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The far right has finally figured out how to step up its racist attack on Kamala Harris – Mother Jones

A composite image of Kamala Harris in large quotation marks

Illustration by Mother Jones; Kenny Holston/Getty

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“You hear ‘DEI’ and you’re probably thinking of your employer’s HR department,” explains Kat Abughazaleh. “But for your QAnon uncle, ‘DEI’ is an activation phrase to send the craziest memes in the family group chat.” In her new video for Mother JonesKat looks at the right’s obsessive appropriation of the term “DEI” – diversity, equity and inclusion – to attack Donald Trump’s new opponent in 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris:

Kat analyzes how this harmless little acronym has become the latest dog whistle for FoxNews hosts and elected Republicans, drawing parallels to Nixon’s Southern strategy, which also used coded language to appeal to old bigotry.

Previous attempts to caricature Kamala Harris caught right-wing commentators somewhat off guard when compared to her other misogynistic masterpiece: her attacks on Hillary Clinton (a phenomenon Kat described in her first video for Mother Jones). But ever since Harris won enough delegates to be the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, commentators have filled the airwaves with what is now a three-letter swear word, twisted by Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk to describe people who get jobs despite being talentless and incompetent, particularly members of minority groups. Harris is their new poster child.

“Of course,” Kat explains. “You can hold six elected offices, you can have a full career as a lawyer, you can even become Vice President of the United States, but if you just add those three little letters, DEI, it’s immediately undermined by the claim that every single one of your accomplishments is because of society’s treatment of your race and gender, not despite it.”

Since DEI has to serve as a scapegoat for societal problems – from bridge accidents to failures in aviation policy – ​​the experts have found their artificial term and seem to be sticking with it.

“Now it’s in the hands of right-wing assholes,” Kat jokes. “And just like Pepe the Frog, fedoras and the OK symbol, these losers have perverted another harmless thing.”