Blacks as a voting block squandored their influence whey the continually backed one party over the other. If they played the parties off each other, they would be able to get much more of their agenda.
This is mostly true. Blacks have little political influence because their vote is so reliable and therefore "cheap" in terms of political capital, concessions, and policy promises, to acquire.
The group that gets catered to the most is so-called "moderates" and "undecided" voters because their vote is not guaranteed unless they're promised what they want and then see some actual results in office. You have to assign a cost and condition to your vote or candidates can basically ignore your desires. This isn't just true of blacks though, but any committed Democrat or Republican who continually and consistently votes party line. The religious right, Mountain conservatives, Coastal liberals, union members, and the like have relatively little genuine political influence as well. Most will vote for whoever "their" party's candidate is nearly regardless of policies and promises simply because they've aligned themselves and figure "at least it's better than the other guy." The only determining factor there is how much a candidate is able to rally a base, not whether they'll get that base's collective vote.
The problem goes the other way too though. Black Americans as a group are almost uniformly Democrats, but Republican candidates almost uniformly offer nothing to appeal to black voters. Ultimately the outcome of much of the foundation of Republican party doctrine and agenda is disproportionately disadvantageous to black people. It's not that Democrats offer the voting block much, just that they'll reliably do less harm to the group than Republicans. Republicans also do next to nothing to court the black vote despite agreement on many "family values" issues which tend to be the core of their campaigns. Black voters have written off the Republican party and the Republican party has written off black voters, equally.
One thing I find absolutely hilarious though that's widespread among racists, covert racists, and the simply stupid, is the idea that a demographic that votes as a Democratic block and has for the last 47 years, who voted overwhelmingly for Johnson, McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, and Kerry voted for Obama "just because he's black" not because he's the candidate of the party they always voted for even when it was until this election a white candidate. Seriously funny.
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