It’s oddly amusing and pathetic at the same time to watch partisans desperately trying to justify political actions that go against their own professed values.
Exhibit A: Evangelicals and other social conservatives support sexual assault chief Donald Trump.
Exhibit B: Democrats who claim to be the party’s champions for women and racial minorities are desperately trying to eliminate the first Black woman vice president and presidential candidate.
Here are the facts:
President Joe Biden’s debate performance proved he’s not the ideal candidate for a tough election campaign where every vote counts and every moment on the campaign trail matters.
Vice President Kamala Harris is younger and more energetic, but also highly polarizing.
Some of the reasons she has become such a polarizing figure are not surprising: Her flippant responses in some interviews, combined with inappropriate laughter in others, have provided more ammunition for an already long list of critics, many of whom never really liked her to begin with.
The criticism of Harris, including from women, has been strident. Some of it reminded me of why I hated the girls’ locker room in middle school. Others reminded me of how hard it is to please anyone, let alone everyone, especially as a woman, especially if you’re a minority. My close white female friends were stunned when I explained that one of the reasons I prefer to handle certain conflicts over email, especially as a black woman, is because, at nearly six feet tall, I don’t want my colleagues to say I was “aggressive” or “intimidating” or “threatening.”
That can be exhausting, as the criticism of Harris attests.
If you don’t laugh enough, you’re perceived as an angry black woman.
But laughing too much can make you seem insincere.
If you’re not attractive enough, many men might not vote for you.
However, if you are too attractive, many women will assume that you got where you are because of your looks or your back.
Fair or not, the strong reaction to Harris makes it clear that she will have a tough time trying to keep the White House from returning to Donald Trump. But even the possibility of failure will never stop political parties from giving a chance to a white, male candidate.
One of the most puzzling things about the DEI debate (and conservatives derogatorily referring to Harris as the DEI candidate) is how impressive her resume is compared to the men she’s being compared to. A former prosecutor turned California attorney general and U.S. senator, Harris’s credentials are still questionable when compared to those of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Think about that for a second.
Or consider this: Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice had no choice but to serve in cabinet positions under a president they knew was smarter and more qualified than they were. The anger Harris seems to inspire among some is puzzling. But it’s also nothing new. Neither is Biden’s decline. Democratic incompetence and infighting is anything new. One of my favorite things said in my years of television, by a liberal pundit whose name I’ve forgotten, is, “If anyone can snatch defeat on the brink of victory, it’s the Democrats.”
Apparently that still holds true today. If Harris’ approval ratings were so bad a year ago that Democrats feared she couldn’t take the ball from Biden and run if necessary, they should have asked her to step down then. That would have given her the opportunity to become the first Black woman president, make history and give Black girls a chance to dream bigger than ever before. And they could have asked her not to run for reelection, bringing an end to the Biden-Harris era and putting in new candidates they thought would be more likely to win.
But they didn’t. And calling for her to resign now, especially for a white man who is even less qualified and more hated than she is (I’m looking at you, Gavin Newsom!), only proves that Democrats are just as hypocritical about their values ​​as conservatives. That’s no surprise to those of us who cover politics, but it may be the support of black women voters that has saved the Democratic Party so many times.
