Immerse yourself in 19th-century writings, and you will discover that Democrat slaveholders and segregationists considered themselves the “Negro’s best friend.”
That supposed friendship, of course, required that the “Negro” play a role as grateful recipient of the condescending Democrat’s beneficence.
That attitude continues to this day. For instance, in a clip posted to the social media platform X, Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures of Alabama, a black man, asked a group of nearly 100 attendees at a town hall meeting, most of them black, to raise their hands if they did not have an ID, only to discover that not one person in attendance raised his or her hand.
Oops. That didn’t go as planned. It turns out that black Americans have no problem acquiring IDs.
According to WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama, the embarrassing moment occurred Monday inside Truevine Missionary Baptist Church in Toulminville, a Mobile neighborhood.
Figures, a freshman Democrat, tried to prove that the SAVE America Act would have a disenfranchising effect.
“So regardless about how you feel about voter ID, right, this is not about that,” Figures said. “This is about ease of registration, right?”
Curiously, having declared voter ID irrelevant, the congressman proceeded to ask attendees about IDs.
“The most common form of ID that everybody has is a driver’s license, right?” he continued. “Look, I’m of a different era. I’m of a different generation. I probably feel a little bit differently about it. Watch this: How many people in here do NOT have an ID?”
As any reasonable person would expect, not one hand went into the air.
Incredibly, however, Figures seemed surprised.
“Everybody has an ID,” he admitted after a few awkward moments of silence. “So I thought something a little bit different.”
🚨 HOLY CRAP! A Democrat congressman just tried to prove that the SAVE America Act and voter ID would disenfranchise everyone, and it BACKFIRED
Rep. Figures tries making a point: “Watch this. How many people here DO NOT have ID?!”
*Not a SOUL raises hand*
“Everybody has ID?… pic.twitter.com/sYYaFCkcM4
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 1, 2026
By now, of course, everyone knows that Democrats will go to incredible lengths to protect illegal immigrants and electoral chaos. They have, therefore, invented the most absurd arguments against the SAVE America Act.
Figures’ embarrassing stunt, however, demonstrated something else about the modern Democrat mind that we often overlook.
In short, we need not equate Figures himself with the virulently racist slaveholders and segregationists of a bygone era — Democrats all — to see that one of the historical Democratic Party’s most toxic elements has survived well into the 21st century: namely, the tendency among powerful Democrats of every color to characterize black Americans as helpless, and therefore dependent on powerful Democrats.
In all likelihood, the freshman Democrat congressman did not even recognize the ugly spirit he channeled by asking about IDs. After all, condescension toward black Americans runs through the Democratic Party’s veins.
Either way, one hopes that more black Americans will begin to see the Democratic Party for what it is and what it has always been.
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