MAGA’s racist and sexist attacks on Kamala Harris are based on an ugly logic

Members of the religious right have labeled her a “Jezebel,” while other conservative activists have said she has slacked her way to the top by referring to past romantic relationships. GOP commentators have also repeated many of the “birtherism” attacks once used against former President Barack Obama, falsely claiming that her candidacy is not viable because her parents were Jamaican and Indian immigrants. (Harris is a U.S. citizen born in California.) And they have seized on common GOP arguments about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), suggesting that Harris is unfit for the job and was only chosen as vice president because of her identity.

“The media propped up this president, lied to the American people for three years, and then dumped him for our DEI vice president,” Republican Rep. Tim Burchett (TN) said in a post on X. (Burchett has since said he wishes he hadn’t said that, but added it was the “truth.”)

All of these attacks have one thing in common: they target Harris’ identity rather than her intentions or experiences.

This is despite House Speaker Mike Johnson imploring his party last week to focus its criticism on policy and politics. “This is nothing personal to Kamala Harris, and her race or gender has nothing whatsoever to do with this,” Johnson said.

Many of these comments are downright hateful and examples of misogynoir, a composite form of sexism and racism directed against Harris, a Black and South Asian woman.

But there is also a sinister political calculation behind it. Together they want to undermine Harris’ legitimacy as a candidate and are part of the Republicans’ comprehensive criticism of her electability. In addition, they want to use existing racism and sexism against Harris and mobilize voters who share these prejudices.

“They hope to tarnish her with suspicions that she did not deserve the positions she has achieved, and to exploit the fears of those who refuse to see women and people of color in elite positions,” says Juliet Hooker, a political scientist at Brown University and author of Black Grief/White Grievinga book about race and politics.

The common thread in the attacks against Harris is that they exploit aspects of her identity to argue that she is not suitable for the job.

In a thread on X, Nina Janckowicz, disinformation expert and author of the book How to be a woman online and who led the Biden administration’s short-lived initiative on the issue, found a common thread emerging in previous statements she analyzed as part of a 2020 study. Other experts, such as Melanie Smith, research director at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, also noted that women of color bear the brunt of this type of abuse.

These statements suggested, among other things, that Harris was promiscuous and used her sexuality as a weapon to get where she is today – a misogynistic claim often used against successful women to question whether they deserve the position they hold. Such attacks manifested themselves in conservative references to her past relationship with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and repeated offensive catchphrases such as “Joe and the Ho.”

This is often coupled with questions about why Harris doesn’t have biological children and how that discredits her as a leader by claiming she isn’t sufficiently committed to the future of the country. Aside from the fact that this line of attack is incredibly demeaning to the role of stepparents in America (Harris is the stepmother to a son and daughter), these sexist statements both overlay traditional expectations for women and attempt to undermine the vice president by arguing that she doesn’t meet those standards.

Racist narratives, including “birtherism”-style attacks questioning Harris’ citizenship, also aim to sow doubts about her suitability for office. This is part of a long tradition of conservative politicians portraying non-white politicians as not being “real Americans” and therefore making them unsuitable for these offices.

And statements calling Harris a “DEI candidate” also question her qualifications and ignore the significant experience she would bring as a candidate.

Those remarks follow Biden’s statement that he would select a woman as his No. 2 pick if he ran in 2020. He then narrowed his final list of nominees to four Black women. Those choices were meant to improve representation and diversity at the highest levels of the party, which has never before put a Black woman as president or vice president. Republicans, however, have seized on his decision to suggest that Harris was chosen for that reason alone, and not because she also brought significant qualifications, including decades of experience as a lawmaker and prosecutor. Such nicknames are so demeaning because they suggest that people of color don’t deserve the roles they get, and “imply that (they) can only succeed when we’re needed to fill quotas, rather than because of merit, hard work or talent,” writes Variety’s Clayton Davis.

The misogyny directed at Harris is meant to suggest that she is somehow illegitimate as a candidate, and to signal to people with such prejudices that the Republican Party is a home for them. Democrats have also been guilty of such rhetoric against Harris, says Howard University political scientist Keneshia Grant, who points out that some party donors’ calls to vote for presidential candidates other than herself have included variations on these themes.

But the recent MAGA attack in particular shows how focused Republicans are on activating the grievances of white men – and exploiting fears of women and people of color taking power.

“White supremacy is, above all, a powerful organizational construct,” Grant told Vox. “Republicans keep saying that we cannot succeed together in a society, that one group is bound to fail, that one group is bound to steal from another.”