Like misbehaving children, Republicans in Congress need reminders and reprimands from their Republican leaders to stop making sexist and racist comments about Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, told his fellow House members that Harris’ “ethnicity or her gender has nothing to do with this whatsoever.”
For Donald Trump, however, ethnicity and gender have everything to do with the way he views Harris and other political opponents. He can’t help himself. As Philip Bump stated in The Washington Post, Trump sees himself as “the arbiter of identity … He polices what counts as ‘American’ or ‘patriotic,’” and “those terms apply only to those who comport with his politics or, more broadly, support his candidacy.”
For Trump, this is serious stuff. Losing the presidential race to a woman would be bad enough; losing to a woman of color would be intolerable. If that happens, the post-election Trump show will be, as he would say, “the likes of which has never been seen.” Get your popcorn while supplies last.
Nikki Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants who ran against Trump for the Republican nomination for president, knows a thing or two about racism in her Republican Party. She scolded her fellow Republicans for calling Harris a “diversity” hire. “You don’t need to talk about what she looks like or what gender she is,” said Haley during a CNN interview. “It’s not helpful.”
During a Fox News interview, Haley warned that Trump “is not going to win talking about … what race Kamala Harris is. It’s not going to win talking about whether she’s dumb.”
Surely, Haley knows that Trump will not take her advice. She is a woman, after all, and if Trump wanted her advice, he would have selected her as his running mate instead of JD Vance, who has framed his brand of identity politics around “childless cat ladies.” Haley would have boosted Trump’s presidential chances, but he couldn’t bring himself to add a woman to his ticket.
Psychologists tell us that people’s honest thoughts and feelings come to the surface when they are stressed, upset or afraid, and also when they are down in the polls. With less than two months before the November election, Republicans are feeling a little under pressure, upset and afraid. Listen carefully; you will hear their honest thoughts and feelings as they say the quiet stuff aloud.
None of these attacks will be new for Harris, of course. She is used to being overlooked and underestimated as a woman and a person of color.
Harris has dealt with racism her entire life. Yet, it is still surprising and sad that so many people can’t see beyond her biracial background to recognize her exceptional education, experience and accomplishments. She has more education and experience than the other three candidates running for president and vice president. Yet, some Republicans still consider her a “diversity” candidate.
Harris has already made history by becoming the first female, the first Black and Asian American, and the first biracial person to serve as vice president. If elected in November, she will become the first woman president. “Unfortunately,” says Theara Coleman, writing for The Week, “all of these facets of her identity have become fodder for racist and sexist personal attacks, both online and in the media.”
A few weeks ago, Trump reposted a picture of Harris after it had been modified to darken her face’s skin and with the body of a dung beetle. This post reminds us that Trump is not just racist; he has the maturity of a middle school student — no offense to middle school students.
Questioning a person’s identity is not new to Trump. It is a primary strategy of his political life, and we’ve seen this movie before. “There are parallels between” his attacks on Harris and “his attacks on Barack Obama,” said Donald Collins, professor of cultural studies at American University. “It is about going after voters who have problems with (candidates’) identities.”
Obama is also biracial. He had a Kenyan father and a white American mother. Trump tried to sell the idea that Obama, born in Hawaii, was not American and ineligible to be president. He has even tried to say that Harris is not eligible to run for president because her parents were immigrants. As stated by Collins, Trump wants his supporters to question Harris’s identity just as he managed — successfully — to get his supporters to question Obama’s identity.
For some folks, Obama and Harris are not “one of us.” They are different. They are not 100% white. Thus, they can’t be Americans and certainly don’t meet the qualifications for president.
Of course, Trump comes from a family of immigrants, and his running mate, Vance, is married to an Indian woman who practices her Hindu religion. Vance, of course, doesn’t have the spine to confront Trump and speak up for his biracial family, including his three biracial children, as well as the millions of Americans who look like them.
Republicans are worried that Trump’s identity politics is overshadowing Republican campaign issues. Instead of calling him out for his racism and sexism, however, Republicans like GOP strategist Karl Rove refer to Trump as “fundamentally undisciplined.”
It seems that for some Republicans, the problem is not that Trump is spreading racist and sexist garbage about Harris and other women who challenge him; it is that he is so “fundamentally undisciplined” that he fails to keep his racism and sexism to himself. They want us to believe that Trump lacks personal control, not character, which is an interesting recommendation for someone who wants to be the holder of our nation’s nuclear codes.
Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.