Strange Union

The most loyal segment of the Democratic Party for the last 75 - 80 years, descendants of slaves of American antebellum slavery, as far as is commonly known, still have never been a part of a Democratic Party presidential ticket (president and vice-president), let alone any other major party. Obama, after all, is the biracial son of a mid-twentieth century Kenyan immigrant.  Nor has any descendant of slaves ever ascended to the lofty rank of Speaker of the House of Representatives.  Some pundits have said that Obama, himself, would never have reached his high heights had his ancestry been traced back to slavery.  These same pundits and/or others, speculating about the former black Massachusetts governor, Deval Patrick, a descendant of slaves, have been saying or all but saying that he can't possibly run for president in 2016, because, you know, there's already a black president in office, and of course there can't be back-to-back black presidents.  There's not a constitutional amendment against consecutive black presidents, of course.

Lest we forget, the Democratic Party isn't the party that trumpeted abolition. Lincoln, and the radicals in the Reconstruction era, like Thaddeus Stevens, were Republicans.  However, all the preceding is just a historical aside about the relationship between blacks and the Democratic Party, which the former nearly votes as a bloc for the latter's candidates for all offices, big and small.  Never mind that Democratic politicians, just as imperialistic as their Republican counterparts, do just about everything they can to set back this loyal following of theirs, from making international trade agreements that devastate urban economies to being the biggest supporter of internationalism, generally (not that their G.O.P. counterparts are far behind), which makes their most fervent loyalists take a back seat to migration, globalism, et al.  Yet, they still get their votes at an astoundingly high rate.  A strange union, indeed.

[Revised on 5/20/15.]