Imagine being a black voter. You have an impressive array of black and brown progressive Democratic candidates to choose from, and then there's that pasty white blonde woman in the pink dress with the high pitched voice over on the end, the one with 1% poll rankings, who's rolling over on her belly to pander for your vote, abasing herself by discussing her awful, awful "white-skin privilege."

Here's how it went:

If you don't have the stomach to watch, Mairead McArdle at National Review has the report:

Instead of apologizing or avoiding her white privilege during Wednesday evening's Democratic presidential debate, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said she wants to use it to "talk to those white women in the suburbs that voted for Trump." "I can talk to those white women in the suburbs that voted for Trump and explain to them what white privilege actually is," the New York senator said. "When their son is walking down the street with a bag of M&Ms in his pocket, wearing a hoodie, his whiteness is what protects him from not being shot," she continued to applause from the audience. "When their child has a car that breaks down and he knocks on someone's door for help and the door opens and the help is given, it's his whiteness that protects him from being shot." Gillibrand explained that she wants to join in helping educate Americans about racism and white privilege instead of leaving it solely up to lawmakers of color such as senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris. "I don't believe that it's the responsibility of Cory and Kamala to be the only voice that takes on these issues of institutional racism," Gillibrand said. "I think as a white woman of privilege who is a U.S. senator running for president of the United States, it is also my responsibility to lift up those voices that aren't being listened to."

If I were a black person watching that, I'd be grossed out. Gillibrand brings up street reactions to young males in hoodies as the embodiment of "white skin privilege"? Something that was discussed in the news in response to the Trayvon Martin case, which happened seven years ago? Like that's the hot thing being discussed in the black community now, the burning issue? Like maybe not wearing a hoodie could get a different result? Glad you woke up and smelled the coffee, Kirsten.

A hackneyed, decades-old example, without any discussion of what's happened since — such as cops not enforcing the law at all in black communities out of fear of doing something that could ignite a racialist mob — might be a stronger appeal to black voters. Rats, roaches, and urban decay in Democrat-run one-party cities such as Baltimore are far realer issues in black communities. All one can really see here is that Gillibrand is woke and she wants black voters to know she is woke, so she promises to lecture white voters who aren't so woke. Wow.

Gillibrand seems to have looked up "black issues" on Google, found the Trayvon Martin case, and decided that that ages-old story was the big issue she'd use to win over black voters over the likes of Harris and Booker because she knows of no other issues. Such a bright one.

For her own lefty party, and its safely ensconced upper-middle-class suburban whites, who haven't seen a black person in years, she's preaching to the choir.

For the working-class and non-urban hipster whites on the outside, her vow to go preaching and browbeating them on their fear of blacks in hoodies is not a winning strategy. She's running for president so she can lecture whites on their "white skin privilege"? Ought to rope them in — they too would like to wallow in that Big Guilt feeling alongside wispy, WASPy, white-as-snow Gillibrand. Tell that to an angel family still mourning the death of a loved one to an illegal alien or a Somali "refugee." Tell that to an Asian family whose kid just got denied a slot at Harvard while the legacy leftists and affirmative action cases got through.

Bottom line: Seems that Gillibrand wants to virtue-signal instead of win over actual votes. Her strategy with blacks is pure pandering and patronizing. With committed Democrats, it's old hat. With non-Democratic whites, it's obnoxious suburban privilege out to stomp them down as bad guys just a little further. And cripes, it's pathetic — not just pathetic, but a pattern: she similarly disgusted gay voters by turning up as the straight white woman hanging at the gay bar to make friends and win votes. She's kind of a "type" that can't quite win on ideas, so she goes for the identity politics, except that on that stage, she doesn't have any useful identity. All she has is pandering that everyone can see through and roll their eyes over.

Sounds like a winner.

Image credit: Shareable CNN screenshot