late journalist Glen Ford coined the term “Black Misleadership Class,” which could be applied here. Gleaning from the historical genealogy of the Black Radical Tradition, Ford argues that there is a class of Black politicians and leaders who market themselves as being from and empathetic to marginalized Black communities only to use that social capital to sell them out for selfish and short-sighted gain, buffering themselves from criticism within the community.

Author and Princeton University professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor contends in her classic 2016 book, From #BlackLiveMatter to Black Liberation: “The utility of Black elected officials lies in their ability, as members of the community, to scold ordinary Black people in ways that white politicians could never get away with…Black elected officials’ role as interlocutors between the broader Black population and the general American public makes them indispensable in American politics.”

Disparities related to Black life expectancy, wealth accrual, and education are just a few issues that seem to not be serious priorities for all Black policymakers but are realities millions of Black people navigate daily.

While electoral politics has a popular hold on how the country understands democracy and politics generally in the US; many community members, organizers, and activists around the nation have worked hard to create more direct democratic processes that would mitigate the reliance on the disposition of individual politicians.

American politics today do not seem to be working for all people. The current massive national layoffs, ongoing economic downturn, and cuts to education, healthcare, and programs benefiting lower income families present harm to every American—and more acutely to Black Americans.

Black policymakers and leaders need to put the people they represent first connected to their desires for a healthy and prosperous future.

Nate Gilliam is the co-founder and director of Milwaukee Freedom Fund and a Public Voices Fellow of Transformative Justice with The OpEd Project.