By Jason Cohen

Copyright dailycaller

ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith bemoaned black voters’ unconditional loyalty to the Democratic Party during the Front Office Sports Tuned In Summit Tuesday, arguing it disempowers them.

President Donald Trump received 13% of the black vote in November, including 21% of men and 7% of women, according to a CNN exit poll. During a debate livestreamed on Front Office Sports’ YouTube channel about Trump’s increased support among black men, Smith asserted that both parties make more of an effort to attract Latino voters than black voters because they are not loyal to one party. (RELATED: ‘Never Seen Anything Like This’: Crucial Voter Groups Fleeing Democrats, Says Stunned Fmr Clinton Pollster)

“[S]ince 1964, when [former President] Lyndon B. Johnson told the world, ‘You know what? When we pass civil rights legislation, okay, guess what? We’ll have the Negroes voting for us for the next 200 years.’ And sure enough, over the past 60 years or so, a vast majority of African-Americans have voted Democrat,” Smith said. “We know that if we’re doing our homework, we serve to disenfranchise ourselves, because we told the Democratic Party, ‘You got our vote no matter what.’ We told the Republicans, ‘You ain’t getting our vote no matter what.’”

“Neither was incentivized to really put forth an effort to give us the representation we deserved. And as a result, we disenfranchised ourselves. But we’re not seeing it that way. You got migrants coming to this country that clearly see it that way,” he continued. “Look at the Hispanic population. You got Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Guatemalans, everybody, Cubans, everything. And you don’t know who’s going to vote what. So guess what? Both sides are trying to appeal to them, which means they’re not being ignored. That’s the game. And unfortunately, we as a black community lost our way in that regard.”

Smith said earlier in the debate that black men prioritize the economy and safety and accused liberals of being lenient on crime. He also criticized Democrats for letting in millions of illegal immigrants.

“[W]hen you’re looking at those certain situations, and these are the kind of things that the liberal movement was promoting, oblivious to the — or not caring enough about — the ultimate detrimental impact it would have, there were people that rose up and said, ‘Enough of this,’” he said.

He further argued that black men voting for Trump in 2024 was a “huge step.”

Moreover, Smith said on on NewsNation’s “CUOMO” in May that he was pleased with Trump’s 2024 election victory because he believed the Democratic Party has long manipulated black voters.

“I think, for the longest time, black Americans have played the role of suckers to the Democratic Party,” Smith said. “They’ve guilted us into voting for them, making us feel as if we’re going to be ostracized, creating division within our own communities or what have you to get our vote, instead of saying to us, ‘Hey, this is what we will do for you. And it will work better than what they’re offering.’”

Former Vice President Kamala Harris garnered 77% of the black male vote in 2024, compared to 79% for Joe Biden in 2020 and 82% for Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to CNN exit polls. All three Democratic candidates received at least 90% of the black female vote.

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