And it’s going to hurt them
Awwww. They have belatedly realized that their piggishness might not be the selling point they thought it was. It’s too late, I’m afraid. We know who they are:
Speaker Mike Johnson and other top Republicans are encouraging members to avoid attacking the vice president’s identity as they seek to navigate a campaign against the new presumed presidential nominee. Harris is the first woman, the first Black American and the first South Asian American to serve as vice president.
- Johnson (R-La.) encouraged members to” focus on policy not personality” during a closed-door conference meeting Tuesday, later echoing that sentiment publicly to reporters.
- Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) encouraged members in the meeting to “hold off on ‘editorializing’ on Kamala. Just stick to her disastrous record,” a GOP lawmaker who was present for the comments told Axios.
Leadership’s push to quash gender- or race-based critiques of Harris follows comments from a handful of GOP lawmakers asserting that the vice president was able to quickly step in for Biden because she’s a woman of color.
- “The media propped up this president, lied to the American people for three years, and then dumped him for our DEI vice president,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) posted on X.
- During a recent television appearance, Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) alleged Democrats had to stick with Harris as the nominee “because of her ethnic background.”
Johnson’s efforts to focus on Harris’ policy record are complicated by rhetoric from the top of the ticket.
- Sen. JD Vance — Trump’s running mate — hasn’t limited his criticism to Harris’ stance on issues.
- In his first solo campaign appearance Monday, Vance drew a biographical contrast with Harris, who he accused of “collecting a government paycheck for the last 20 years”
Reps. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.) and Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) are weighing introducing a censure resolution against Burchett over his remarks, Politico first reported.
- Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) told CNN the comments “are just racist dog whistles. Whenever you hear DEI, I want you to think about the N-word. I want you to think about racial slurs. That’s what they actually mean.”
- “Of course it’s not appropriate, for heaven’s sakes. What, are they just going to say, ‘If you’re not a white male, it’s a DEI candidate?’ I’m sorry. No,” Rep. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told Huffington Post.
- Johnson, meanwhile, said he’d “talked with a lot of members,” and he thought his message had landed.
That’s very nice, I’m sure. But unless Fox News and the right wing media lay off of it, it’s going to be out there. And it’s going to gross out over half the population. .
And they need to have a talk with Donald Trump:
Also, respects to our potentially new Democrat Challenger, Laffin’ Kamala Harris. She did poorly in the Democrat Nominating process, starting out at Number Two, and ending up defeated and dropping out, even before getting to Iowa, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a “highly talented” politician! Just ask her Mentor, the Great Willie Brown of San Francisco.
I’m sure I don’t have to point out that he has suggested exactly the same thing about NY Attorney General Leticia James and Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis, both of whom are Black women. He’s the one who gives permission for this garbage, not Mike Johnson.