AAt an event hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists today, Donald Trump sparked outrage from the press for suggesting that Kamala Harris may not have always been as “black” as she now claims. “I've known her indirectly for a long time,” Trump said said by Harris. “And she was always of Indian heritage and she just promoted Indian heritage. I didn't know she was black until a few years ago when she became black, and now she wants to be known as black. So I don't know , is she Indian or black? … Because she was Indian all the way, and suddenly she turned into a black person.
As funny as the right-wing hysterics were in the taco – White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre smoked that Trump's comments were “completely insulting and repulsive”: The issue being discussed about Harris' “blackness” is part of a larger pattern of quixotic right-wing attack lines against the presumptive Democratic nominee. (Trump, to his credit, has largely avoided the worst of these; his comment today was largely an aside.) The right's problem isn't that he's bashing Harris for his left-wing racism, or his desire to elevate black interests above those of the nation, or his unwavering commitment to the most poisonous traits of anti-Semitism. the contemporary left towards whites; in any case, the right does not emphasize any of them enough The problem with the right is when it does does bring up race, often does so in a weak, powerless, and ultimately self-defeating way.
As an empirical matter, Harris is half black, insofar as “black” is an actual racial category denoting sub-Saharan African ancestry. His mother is Indian; his father is Jamaican. (A Jamaican immigrant may not qualify as “African American” under the broader sociocultural category of black American identity, but that is largely irrelevant, for our purposes.) Harris attended Howard University, a historically black university in Washington, and was widely touted as the first “black woman” on a major party presidential ticket in 2020. Several right-wing influencers have obsessively latched onto to try somehow. demonstrate – although it is not clear for whom – that she is not black, after all former holders on Harris becoming the vice president's “first Indian-American senator.” birth certificate. But to what end?
The simple truth is that as a political matter, at least, that it literally doesn't matter if Kamala is black, or black “enough” or black in the specific way that she is it should be black Black voters will vote for her in overwhelming numbers, as they have every Democrat since (at least) Harry Truman. Although there is no public opinion data available on exactly how black the black electorate thinks Kamala is, it is suspected that the proportion of black voters who suspect her racial identity is proportional to (or less than) the proportion of blacks who vote Republican. — that is, 10 to 15 percent, at best. The idea that Kamala could no being black would seem strange to most normal voters, of any race. She looks black, sounds black and the media says she is black; for all practical political purposes, she is black, regardless of what appears to be the feverish right-wing hunt for his precise genetic admixture.
To the extent that there is a coherent justification for the right's quest to debunk Kamala's blackness, it tends to present itself as a kind of casual appeal to black voters. That's why a cadre of prominent black conservative influencers, most of whom derive their income from constantly assuring their predominantly white audiences that in reality, is the Democrats who are the real racists: They've latched onto this talking point, implicitly selling their conservative fans the fantasy that black voters will support the GOP in droves: “One of the worst-kept secrets is that black voters hate Kamala Harris because she's not black” . he wrote self-proclaimed “Iconic OG Black Gay Veteran Republican Icon” Rob Smith. “Kamala isn't even black… Why the hell would we vote for her?”, declared Laverne Spicer. “Kamala 'Not Black' Harris Thinks Inviting Megan Thee Stallion On Stage To Shake Her Ass … Will Win Her The Black Vote”. he scoffed CJ Pearson. “Does she think we're fools?”
Even if black voters were convinced by these appeals—and they won't be—they would vote for Kamala Harris for the same reason that a large portion of Hispanic voters voted for Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012. The “ coalition of the rise” of Obama. was (and still is) meant to harness the awakening power of the “New America”—the rising tide of elite white blacks, Hispanics, gays, women, and liberals who sought to replace the predominantly white, Christian, heterosexual, and male . political and cultural establishment that has presided over the nation, in one form or another, since before the Foundation. The constituents within this coalition are not united by a leading figure at any given time aspect like them (although that doesn't hurt), but because they share a social, political, economic and cultural interest in the campaign to wrest power from the hands of Old America. They have the same thing enemies, and because of that, they stay united, no matter how much energy the Right spends trying to persuade them otherwise.
But the right continues to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to persuade them anyway, because many members of the conservative establishment have internalized—perhaps unknowingly—the premises and formulas of the left, even as it rages publicly against them. Republicans are desperate to be “diverse” and embarrassed by the overwhelming whiteness of their political base. (On his post-Congress apology tour, Kevin McCarthy routinely repeated the complaint that the Democrats “looked like America,” while the Republicans looked like “the most restrictive country club in America”). They are so eager to avoid being accused of “racism” that they often are willingly commit acts of political self-immolation to prove it, only to discover—to their surprise—that the left still accuses them of racism anyway.
The good news is that whenever the GOP (and the right in general) decides it would like to win again, there is still a mass political constituency waiting for them out there inside. If conservatives want to hunt, they should go where the ducks are.
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