Why are African Americans Socially Conservative?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Who cares?  They’re smart and don’t get hung up on a make-or-break issue or two ... everyone should vote that way.

I doubt that many Americans would choose the polity of Baltimore or Chicago over those of Vermont or Oregon.

What does this mean?

It's an outcome of relative poverty, deindustrialization. and structural racism. I just think it's silly to suggest that everyone should vote that way. People who can afford to do otherwise don't.

In my ideal political system (to the extent that I have one) most people would be a straight-ticket partisan voter. But our country's party system is toxic and irrational, so I can't blame Americans IRL for getting "hung up on a make-or-break issue or two."

[All Along The Watchtower]

Anyway, I don't think that whatever degree of social/religious conservatism black voters have really matters. What matters is that most black voters, particularly in the South where they are decisive in the Democratic primaries, support candidates with high name recognition + solid and long-standing ties to existing black Democratic power structures and political machines (for lack of a better term). Hence the support for the Clintons and current support for Biden.

Obama is the exception that proves the rule - but he's the exception for what are surely obvious reasons.