Clinton’s era widened the class gap within black communities while elites sold the policies.

Evidence

For those folk (about 7 to 10 percent of black America) who benefited most from opening predominantly white colleges and universities to African Americans, Clinton’s presidency represented an extraordinary advance. But Clinton also supported the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which exploited white fear to justify the expansion of punitive crime policy. As a result, more and more black people—particularly poor black people—found themselves in jail and prison. And his strategy of triangulation led to the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. So-called welfare reform only widened the gap between the haves and the have-nots within black communities. All the while black liberal political elites, at least most of them, helped Clinton sell these policies to black voters. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 309

Categorization

• XREF: Provides concrete causal grounding for why black electoral loyalty to Democrats becomes a trap — the reader’s core question.