A ‘Warning’ or a Threat?

By Noah Rothman

Thursday, February 26, 2026

 

A report in NOTUS this morning offers Democrats a “warning.”

 

“Young Black men are not taking tangible steps to resist President Donald Trump at the same levels they did in 2020,” the report began. Not “oppose.” Not “challenge,” “object to,” or even “defy,” but “resist.” As a measure of one’s commitment to anti-Trump antagonism, only resistance will do.

 

And young black men are falling short of their elders’ expectations. The only remedy to their lethargy, the report adds, is for Democrats to recommit to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) with even more vigor than they displayed during the Biden years. Only “a message of both economic and racial justice” will shake this demographic cohort from its malaise.

 

At least, that’s the message NOTUS conveys on behalf of the activist group promulgating the message that Democrats are just not “woke” enough. The claim is being advanced by an outfit that calls itself the Black Opposition Project, which is itself “a consortium of liberal groups,” including the California-based Democratic strategist group Way to Win and the Service Employees International Union.

 

According to Terrance Woodbury, the Democratic pollster who helped the group compile its data, “The share of Black people who took concrete action to resist Trump — including voting, protesting or signing a petition — had dropped from 2020, from 34% to 28%.” That decline was “concentrated” primarily among younger black men.

 

“According to the research, 41% of this group (defined as Black men under 50) thought Trump’s policies had hurt them.” That’s much lower than the 68 percent of black men over 50 who said the same. In addition, nearly one in five younger African-American men “said Trump’s policies had helped them, more than double any other group surveyed.”

 

Wait a minute. So, it’s not quite that younger black men are overcome with ennui — languid and listless in the age of Trump. Rather, a disproportionate number of young black men seem to not only reject “resistance” but to actively support the president.

 

Only the Democratic Party’s recommitment to the tenets of social justice can break them of this false consciousness:

 

The project’s testing found that messages emphasizing the need to combat racism did the most to mobilize voters, Woodbury said, even if voters still expressed deep economic concerns. He said candidates that only talk about the economy won’t effectively reach as big an audience as they hoped among younger Black men.

 

“Black voters are rejecting that posture,” he said. “We gotta do both. We have to solve these economic concerns but also fight back against escalating racism.”

 

To summarize, the Democratic Party should not hammer Trump relentlessly with criticisms of his record on economics, which polling indicates is almost every voter’s foremost concern and Trump’s biggest political vulnerability. Rather, it should mute the economic message and emphasize the very “racial justice” themes that had become a millstone around the Democratic Party’s neck by 2024.

 

This isn’t a strategy memo. It’s a shot across the Democratic Party’s bow. The extortion racket that sprouted up around DEI has been starved of funds. Corporations sloughed off DEI’s shackles even before the federal government closed the spigot that once funneled taxpayer dollars from the Treasury into the progressive consultancy’s pockets. Desperate measures are called for now.

 

And the Black Opposition Project’s research sure is desperate.