Politics
Column: Trump is trolling the Democratic Party about Harris' mixed-race identity. Will it work?
In 2020, I wrote a column about Kamala Harris’ mixed-race identity in which I made the case that a lack of critical thinking on race would make it easier for unscrupulous politicians to manipulate voters.
Four years later, that theory is being put to the test. Onstage last week at the National Assn. of Black Journalists convention, former President Trump tried to raise questions about the authenticity of the vice president’s identity, implying she had changed races to get votes.
Trump is perhaps the last person on Earth whose racial commentary I’d take seriously. What he said was not just juvenile but obviously insincere. In modern internet parlance, he is outrage farming, trolling, speaking disingenuously purely to get a response. And I have to ask: Is it working?
Even such a transparent attempt to discourage Black and South Asian voters from supporting Harris has sparked understandably furious reactions. His comments were crudely delivered to an audience of Black journalists, a context that added insult to injury.
Now, even though no liberal I know would be seriously swayed by Trump’s racial analysis (if you can call it that) we are trapped in the news cycle he has created. And I begrudge every second spent taking Trump’s trolling seriously. Harris was born to a Black father and Indian mother, so she is Black and Indian. I won’t go through an analysis of why people born to parents with two races are both of those races rather than one, because it doesn’t need to be explained.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a Zeta Phi Beta sorority gathering July 24 in Indianapolis.
(Darron Cummings / Associated Press)
This isn’t critical race theory. This is just the birds and the bees. This is one plus one equals two.
When Harris appeared on “Asian Enough,” a podcast I co-hosted for the Los Angeles Times, she expressed impatience with the demand that she articulate a journey of racial discovery, namely because she believes she didn’t have any such story to tell.
“I didn’t go through some evolution about, ‘Who am I, and what is my identity,’” Harris said. “I guess the frustration I have is that people think that I should have gone through such a crisis and need to explain it.”
I understand if you’re skeptical of this story because it is too convenient, too aspirational, too uncontroversial. Sure, Harris’ childhood probably wasn’t a post-racial dream, no more than former President Obama’s. But if there’s any place in America where a child may have grown up with secure attachments to both halves of a mixed-race identity, it would probably be Northern California in the 1970s, one of the most diverse and progressive places in the nation.
And I never truly expected her to racially triangulate herself on our podcast. I expected her to do what every politician has ever done, which is present the identity that is most likely to win votes. When Trump is the alternative, why take the risk?
It’s more important to me to analyze the assumptions behind Trump’s trolling. Namely, that in America you’re supposed to vote for whoever will put the most money in your pocket. And you’re supposed to believe that the person most likely to put the most money in your pocket is someone who is the same race as you.
That implies that a vote is not a democratic act but a transaction, like trying to pick the bank or credit card with the best terms and perks. It recasts America as not a country but a company, where voters choose not just a leader but a CEO, the best one being one from our own tribe.
Vice President Kamala Harris, pictured July 30 in Atlanta, told an L.A. Times podcast in 2020: “I didn’t go through some evolution about, ‘Who am I, and what is my identity.’ I guess the frustration I have is that people think that I should have gone through such a crisis and need to explain it.”
(John Bazemore / Associated Press)
It’s a piece of conventional wisdom, “voting your pocketbook.” But am I supposed to believe the bizarre conclusion that my lot in life improves because Harris is part Indian and, in America, we are both considered Asian American, and thus some benefit will flow to me?
We have to ask ourselves why Trump is trying to convince us that one plus one does not equal two. Who benefits from rigid tribalism about racial identity?
Definitely Trump and his supporters. But also, anyone who doesn’t want to spend time or resources thinking about or dealing with race.
Whether that’s campaigns that are content with one photo-op per race, no more, or politicians whose racial outreach ends at placing one person of each race in the backdrop of their speech. We are easier to marginalize and to pacify if we fold ourselves into such tiny boxes.
We have to resist that flattening wherever we see it. Treat Trump’s comments as you would those of any other online troll: Forget them, as soon as possible.
American Mormon voters have traditionally voted Republican. But members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Arizona have become increasingly disillusioned by former President Donald Trump. Kellen Browning, a New York Times reporter who is on assignment in the swing states of the 2024 election, explains how the division among Mormon voters could help deliver a key battleground state to Democrats in November.
EXCLUSIVE: New House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., wants to focus on two key issues for the remainder of this year – government funding and next year’s House GOP Conference rules.
“I’ve been on the Freedom Caucus, really, since, since the beginning,” Harris told Fox News Digital on Tuesday night, in his first interview since being elected chair of the ultra-conservative group.
“I’ve watched, you know, all our chairs do a great job pushing the conservative agenda with Congress, and with the American people. And right now our big fight is going to be on controlling spending. It’s going to be on what the rules look like for the next Congress.”
Harris promised, “I’m going to roll up my sleeves and battle those two issues.”
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Rep. Andy Harris has been selected the next House Freedom Caucus chair (Getty Images)
The Maryland Republican, who was first elected in 2010, was chosen to lead the Freedom Caucus for the remainder of the year after Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., vacated the role following his June primary loss to another Republican.
Harris has not been known to be particularly chatty with reporters on Capitol Hill, making him an understandable successor for a group that keeps even its membership list undisclosed.
The Freedom Caucus has also long been seen as a thorn in the side of House GOP leaders, pushing them to go further in pushing conservative policies through Congress.
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Harris, however, praised Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership on government funding ahead of a Wednesday vote on a Freedom Caucus-backed plan to avoid a government shutdown.
The plan is a six-month extension of this year’s federal funds known as a continuing resolution (CR), to give lawmakers more time to hash out fiscal year 2025’s priorities, paired with a measure requiring proof of citizenship in the voter registration process.
Rep. Bob Good recently stepped aside from the chairmanship (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“The leadership he’s shown on this issue is excellent,” Harris said. “I think if we had had this discussion one month ago and someone suggested that Speaker Johnson was going to bring a six-month CR to the floor, and, oh, by the way, we add the [Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act] into it – most people wouldn’t believe it.”
But the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House have called the legislation a nonstarter.
Harris would not say how conservatives could force Johnson to stick by the plan, even as several Republicans have publicly opposed the measure over concerns the speaker would not fight for the SAVE Act if it was rejected by the Senate.
“If it fails, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said.
Harris did, however, urge those GOP critics to take a “second look” at the bill ahead of Wednesday’s vote.
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“I hope they take a second look before tomorrow and realize that the important signal would send to the American people,” Harris said. “I’d love to hear the argument Chuck Schumer is going to make to say, ‘Yeah, you know, we’re going to reject that because we want illegal aliens to vote.’”
The Maryland Republican similarly would not go into detail about what changes he would want to see to the House GOP Conference rules – though the issue is expected to take center stage in the end-of-year leadership elections.
Harris praised Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership in the government funding fight (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., agreed to changing certain conference rules to win over his critics after House Republicans won the majority in the 2022 midterm elections.
That notably included lowering the threshold for triggering a vote on the speaker’s ouster – called the motion to vacate the chair – from a simple majority to just one vote.
“I hope that in its wisdom, that the Republican majority next year – because I believe there will be a Republican majority – not only adopts and endorses all those changes we made this term, but maybe make some further changes. Those will be discussed more obviously in the next two months.”
When pressed for details, Harris noted there were other members of the group besides himself.
“That’s going to be up to what the Freedom Caucus says,” Harris said. “I’m the chairman, but I’m not all the members.”
FLINT, Michigan – Former President Donald Trump argued that it is “consequential” presidents who face the threats he has over the last few months at a town hall event in Flint, Michigan, the former president’s first since surviving an assassination attempt Sunday.
“You wonder why I got shot at right. You know, only consequential presidents get shot at right,” Trump said during the town hall at Flint’s Dort Financial Center.
The event marked Trump’s first official campaign stop since the latest attempt on his life Sunday, when a lone gunman was spotted by U.S. Secret Service agents while Trump was playing a round of golf at Trump International Golf Club in Florida.
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Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attends a town hall meeting moderated by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the Dort Financial Center in Flint, Michigan, on September 17, 2024. (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP) (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images)
The gunman, identified as 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, was spotted by Secret Service agents as Trump moved between holes five and six on the course, with the agents firing at Routh after spotting his rifle and scope poking out of the brush.
Trump, who was about 300-500 yards away from the shooter at the time of the incident, escaped uninjured.
The attempt marked the second time Trump faced an assassination attempt, coming just over two months after the former president was grazed in the ear by a bullet fired at him during a rally in Butlery, Pennsylvania.
Trump reflected on the attempts on his life during the Michigan event, saying being and running for president is a “dangerous business.”
FBI investigators gather evidence from the perimeter of Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida on Monday, September 16, 2024. (Mega for Fox News Digital)
RUBIO CALLS OUT DEMOCRATS FOR ‘CLEARLY’ INFLUENCING SECOND WOULD-BE TRUMP ASSASSIN WITH INCENDIARY RHETORIC
“It’s a dangerous business. However, being president, it’s a little bit dangerous. It’s. You know, they think race car driving is dangerous. No, they think bull riding. That’s pretty scary, right? No, this is a dangerous business, and we have to keep it safe,” Trump said.
The former president spent much of the event, which took place in a critical swing state, hitting Vice President Kamala Harris on issues such as inflation and the auto industry.
“’I’ll say this for Michigan, if I don’t win, you will have no auto industry within two to three years,” Trump said. “China is going to take over all of your business because of the electric car and because they have the material we don’t.”
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attends a town hall meeting moderated by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) at the Dort Financial Center in Flint, Michigan, on September 17, 2024. (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP) (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images)
Michigan figures to play a key role in this year’s election. Trump won the state by less than one percentage point in 2016, but lost it to President Biden in 2020 by less than three percentage points.
Polls show a close race brewing in the state again, with Harris holding a less than one percentage point lead as of Tuesday, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average.
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