Jacquie Baly - Political Science Professor, UH-Downtown Joins Houston Morning News, July 25th, 2024

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
How bad things are the twenty twentyfour elections, for What's really happening?
Everything in your world? Here andAbroad News Radio seven KATRH five point fifty
one. Now, let's talk aboutthat selfless act of sacrifice that Joe Biden
made last night and passing the torchto Kamala Harris. Jackie Valley's a political

(00:20):
science professor at u HD on townJackie, good Morning, Good morning.
So he said he's saving democracy,or at least giving his party the best
chance that there is to save democracyby defeating Donald Trump, and in the
process they killed democracy. At leastthat's how I saw it. How'd you
see it? Well, you know, that's the best spin that they really
could have. He knew he wasin a losing battle, you know,

(00:43):
I say he knew. We don'treally know if he knew or not.
But his Campnew Democrats knew, Obama'scamp knew, and he was forced out
by all of the key politicals andhe had to make sure that he had
a graceful way of exit. Andthat was his spin on it. It
was eleven minutes and he was prettymuch trying to cast this spell on his

(01:07):
supporters by saying, I may notbe in this race, but I have
someone younger and more energetic who cancarry on. We'll see if it works.
So far, she's pulling even lowerthan he is. How do your
students react to all of this?And I really want to ask you.
I mean, I don't know ifyou're really in active campus whatever right now,
but we haven't talked to you sinceJuly thirteenth. What was the reaction?

(01:33):
Yeah, so that my students definitelywere scratching their heads shaking their heads
on Biden. As much as Democratsand politicos were trying to say that he
was fine, even my students weresaying, there's something wrong, there's a

(01:53):
cognitive decline, he is not fit. That's really the energy that they had
surrounding him. As far as Harris, she actually has not had enough of
a presence for them to even havean impression of her. However, she
is active, very active within oursorority, and so you'll see a lot

(02:17):
of sorority members graduate or undergraduate whoare quickly rallying around her, and a
lot of the Black Greeks, membersof the Black Greek system who are quickly
rallying around her. Besides those,many are wondering what has she done.
I really don't know. Well,the one thing that she did was she

(02:38):
was born a woman, and shewas born of color. She's Jamaica Indian,
and that makes her a classic DEIhire, not according to the conservatives
and not according to Trump supporters.I've got a list of media from the
and from NPR to the New YorkTimes, CNN, Boston Globe, LA
Times, on and on, alltalking about this four years ago when Joe

(02:59):
Biden picked her, pressure grows onBiden to pick a black woman, a
black running mate for Biden. Democratsmake the case this is all talking about
how he had to in the summerof George Floyd, he had to pick
a black woman. These are allleft wing organizations that say she was picked
because she's a black woman. Nowthey're saying to state such a thing is
like using d n word. Well, okay, he said I'm going to

(03:22):
pick a black woman, and alot of people were scratching their head.
Shouldn't we pick someone with the bestcredentials. Why are we saying it has
to be someone with this skin colorand this gender. And then he had
many African Americans in front of him, and then he chose someone who is
half Caribbean, half Indian, andso everyone was scratching their heads and said,

(03:43):
Okay, he chose the least blackwoman possible. So that really is
going to come around, come backaround. Was she a DEI higher?
Was she qualified? And you hada lot of more African Americans that you
could have selected, but you chosesomeone that was half Indian and half Drman.
It's really a lot of people aresaying many different things. But the

(04:03):
one thing that she does have forher, and I'm going to go back
to that, is that she isa member of the Black Greek system and
those members were part of the callthat raised a record number of dollars and
those people are the ones that aregoing to unite all of the black people
behind her. And you've got alot of voting polling locations on university campuses,

(04:27):
Yes we do. We've seen that. We've seen the increase of that,
especially the last couple of years.And the one thing I will say,
though the people who are already supportingJoe Biden are falling in line and
supporting her, what we need towatch are independence. They have not seen
them move. The needle has notmoved for them. So the next couple

(04:49):
of months, that group will bethe most important because Joe Biden's people are
still in line with her. PresidentTrump's people are still in line with him,
and the independents are the ones thatwe're going to have to continue to
watch. Jackie. We have lessthan thirty seconds, super quick answer.
Though we've heard endorsements from everybody inthe Democrat sphere except the Obamas. Why

(05:13):
he's waiting to do it in avery big way and it will be coming,
all right, So it will becoming. You think he will endorse
A lot of people are wondering thatfor Michelle. Okay, got it.
That's what we need to hear about. Jackie Valley, political science professor at
UH Jackie, thank you for thetime. We appreciate it. Five point
fifty seven. This is Houston's MorningNews.