Identifying Kamala Harris

When  I first wrote about the possibility of California senator Kamala Harris running for President in 2020 back in June 2017, I compared her to Barack Obama by saying that she was a black candidate who could be effective in forming a coalition that could put her into office and make history not just as our second black President but also our first black female President (even though she's actually biracial, just as Obama was, she being half black and half South Asian).  But I also offered this caveat of suspicion: "But is this another play by the Democrats at identity politics, which Obama eschewed, preferring to be the candidate who happened to be black, not the black candidate - but which Hillary Clinton, as a woman, so shamelessly exploited to the detriment of the party and her own career? If the answer is yes, then Harris would be wise not to take the bait and not to run as "the non-white female candidate." Because playing with identity politics is the same as playing with fire, and when Hillary played the "gender card," she, the Democrats, and the whole country were burned."

Well, guess what: Harris took the bait.  She's running as "the black female candidate" - that is, she's insinuating that the fact that she's a black woman should be more than enough to vote for her.

Uh, yeah, that's not how it should work.  But alas, the Democratic Party is consumed with identity politics to the point where if you're not associated with a racial, ethnic, gender or sexual orientation group, you're no one. And Harris has in fact made it plain that she is going to play up identity politics as a presidential candidate.  Read her comments from her remakes at the annual Netroots Nation convention from 2018:

"I have a problem, guys, with that phrase, 'identity politics.'  Because let’s be clear, when people say that, it's a pejorative. That phrase is used to divide, and it is used to distract. Its purpose is to minimize and marginalize issues that impact all of us. It is used to try and shut us up."

Issues that impact all of us?  Like health care, education, and climate change?  How does identifying yourself as a member of a group help one to understand issues that impact not just you but everyone else?  And yes, I know there are some issues that black women like Harris face that no one else will.  But any issues that only one group can identify with should be considered as part and parcel of a broad message. I know there are statistics showing the black Americans are more prone to economic and social injustice than white Americans, such as in health care.  But if the Democratic Party adopts a health care policy that tries to help everyone, irrespective of race or gender, then don't black Americans benefit from that as much as white Americans?  How is a broad policy that affects everyone "divisive?" If, say, sickle-cell anemia is considered a black issue because blacks are more likely to get it, we should do something about it and bring down the numbers of sickle-cell anemia patients, but not because sickle-cell anemia patients are mostly black, but because sickle-cell anemia patients are . . . sickle-cell anemia patients.  I'm not saying we shouldn't care about sickle-cell anemia because blacks mostly have it - Ann Coulter said that!  I am saying that fighting sickle-cell anemia should be part of a whole health care policy that makes lives better for everyone and doesn't recognize "groups."  Remember, as we learned in the 1980s, AIDS isn't a gay disease, it's everyone's disease; just like cancer, anyone can get it.

Anyway, that's not what I think of when I think of identity politics.  I think of how identity becomes more important than politics.  Harris has largely been seen as a progressive, and she is, on social issues at least, but she's seen as more moderate on economic and criminal-justice issues.  Not only do liberals fault her for sending so many non-violent drug offenders to jail as a prosecutor, she has a dubious issue in her record as California Attorney General - she chose not to prosecute the CEO of OneWest Bank for foreclosure violations.  The CEO of OneWest Bank was Steven Mnuchin - now the Secretary of Treasury.  I suspect that, on economic issues, she wouldn't be that much different as President from her two Democratic predecessors, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.  The only thing different would be that she's a black woman - which, in the Big Bang scheme of things, obviously doesn't (or shouldn't)  matter.

Another thing I don't like about identity politics is that your identity only seems to matter if you're a woman or a person of color.  If you're a man who belongs to a European ethnic group - Irish, Italian, Polish - you're not seen as an ethnic . . . you're just a white guy.  Let me revisit Martin O'Malley.  He is an Irish Catholic whose ethnicity and religion shaped his views on economic justice, immigration, and public duty, but none of that actually counts because he's a white man, so how could he possibly relate to an increasingly female and non-white Democratic Party?  As a former mayor of a black-majority city - Baltimore - and as a governor of Maryland who compiled a liberal record on social and economic issues, I would say he can relate very well.  But while he checked a few ethnic boxes, they just weren't the ones Democrats care about.  Despite his Irish background, and despite his Irishness being as blatant and obvious as any Kennedy,  he was still written off in 2016 as too white, and his ethnic background was regarded as irrelevant.  And Bernie Sanders, a Jew, had the same problem in 2016; in fact, many Jewish Democrats disregarded his background.  But his Jewishness was evident.  Judaism is about human conduct and how people treat one another; Sanders' politics clearly reflect that, as if anyone cared.  And by the way, need I remind you that some Hillary Clinton supporters were offended by his focus on income inequality because it was born from "white male privilege" - that is, white men can worry only about inequality because they don't have to worry about being victims of racism or misogyny?  I covered that already.

I just wrote that O'Malley's ethnic identity was irrelevant, and it would have been irrelevant for me, a fellow Irish Catholic, to support O'Malley's 2016 presidential bid if I had not found anything in his record that showed he could be a great President.  I cannot emphasize this enough - as an Irish Catholic, I won't vote for someone for office just because he's an Irish Catholic.  They have to offer me more than that, and so far, neither John Delaney nor Joe Biden have done so.  (I have issues with Beto O'Rourke, which I'll get to later.)  But black women are ready to vote for Kamala Harris just because she's a black woman?

Oh yeah, Harris is basing her campaign in Baltimore because of its proximity to Washington, its location in a Democratic state, and because of its . . . demographics.  And, she is friends with Marilyn Mosby, the black Baltimore City prosecutor who blamed Martin O'Malley for Freddie Gray's death at the hands of Baltimore police in 2015 even though he was no longer mayor of Baltimore and no longer even governor of Maryland. As Harris was likely planning this move before O'Malley decided not to run for President again, there's no way to see this as a calculated insult against a potential rival.

Having said all that, I still plan to vote for Harris if she is the Democratic nominee.   I know she's not hostile to white men; she happens to be married to one.  But she doesn't seem to understand, as Barack Obama did, that you shouldn't make anyone feel like they're not as important to you just because they're in a different racial group or of a different sex than you are.  That's how Obama won Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin twice; playing identity politics, especially with the gender card, is how Hillary Clinton lost those states, as many Obama voters there defected to Trump in 2016.  The sooner Harris understands that, the better.