It didn't work out the way they thought it would.

House Democrats thought they had an easy issue for rallying the black vote: bringing up reparations for slavery as an election issue and holding congressional hearings. What better way to rally coveted black voters than to hold out a big pile of reparations money along with lot of talk about victimization derived from evils committed in the past?

A large number of Black intellectuals and pundits weighed in, not just at the hearing, but on Twitter and beyond, making a hash of the Democrat "narrative."

Quillette columnist Coleman Hughes, who's a Black Democrat, argued in testimony that the whole thing was insulting to black people and a distraction from the issues Black people face today. That got him booed by Democrats for what's figuratively called "wandering off the plantation."

Seems he didn't make either them or their obsession with slavery reparations look good.

His remarks echo those of prominent Black economist Glenn Loury, who has been noting these uncomfortable facts for decades, saying it's a waste of time to put a price on slavery.

Here are John McWhorter and I at Harvard discussing affirmative action and reparations: https://t.co/1giMt9Jk6p — Glenn Loury (@GlennLoury) April 22, 2019

But this was far from the only exploding cigar for the Democrats. There were also those who asked for a good look at just who was behind slavery, creating a very uncomfortable subject for Democrats:

Before Democrats can have the conversation about reparations, they must first acknowledge that they are the party of Slavery, Jim Crow and the KKK. The only switch that happened was Black people switching to Democrats based on Tales of Broken Promises, A Bill of Lies & Handouts. — Diamond and Silk® (@DiamondandSilk) June 19, 2019

U.S. gov't did not own slaves. Republicans did not own slaves. Democrats did. Democrats passed and enforced Jim Crow. Democrats founded the KKK. Slavery ended 150 yrs ago and lasted, after America became a country, for 78 yrs. To pay for #reparations, will dems sue themselves? — Larry Elder (@larryelder) June 19, 2019

Maybe Democrats can sue themselves for reparations.

Democrats have famously been the party of slavery — not just on the Confederate side, but on the copperhead side in the North. After the Civil War, they became the party of Jim Crow. During the Civil Rights Movement, they were the party of Bull Connor. The Republican Party, by contrast, was founded explicitly as an anti-slavery party. Abraham Lincoln was its first president. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a registered Republican for his entire life.

All of this should have the Democrats pointing at themselves — and maybe giving Black Democrats some cause to wonder why this is the party choice of so many of them. In any case, another blown narrative.

Maybe that's why the whole thing is a loser issue broadly among voters anyway.

According to Hannity.com, citing Fox News:

Recent polls show that 60% of Americans oppose reparations, while just 32% support it. The date of the hearings — June 19th — marks the day in 1865 when Union troops arrived in Texas to declare the end of the US Civil War. "However, in a finding that could put 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls in a bind, the Fox poll found that among Democratic primary voters, 54 percent said they were likely to support a candidate who backed reparations, while 33 percent said they were not likely," adds Fox. Nearly all Democratic presidential candidates have offered their support for a "national conversation" on the controversial issue.

Facts are uncomfortable things for Democrats, particularly when it's Black intellectuals pointing them out for them. And when they're election losers, too, one needs to wonder just how bright this bunch selling reparations actually is.

Image credit: Daily Caller / C-SPAN screen shot.