Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons,
and the Racial Divide
A Critical Book Review
October 7, 2015
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Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide by Joy-Ann Reid 
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton - Huffington Post
Fracture is a fascinating book, in part, because it tells familiar stories, but with enough titillating new details to keep the reader engaged. The first story Reid tells is about the transformation of the Democratic Party from the home of Southern white supremacy to the home of newly enfranchised black southern voters. Juxtaposed on top of that story is the story of how the Clintons were transformed from the vessels carrying the hopes and aspirations of black voters to the obstacles blocking the eventual election of a black aspirant, Barack Obama. In both stories, the roles of blacks and whites were fractured with the outcome still playing out.
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Joy-Ann Reid - MSNBC
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The topic of Fracture is almost too broad to be told in its 321 pages, but if there is a fault with the book, it is that it needed to cover even more ground to do justice to Reid’s story. As the title suggests, Fracture is about Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide. More accurately it is about race and how the Republican and Democratic parties responded to fears and hatred, and the history engendered by the toxic relationship between blacks and whites. Although Reid focuses on the Democratic Party, the response of the Republican Party and the glue it used to fuse disparate groups together was as important as the way the Democratic Party reacted to the enfranchisement of black Southern voters.
The Clintons and Obama, caught in this maelstrom, were not the only politicians whose reactions helped to shape events. Rather, they represent three politicians through whose eyes we can more clearly see how events shaped political decisions. More importantly, many of the events in which the Clintons and Obama participated will continue to shape the politics of this country for years to come. Answers to two political questions suggested in Fracture that will affect the 2016 elections are: (1) will the Democratic coalition of voters that brought victory to Barack Obama help to ensure a Democratic victory in 2016 and (2) will black voters remain committed to the Democratic Party establishment and Hillary Clinton or can the progressive wing of the Democratic Party capture enough voters to make Bernie Sanders a viable candidate in the Democratic primaries? 
Democratic Party from the New Deal through Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Reid describes the bloody and tumultuous convention of 1968 as the point at which the Democratic Party turned from championing the civil rights revolution of the late fifties and early sixties to seeking an accommodation with the white voters who distrusted the civil rights revolution and what it symbolized to them. The Vietnam War, student protests, and the Black Panther Party cemented the turn from Lyndon Johnson’s attempt at racial justice to the Democratic Party’s attempt to manage the inflow of newly enfranchised black voters and the outflow of fearful white voters. Between 1968 and 1992, with the exception of Jimmy Carter’s Presidential victory in 1976, due in part to Watergate, Democrats lost five of the six elections and lost white voters by more than 15 percentage points.
The Democratic Party’s response to the exodus of white working class voters and steady defeat by the Republican Party was unsure and inconsistent. Generally, the Democratic Party marginalized blacks, and by extension, the progressive issues with which blacks were associated. The increasing self-confidence of blacks in the Democratic Party, highlighted by Jessie Jackson’s unsuccessful runs for the Presidency in 1984 and 1988 and accompanied by highly successful registration drives of black voters, provoked increased efforts to marginalize black and progressive issues. The party felt itself fractured from its traditional make up as it increasingly had to consider the preferences of its nonwhite voters. 
The stated basis of Bill Clinton’s bid for the Presidency in 1991, was neutralizing the Republican wedge issue of race to win back the “Reagan Democrats.” The unstated basis of Clinton’s campaign was that Clinton, a Southerner, could manage the expectations of blacks and moderate the fears of whites. The Clinton victory effectively curtailed race and the progressive movement in the Democratic Party. Clinton’s willingness to appoint blacks to high level jobs in his administration and his personal ease around blacks diverted blacks from progressivism while splitting whites from racial issues.
Black Voters and Progressives
Black voters are likely to stay committed to Hillary Clinton. While Bill Clinton, and to a lesser degree, Jimmy Carter, managed the fallout from this fracture, Barack Obama seemed to have found a way to repair this fracture. Although he did not receive a majority of white votes, he received the higher percentage of white votes nationwide than any Democrat since Jimmy Carter (43 percent). Obama won 66 percent of 18 to 29 year olds; 80 percent of the people of color (96 percent of blacks); 56 percent of women; and 55 percent of those with college degrees. Because there were fewer white voters in 2008 (74 percent of the vote was white, down from 90 percent in 1976), the 55 percent of the white vote McCain received could not tip the scales for him. The key to the Democratic candidate winning in 2016 is holding the progressive leaning Obama coalition together. The notion that Hillary is being pushed to the left by Bernie is as mistaken as the view that Bernie is converting voters who are outside of the Obama coalition. The Obama coalition will select the Democratic nominee in 2016, and because of the growing percentage of nonwhite voters in the coalition, nonwhite voters will play a determinative role in selecting the nominee. The same political and social establishment of blacks who were initially supporting Hillary Clinton in 2008 against Barack Obama, are now strongly supporting Hillary Clinton again. As Reid makes clear, the black establishment was torn from Hillary by rank and file black voters once they believed Obama had a genuine chance of becoming the first black President. It is unlikely that Senator Sanders will be able to engender the sense of group advancement that aroused black voters to support President Obama, although the Black Lives Matter Movement, in support of Senator Sanders, might arouse it. 
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Conclusion
As Reid recounts, the relationship between blacks, whites, and the Democratic Party was fractured. Regardless of whether or not Obama has healed this fracture for the foreseeable future, the coalition will be viable for 2016. Unless Bernie Sanders can successfully establish a link with black voters--perhaps through the endorsement of Black Lives Matters--black voters are unlikely to abandon Hillary Clinton again. Reid’s description of the evolution of the Democratic Party over the last 50 years is a refreshing acknowledgement of how fully understanding the past is necessary to understand what is happening now and what will happen in the future.
As Reid recounts, the relationship between blacks, whites, and the Democratic Party was fractured. Regardless of whether or not Obama has healed this fracture for the foreseeable future, the coalition will be viable for 2016. Unless Bernie Sanders can successfully establish a link with black voters--perhaps through the endorsement of Black Lives Matters--black voters are unlikely to abandon Hillary Clinton again. Reid’s description of the evolution of the Democratic Party over the last 50 years is a refreshing acknowledgement of how fully understanding the past is necessary to understand what is happening now and what will happen in the future.