It was only a matter of time before folks on the left started pretending that any opposition to Vice President Kamala Harris is rooted in sexism. While the “everyone is racist” narrative has already begun, it appears they are also going to lean into the sexism angle to smear their opponents.
The Atlantic’s Xochitl Gonzalez wrote an op-ed titled “What the Kamala Harris Doubters Don’t Understand,” in which she makes the case for Harris while peddling the sexism trope.
At the start of the piece, the author highlights concerns brought to her by male friends. “I’ve been told about Harris’s mediocre polling (yes, I know about it), reminded of her awkward 2020 presidential bid (yes, I remember),” she wrote.
Gonzalez refers to her male friends bringing up Harris’ likability (or lack thereof) “and her made-for-Fox News-fodder role as border czar.”
Others brought up Harris’ potential problems with attracting male voters. “When I push back on their trepidation, many give me some version of: ‘I have no issue with her; I’m just worried about how she will play with white midwestern male voters,’” she explained.
Then, she gets to the line we’ve all been waiting for:
“I’m beginning to think that they bring him up because they don’t want to admit to their own biases—that he’s a cover for their own hovering doubts about a female candidate, and an excuse for why they’re not getting more enthusiastic about Harris.”
But to her credit, Gonzalez didn’t rely only on shaming us for being sexist. She also made a valiant effort to make the case for choosing Harris as the nominee. First, she highlights how the vice president could appeal to black voters.
Black voters, and especially Black women, have saved the Democratic Party time and again. Yet non-Black voters continually dismiss the power and potential of this community, which includes supporters, donors, and many swing-state residents. Some people have questioned Harris’s appeal among Black voters. She is half South Asian, and married to a white man, and was a prosecutor whose work, Republicans will point out, resulted in the incarceration of young Black men. But if the past few days are any indication, many Black voters aren’t just enthusiastic about her; they’re gleeful.
The author brought up how the group Win With Black Women gathered over 44,000 women on a Zoom call to sing Harris’ praises and how “they donated more than $1 million in three hours.”
The author highlighted the other half of Harris’ identity, noting that if she were to win in November, “she will be the first Asian American president.”
She noted that “Tech investors and entrepreneurs such as Nihal Mehta are already lining up behind Harris.”
Next, she argued that the vice president would do well with female voters. “Anyone who says that they don’t think America is ‘ready to vote for a woman’ has not been paying attention,” she wrote, also pointing out that Harris “has already gone on a ‘Fight for Reproductive Freedom’ tour in battleground states.”
Lastly, she said Harris could also win over younger voters. “Perhaps one of the most surprising things about her candidacy is how quickly she’s been embraced by young people on the internet,” she wrote.
Does any of this sound familiar? The arguments Gonzalez makes in her piece are oddly reminiscent of what we heard a long time ago in an era known as 2016, when Hillary Clinton was vying for the presidency. Back then, Democrats were making the same arguments: Concerns about likability are rooted in anti-female bigotry.
Nevertheless, Harris has several problems as a candidate. She has had some of the most godawful approval ratings during her tenure as vice president. Moreover, her performance in this position has been about as far from stellar as Pluto is from Earth, which is why Democrats and their close friends and allies in the activist media are trying to pretend she was never appointed as border czar.
Democrats had better come up with a better strategy than this. Trying to promote Harris by telling everyone they are sexist if they don’t vote for her is not going to work any more than calling them racist. This might not be as easy as it sounds, given Harris’ record, but they had better go back to the drawing board on this one.