MSNBC Analyst Blames Low Turnout for Iowa Caucus on ‘Systemic Racism’, No White Kids in Cages

  |  
Feb 5, 2020

MSNBC analyst Zerlina Maxwell blamed low Democrat turnout yesterday for the Iowa caucus on “systemic racism” while claiming that “white children are not in the cages” so white Iowa voters do not feel the “sense of urgency” that minority voters feel about removing President Trump from office.

“The Iowa caucus is essentially the perfect example of systemic racism. 91 percent of the voters in Iowa are white. The reason why you see a drop in turnout, I’m just speculating here, it could be perhaps that white children are not in the cages,” she said.

“So when you are talking about the tangible pain that black and brown people are feeling, they feel a sense of urgency because their kids are being put in cages, right?” she added.

Maxwell’s entire incendiary rant can be seen here:

While the MSNBC talking head wants to blame racism, the more likely explanation is a poor field of candidates that has failed to stimulate the interest of Democrat voters.

CNN has even admitted that this could be the case:

There’s still a lot we don’t know about the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses, including who won the contest.

But we do have an early indication about turnout. The Iowa Democratic Party said Monday night that early data showed it looked to be on pace with 2016, when 172,000 showed up to the caucuses.

If that trend holds, it will be disappointing to Democrats, who were hoping that a desire among those in their party to defeat President Donald Trump in November would produce a turnout closer to the nearly 240,000 who caucused in 2008.

The lack of a large turnout is the latest sign that Democrats may not be nearly as enthusiastic now as they were heading into the midterm elections.

You may recall that Democratic turnout in primaries was booming heading into the 2018 midterm elections. In fact, it was nearly triple the 2014 figure in competitive House primaries. This high turnout proceeded record turnout in the 2018 midterms and a wave election for Democrats in the US House.

Correlating presidential primary turnout with general election success is hard to do. Turnout is obviously lower when there isn’t a competitive primary (i.e. at least two competitors going at it), and the number of contests that are competitive within a primary differs from year to year.

Still, the lack of high turnout in 2016 compared to a similarly long primary in 2008 did foretell problems for Democrats in the fall. If the pattern continues, it also calls into question any candidate who claims that he or she will be able to bring out new voters in the fall.

Crying racism will not change the massive institutional problems for the Democrats, which was put on full display during the comedy of errors at last night’s Iowa caucus.

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