Critics blast Harris over pandering scheme that prioritizes marijuana legalization for black men

Kamala Harris unveiled a race-based "opportunity agenda" Monday, revealing both her desperation to win back increasingly disenchanted black male voters and her prejudicial presumption of what might ultimately motivate members of the cohort.

Critics have ridiculed the vice president's identitarian messaging and her cynical attempt to win over black men with the promise of legal marijuana nationwide, noting both that she previously helped prosecute multitudes of black men for marijuana offenses and that there remain far more pressing issues facing all Americans deserving of a presidential candidate's attention.

American men, generally speaking, aren't particularly fond of Kamala Harris. This is not only true of likely white and Hispanic male voters, but increasingly of black men as well.

A recent NAACP survey found that 26% of black men under 50 years old intend to vote for President Donald Trump, reflective of a broader increase in black support for Trump as compared with the 2020 election.

"If Harris doesn't get above 90% [with black men], then she's in trouble," Republican strategist Shermichael Singleton recently told The Hill. "She really needs to energize black voters and figure out a way to get them to turn out, particularly men."

Harris surrogates — including former President Barack Obama — recently rushed to brand those black men who might vote for Trump as misogynists, urging "the brothers" to fall in line.

Since the strategy of belittlement was clearly not working, Harris has instead tried pandering.

A campaign memo titled "Vice President Harris Will Deliver for Black Men" revealed this week how Harris would try to help Americans from that voting bloc now souring on the Democratic Party.

"Today Vice President Harris is laying out an Opportunity Agenda for Black Men to provide them with the tools to achieve financial freedom, lower costs to better provide for themselves and their families, and protect their rights," says the memo.

Harris promised to:

• provide 1 million loans up to $20,000 to black entrepreneurs;
• support education and mentorship programs to help black men "get good-paying jobs in high-demand industries and lead their communities";
• give race-based financial support to struggling farmers;
• support a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and other digital assets;
• launch a "National Health Equity Initiative" focused on black men; and
• legalize recreational marijuana nationally.

Concerning the legalization of marijuana, which is presently legal in the District of Columbia and 24 states, the memo stressed that Harris "will also fight to ensure that as the national cannabis industry takes shape, Black men — who have, for years, been overpoliced for marijuana use — are able to access wealth and jobs in this new market."

Harris' "opportunity agenda" was met with ridicule.

'I'm not really shocked you see us as this dumb.'

Critics suggested, for instance, that Harris' concern over the fallout of drug laws rings hollow, given that she cheerily enforced them while San Francisco district attorney.

Some users on X dusted off footage from the 2019 Democratic primary debate where Tulsi Gabbard noted, "[Harris] put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana."

According to the Mercury News, Harris oversaw over 1,950 marijuana misdemeanor and felony convictions in San Francisco. Apparently she did so with unusual zeal. After all, the prosecutors working for her reportedly "convicted people on marijuana charges at a higher rate than under her predecessor."

Although now a champion of legalized marijuana, evidently figuring it for a winning proposal among black men, Harris fought a ballot measure for marijuana legalization in 2010, going so far as to co-author an opposition argument in the voter guide. In 2016, she remained relatively neutral on the matter when a subsequent ballot initiative passed.

The vice president only changed her tune in May 2018 when it became politically expedient to do so — around the time she began plotting her first presidential run.

Years later, she told the titular host of "Late Night with Seth Meyers" that "nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed."

Not all critics took issue with Harris' apparent hypocrisy and brazen opportunism. Others noted that the vice president appeared to be insinuating that black men disproportionately needed the drug.

Matt Antar, chairman of the New York Young Republican Club, noted, "Why is illegal marijuana an 'unjust barrier' for black men? Is she insinuating that all black men are potheads? This is racist."

Keith Barry, on the ads team at X, tweeted, "Of all the policy issues, this is what you choose *specifically* for black men? I'm not really shocked you see us as this dumb and that our top concern is to get high or sell drugs."

Former NFL running back Herschel Walker wrote, "Every election, men of color become a focal point for Democrats — offering money and now marijuana but no focus on education or jobs. It's all about securing your vote, not creating sustainable change. Where was VP Harris the last 3 years?"

Veterans on Duty chairman Jeremy C. Hunt told Fox News' Harris Faulkner that Harris "has this kind of caricature of black men in her head, that we're just these, you know, some California potheads that are sitting there looking for a government handout."

While Harris is talking to black men about drugs and crypto, Quenton Jordan, vice president of the Black Conservative Federation, told The Hill that Trump's alternative "message is resonating because he's talking about issues that families talk about at the dinner table and men talk about in the barber shops."

Pew Research noted in September that the economy and health care are among the top issues for black male voters in this election.

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