Is It Racist and Misogynist to Demean Kamala Harris?

Is it racist, misogynist, or misogynoirist for Donald Trump to refer to Vice President Kamala Harris as “retarded,” as he recently did during a dinner at Trump Tower with his fat-cat billionaire donors, according to the New York Times? His routine disparagement of her as “dumb” and “mentally disabled” comes across as bigotry. Now you—or someone—might say, this isn’t Trump being biased; he treats all his political foes that way and engages in equal-opportunity slander. But there’s something sharper here than his usual immature and false taunts. At a rally last month, he remarked, “Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way”—setting her apart in his fusillade of demeaning insults.

Slamming this accomplished Black woman with a long history of public service as a person born mentally inferior—see the recent Our Land issue on Trump and genes—seems a racist and/or misogynist act. Especially when it comes from a man with a lengthy and undeniable record of racism and misogyny. While such campaign rhetoric would have once been considered a campaign scandal—in 1980 when President Jimmy Carter accurately noted that the Ku Klux Klan had endorsed Ronald Reagan, the political press attacked him for being mean—these Trump comments cause Trump no political discomfort. They barely trigger any controversy.

In fact, Trump appears to have created a permission structure for bias-driven assaults on Harris. In right-wing media, commentators are having a field day. Writing for the American Spectator, a fellow named Scott McKay declared “Kamala Harris hates men” and “doesn’t seem to associate with any men worth respecting.” Referring to 55,000 American men who died in Vietnam—don’t ask why he even brought this up—he wrote,

Kamala Harris doesn’t give a damn about any of those 55,000 dead Americans. 

She doesn’t give much of a damn about the 330 million current live Americans. And she certainly doesn’t give a damn about the male subset of that population.

How could she? Nothing in Kamala Harris’ political background shows that she has any respect for, or appreciation of, masculinity.

The article raised crude speculations about her personal life and blasted Harris for having an affair with California politician Willie Brown while he was married. And McKay demanded to know if she ever had an abortion. Has the American Spectator treated Trump in similar fashion, branded him as dishonorable for his dalliances and requested he state whether he ever paid for or arranged for an abortion? (By the way, Harris dated Brown years after he separated from his wife.) McKay also insisted that Doug Emhoff, Harris’ husband, is “no male that any real man would respect,” citing his extramarital affair that ended his first marriage. (Apparently, Trump’s affairs are weighed differently.) And McKay ended by asserting, “We can see from [Harris’] rhetoric and her actions she has little to no respect for men.”

The American Spectator was trying very hard here. When it comes to not respecting an entire gender, does its editorial staff no longer remember this Trump ditty: “I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there…And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything…Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything”? (And since we’re talking about masculinity, here’s a pop quiz: Who wears more makeup?)

The double-standardizing is staggering. But it is open season on Harris for being a woman. On the far-right Front Page website, Mark Tapson—under the headline “Why Men Won’t Vote For Kamala. Hint: It’s Not Misogyny”—wrote that Harris has been unable to “garner the support of male voters.” And this is the reason why: “To be clear: no one, male or female, truly likes Kamala Harris, because as a politician she is unlikeable.” And he added, “She is not a leader.”

If this is not misogyny, Tapson was certainly judging her differently than Trump. No one likes Harris? In some polls, she’s ahead of Trump by a bit, but the race is essentially a toss-up at this moment. Someone must like her. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 51 percent of male registered voters backed Trump, and 43 percent favored Harris. That’s a significant gender gap. But look at women: 52 percent of female registered voters support Harris, and 43 percent support Trump. Her deficit with men is basically the same as Trump’s with women. Would Tapson cite Trump’s problem with women as a sign he’s not likable and is not regarded by voters as a leader?

At the Federalist, the hate is also boiling over. The far-right online publication’s managing editor, Kylee Griswold, growled that Harris is “too stupid to be president.” Asserting that “her whole personality is the color of her skin,” she maintained that Harris is “not smart, articulate, or likable...Democrats have fallen in line behind geriatric and mentally impaired candidates before. They’ll gladly fall in line behind a stupid one now.” Maybe this is not misogyny or racism (though I’m not certain what the reference to the “color of her skin” meant), but with this rant—which claimed Harris was dumb and inarticulate when it comes to discussing policy—Griswold was judging Harris on a scale the Federalist crew does not apply to the man in the race.

Conservatives have plenty of reason to criticize Harris for her assorted policy preferences. Yet right-wingers who worship at the altar of Donald Trump—and embrace him despite his lies, demagoguery, ignorance, racism, misogyny, violent and fascist rhetoric, mismanagement of the Covid pandemic, and incitement of the January 6 riot—feel compelled to follow Dear Leader in brutally debasing the first Black woman to become the presidential nominee of a major party. It sure smells of racial bigotry and gender prejudice—a stink that Trump has emanated for years. 

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

This past week, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its Peace Prize to Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors, “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.” This was an inspired choice, especially at a time when the perils of nuclear weapons and proliferation receive insufficient attention. The war in Ukraine has raised concerns about a nuclear conflict, as Vladimir Putin has threatened to resort to nuclear arms. Yet how much discussion has there been during the 2024 election about nuclear weapons, even as the United States is spending $1.7 trillion to update and overhaul its nuclear arsenal? Affording Donald Trump control (once again) of the power to destroy the planet has barely been an issue.

So the Norwegians did a tremendous service by reminding us that nuclear weapons continue to pose a threat to all and the entire planet. And it was a brilliant move to honor those who survived the atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II in 1945—attacks that initially and in subsequent months killed an estimated 214,000. (Many others died in later years from radiation exposure and cancer.) There are not many survivors left. But for decades, the Hibakusha—that’s what the Japanese call these survivors—did bear witness to a violence that the world must contain. In the early 1980s, I covered arms control issues and several times met these people. I was always impressed by their grace and sense of mission. They had transformed tremendous pain into a desire to save the rest of us from such torture and to protect the planet.

In April, I visited Japan and traveled to Hiroshima. It was a moving experience. The city long ago was resurrected into a vibrant metropolis, and a large section was devoted to commemorating the attack, featuring a museum and memorials designed to convey a simple and powerful message: Never again. It was encouraging to see how Hiroshima has combined its remembrance of the atomic bombing with a call for action to prevent any future use of these horrific weapons. The city has honored those who died and those who survived. And now the Norwegian Nobel Committee has done the same.

You can read about my trip to Hiroshima here.

Wolfs. During one of his inane ramblings at a campaign rally earlier this year, Donald Trump babbled that the movie stars of today are inferior to those of yesteryear: “Do you remember Cary Grant? How good was Cary Grant, right?...I don’t know what happened to movie stars today. We used to have Cary Grant and Clark Gable and all these people. Today we have—I won’t say names because I don’t need enemies. I don’t need enemies. I got enough enemies.” For Trump, it often seems, history stopped in the 1980s—or the 1970s, or the 1960s, or the 1950s. Like much else, he’s wrong on this point. There are plenty of talented and captivating movie stars these days. He just doesn’t like them, for many have expressed their disregard for him. And I was reminded that Hollywood stardom thrives when I watched Brad Pitt and George Clooney in Wolfs, the new crime drama from Apple TV+.

It's much fun to watch these two veterans hurl their acting chops at each other. Each plays an unnamed fixer, a somewhat shady operator who can clean up any situation. The mess that brings them together occurs when the district attorney of New York City (Amy Ryan) has a romp with a young man (Austin Abrams) in a $10,000-a-night hotel suite, and her boy-toy falls off the bed, crashes through a drinks cart, and ends up bloody and seemingly dead. The DA calls a fixer who once was recommended to her (Clooney); the owner of the luxury hotel, who was watching via a hidden camera, calls her own (Pitt).

In the criminal underworld scene, these guys are called “wolfs” because they work alone—all the better to keep the secrets they must keep. But circumstances force Clooney and Pitt to collaborate (against their natures) to tidy up this scene and avert a scandal for the DA. Two twists soon complicate the picture. First, they discover the dead man was carrying a large stash of drugs. Second, the dead man is not so dead. The mission goes from a simple wipe-down-the-room-and-dispose-of-the-body task to returning the drugs to their rightful owner (so that drug lord doesn’t come looking for the kid or the DA) and figuring out what to do about the kid.

At times, the film, written and directed by Jon Watts (who has directed several Spiderman films), is confusing. The ending is inexplicable. I had to go online to figure it out, only to find that others hadn’t fully understood it. Yet it was a treat to see Pitt and Clooney trade barbs and arched eyebrows in this buddy picture, reminiscent of Ocean’s Eleven and its sequels. These actors ooze charisma, and they long ago figured out how to duet with each other to bring out the best. This film doesn’t transport you. Always present is the understanding that Wolfs is a vehicle for Clooney and Pitt to do their Clooney-and-Pitt thing. But there’s nothing wrong with that, for sometimes a movie star is just a movie star—and that’s good enough.

The Inflection Election: Progress or Extremism?, Mark Green. A few months ago, my pal Mark Green—the author, veteran consumer advocate, former public advocate of New York City, and Democratic nominee for mayor in 2001 (who lost to Michael Bloomberg by 2.4 points after being outspent $74 million to $16 million)—released his 26th book, The Inflection Election, which contends the 2024 election could be a point of no return. Should Donald Trump win, Green argues, American democracy will be fatally wounded. He opens with an imaginary scenario for next year in which Trump dispatches federal agents to arrest his political foes (and Rachel Maddow!) and orders military units to suppress protests, while the Department of Homeland Security (under Stephen Miller’s guidance) begins rounding up millions for mass deportation. Much of the book is devoted to demonstrating why this nightmare is not so far-fetched.

Like many Americans, I’ve been wondering how bad a second Trump presidency might be. And there’s a somewhat poetic passage in Green’s book that notes how much of life balances on a knife’s edge. He writes, “consider how history can indeed hinge on inches.” To prove this point, Green provides a long list of examples. In 1914 in Sarajevo, anarchist Gavrilo Princip missed his first shot at Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, but later, when Princip was at a bar commiserating with comrades, the Archduke passed by and gave him another chance. Bam!—World War I happens. Toward the end of that war, a British soldier came across a wounded and defenseless German corporal and decided it would be inhuman to shoot him. Adolf Hitler lived. In 1933, Giuseppe Zangara took a shot at President-elect Franklin Roosevelt, but as he fired a bystander jostled his arm, and the bullet killed the Chicago mayor. On the night of June 17, 1972, Watergate security guard Frank Wills spotted a door kept open with black tape, leading to the arrest of burglars connected to the Nixon White House. Ten days before Election Day 2016, FBI Director James Comey reported to Congress he was reopening the investigation into how Hillary Clinton handled her emails when she was secretary of state (a re-inquiry that produced no new information), and that likely was a factor in her defeat—and Donald Trump’s victory.

A relatively small action can yield a big change. As the final weeks of the 2024 contest pass by, what might be the inch that determines the miles ahead for this nation? An October Surprise? A scandal? A stupid remark from a candidate (though Trump appears immune to consequences for that)? A flood in a swing state? A lawsuit? An event that interferes with voting in Detroit or Madison or Pittsburgh? A last-minute smear campaign mounted by a shady political action committee? There are so many possible inches—accidental or purposeful—that could push several thousand votes in one direction or another. That may well be enough to determine the outcome. And the outcome of this election could mean the difference between the implementation of authoritarianism and the continuation of this imperfect democracy. Green is correct, this is an inflection election. The tragedy is it might not take much to tip the country toward catastrophe.