Unsurprising racism and sexism won’t stop Kamala Harris

Well, that didn’t take long. 

MAGA-supporting Republicans set a land speed record rolling out sexist and racist attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris as soon as it looked like she’d be the Democratic presidential nominee. 

So much for unifying the country. 

Many of these attacks leaned on the offensive trope that she is a “DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion) candidate, which made it look like multiple folks on the right got the same memo.  

The good news (maybe) is Republicans themselves suddenly seemed to realize what a bad look that was. 

Meanwhile, anyone who’s paid attention to Harris’s career knows the attempts to denigrate her credentials are absurd. 

This is a person who worked for decades as a prosecutor, was elected district attorney in San Francisco, attorney general of California, U.S. senator and vice president of the United States. 

And there is every reason to believe that racist and misogynist attacks designed to defeat her will fail.  

First, enthusiasm for her candidacy is rising. Voter registrations are way up. In its first two days, Harris’s presidential campaign raised a record-breaking $100 million.

Those donors were big, small and diverse. It was especially gratifying to see that well over $2 million was raised by two Black groups, Win with Black Women and Win with Black Men (especially great if you’re tired of reading that Black men are leaning toward Trump).   

Also, the world has changed since 2008, when Hillary Clinton put “18 million cracks”  in that “highest, hardest glass ceiling,” and even more since she was the Democratic nominee in 2016. 

We’ve had the  #MeToo movement. We’ve seen abortion rights hammered by Trump and his Supreme Court justices. Outrage over the loss of reproductive freedom had a lot to do with Democratic wins in the 2022 midterms. 

And don’t underestimate the pent-up desire, especially among women, to never see another election in which a woman candidate falls short of beating Donald Trump. Mini Timmaraju of Reproductive Freedom for All describes it as finishing the job from 2016, borrowing a phrase from President Biden.   

Next, look at the competition. The Trump-Vance platform, largely contained within Project 2025, is outside the American mainstream. The press has only recently begun to cover it extensively. The more voters become familiar with it, the less they’re going to like it.  

If Trump hoped to disavow Project 2025, he made a huge mistake in choosing running mate J.D. Vance — who some initial polls suggest is the least popular vice presidential candidate in decades. Vance is closely associated with the project’s creators. Every time he opens his mouth, he delivers more of the scary radical-right rhetoric that is rampant throughout Project 2025.  

He’s also said some really strange things about “cat ladies” and abortion being like slavery.  

This ticket, and this agenda, will be eminently beatable. 

And that’s not just because their ideas are unpopular and their attacks unfounded. Kamala Harris herself is a strong candidate who the country is just getting to know.  

Many of us remember her outstanding turn on the Senate Judiciary Committee as a highly informed, thorough and probing questioner of federal judicial nominees. As a prosecutor, she put sexual predators and other criminals behind bars. As vice president, she has campaigned forcefully for gun safety and reproductive freedom, two issues that will be cornerstones of her presidential campaign.    

The Harris campaign and the candidate herself embody the future in contrast to the Trump-Vance past, freedom in contrast to MAGA’s embrace of oppression, inclusion versus exclusion. 

It’s a future that sooner rather than later should see a woman in the Oval Office. The United States is way behind other countries on that score. India, Israel, Germany, Liberia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Germany — the list of countries that have been led by women goes on and on.   

Why? Some analysts say that, unlike the U.S.’s direct elections, parliamentary systems in other countries create more opportunities for women’s leadership.    

Maybe. But that’s no excuse; not anymore.  

It’s a proud moment for this country that we are seeing the ascent of Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to be the presumptive presidential nominee of a major party. It will be an even prouder moment when she takes the oath of office.  

Svante Myrick is the president of People for the American Way.