Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) spoke some hard truths while campaigning for Donald Trump in Philadelphia on Wednesday, focusing on the impact of government policies on black families.
“During Jim Crow, the black family was together,” Donalds said. “More black people were not just conservative — black people have always been conservative-minded — but more black people voted conservatively. Then came HEW [Department of Health, Education, and Welfare], Lyndon Johnson, and now we are where we are.”
What Donalds highlighted is the devastating effect of Democratic policies on black families. Successive waves of government programs have not only failed to uplift but have instead contributed to the disintegration of the black family unit. Democrats, with their plantation mentality, react strongly when a Republican begins to resonate with black voters.
Predictably, Democrats pounced on his comments. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) misrepresented Donalds, accusing him of saying that “black folks were better off during Jim Crow.” This is a blatant lie. Donalds simply pointed out that the black family was more intact during that period, and more black people held conservative values.
The Biden campaign seized on Jeffries’s distortion, expanding on the false narrative. In reality, Donalds was clear: the welfare state and liberal policies have incentivized behaviors that lead to family breakdown, making it more profitable for marriages to end and for single women to have children out of wedlock.
Donalds addressed the misinformation on social media, reiterating that Democrat policies under HEW and the welfare state helped to destroy the black family. The statistics back him up. Today, the black divorce rate is over 30%, and out-of-wedlock births are at a staggering 72%. This comes after trillions in transfer payments to black communities since the 1960s.
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan foresaw this disaster in his 1965 report, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action.” Moynihan argued that the disintegration of the black family was a major issue, one that existing policies were not addressing. He called for a national effort to establish a stable family structure, emphasizing the need for job programs and vocational training for black men.
Moynihan warned that without access to jobs and the ability to support their families, black men would become alienated, leading to increased divorce, child abandonment, and out-of-wedlock births. His recommendations were largely ignored, and subsequent presidents paid little attention to his insights. The black community, instead of heeding his advice, often accused him of “blaming the victim.”
Donalds’s message is not wrong; it is what the black community needs to hear. But Democrats are quick to discredit voices like his to maintain their control. The plantation mentality that Democrats use to keep black Americans in line is evident in their reactions to anyone challenging their narrative.
