The Vibe Shift is an ongoing series covering the political, institutional, and cultural realignment in California caused by Trump’s win in the 2024 presidential election.
On March 16, the California Republican Party elected its first Black female chair, Corrin Rankin. However, she doesn’t want her identity to be a part of the story; “I’m a qualified person who happens to be a woman who happens to be Black. We’re a party based on merit. If you have the qualifications and the experience, you should have the job, and it doesn’t matter what the color of your skin is,” she said in a recent interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.
Her words present a view that largely contrasts with the prevailing perspective held by many in the California Democratic Party who have typically made race a central issue.
With the Republican and Democratic parties each pushing further to the Right and Left, respectively, there appears to be a broader political realignment of Black and Latino voters nationally on the fraying from the Democratic Party.
In the 2024 presidential election, California’s 12 majority Latino counties shifted rightward, voting for President Trump in greater numbers than in 2020. Nationally, Trump enjoyed support from about 30 percent of Black men under 45, according to AP Vote Cast.
The political shift is underscored by a cultural shift that has been in the making for some time. In 2019, Kanye West – a Trump supporter and California influencer — told Black Americans, “Own your power. Your power is not to just vote Democrat for the rest of our lives. That’s not the power.1”
Joining Kanye is an ever-growing list of Black and pop culture influencers, including Amber Rose, who spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention, UFC Champion Jon Jones, rapper Lil Wayne, NFL stars Terrell Owens and Herschel Walker, Azealia Banks, boxing star Mike Tyson, and perhaps the most famous Californian of all, Snoop Dogg.
There have been Democratic Party defections in the political arena, too. Former Democratic Assemblymember Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, who endorsed Trump in 2024, citing concerns with kitchen table issues, immigration, and culture.
“As a straight male, religious, pro-capitalist person, the policies of the Democratic Party are incompatible with my civic interests. More than 30 percent of African American men between the ages of 45 and 64 supported Donald Trump because the Democratic Party gave us no options,” Ridley-Thomas told CBM in a phone interview.
That’s not our fault. That’s the Democratic Party’s fault. It is intolerant, it is anti-capitalist, and it is hostile towards religion,” Ridley-Thomas continued. Please visit www.cablackmedia.org to read more.
