Beto O’Rourke was in South Carolina yesterday on a mission to pander to black people. The black vote in South Carolina is critical and Democrats have been vying with each other to see who can emote most fervently when speaking of the difficulties of American blacks.

I think Beto got a little carried away.

Washington Examiner:

Appearing before a gathering of 10 black community leaders and activists at Park Circle Creamery, the 2020 presidential candidate addressed the lack of trust in the law enforcement community that has arisen from incidents of police brutality. “I don’t know the right word to describe what we need to do as a country, but it’s not just leveling the playing field. It is protecting people from their country and those who hold positions of trust, including in law enforcement right now,” the former Texas congressman told the group. “And it’s protecting from a criminal justice system, it’s protecting from a kindergarten classroom, it’s also protecting from who’s polluting the air that we breathe and the water we drink,” he said, making an apparent reference to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

I guess the concept of equality of opportunity is dead in the Democratic Party. Instead, as some cheap-suit mob boss would do, Beto is offering “protection.”

“We have these very specific proposals about ensuring there’s more capital in the community, capital in society, making sure everyone has access to it,” O’Rourke said. “I understand that it’s much larger than any given policy proposal or any part of the system because it is systemic. And I will in all humility admit I don’t have the answer.”

This is a perfect example of a Democrat talking about “capital” as if it’s food stamps. Or something. You can’t force anyone to invest in a “community.” This is not something that government can dole out like welfare. Efforts at government “investment” in inner-city communities in the past have met with failure. Capital investment in a failing community must be sustained and increased over years for it to have any effect at all.

And if that community has a high crime rate, low rates of high school graduation, high rates of adults on public assistance, and hopelessness, there isn’t much chance of improving the lives of black people by promising something that politicians can’t deliver.

We all know what Beto was trying to do. All politicians do it. It’s just that blacks have become the Charlie Browns of America with Democrats promising every four years to hold the football steady — until they yank it away at the last moment.