I’m not a professional election strategist. Nor am I a scholar of political campaigns and the psychological tactics behind their success. Despite both these holes in my resume, I’m willing to go out on a massive limb and make a bold statement about the election result we’ve just witnessed: if identity politics isn’t dead, the American people just dealt it a truly devastating blow. Whether you’re a conservative seeking the end of race politics, or a progressive trying to get outside your echo chamber to understand the extent of the electoral shellacking your agenda’s just experienced, it’s time to look at Kamala Harris’ failed campaign and answer the question: is her loss despite her DEI credentials, or because of them?
Let’s start with the basic observations. Kamala Harris was a DEI pick — this term, despite the many accusations of racism attached to it, was more than deserved. Picked for her gender, and also at the behest of advisors urging Joe Biden to pick a black running mate, Harris had the opportunity to rise above both this less-than-ideal recruitment method and also her complete lack of experience running in a general presidential election. She didn’t have to run a DEI campaign. Running a pro-abortion, economically ignorant campaign paired with an inability to articulate basic policy tenets and an unwillingness to handle any audience that wasn’t already in the bag for her would have been enough. But a second look at some of Harris’ closing gambits reveals that the shiny toy of race-baiting was simply too bright to say no to.
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