For most conservatives who tuned in, watching the Democratic presidential debates back in 2019 and early 2020 was like listening to fingernails scraping down a chalkboard. But watch them they did for two main reasons: to get a good feel for who then-President Donald Trump would be up against come election time and also to witness the gaffes, flubs, and other unintentionally revealing moments that usually happen during these things.
One thing very few if any conservatives predicted, however, was how then-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) would torpedo the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris, who was a junior Senator from California at the time, torching Harris’ criminal justice reform record from the time she was a prosecutor in the state.
The segment escalated the political freefall Harris was already in, and her campaign never recovered. Five months later, Harris dropped out of the race before the first primary vote was even cast.
Though some on the left would suggest that Kamala Harris got the last laugh considering Joe Biden picked her as his vice-presidential running mate, the fact of the matter is that Biden was forced to pick a woman of color by the more “woke” minds in his party who said the time had come.
Here we are a year into the Biden-Harris administration and the results so far have been disastrous, not just because Biden’s lousy at what he does but because Harris, is, too. Always has been, in fact, something that has zero to do with her color or gender.
But because Biden was given no choice but to make physical characteristics a priority, his selection of Harris inevitably makes it into these identity politics discussions.
Gabbard, not surprisingly, feels the same way about Harris’ performance to date, and in a tweet Monday pointed to the Veep as Exhibit A on why it’s a person’s qualifications and not the way they look that should be the sole consideration when it comes to Biden’s eventual Supreme Court nominee, who Biden has said will be a black woman:
Biden chose Harris as his VP because of the color of her skin and sex—not qualification. She's been a disaster. Now he promises to choose Supreme Court nominee on the same criteria. Identity politics is destroying our country.
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) January 31, 2022
A lot of Democrats with hurt feelings weighed in claiming Gabbard was somehow “jealous” of Harris because she’d gone further in her political career than Gabbard, which ignores what was noted above about the choices Biden was given in 2020 as well as how Harris chose to … advance her career in her early years in California politics.
In a Friday tweet that didn’t mention Harris, Gabbard took her first aim at Biden for playing identity politics with his Supreme Court nominee:
Biden’s mistake: He should not be choosing a Supreme Court justice based on the color of their skin or sex, but rather on their qualifications & commitment to uphold our Constitution & the freedoms guaranteed to all Americans in that document which is the foundation of our nation
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) January 28, 2022
The teeth-gnashing from the left over Gabbard’s inconvenient truths aside, she’s got her finger on the pulse of what a growing number of Americans feel. They’re sick of identity politics and the elevating of someone based on their gender, skin color, or sexual orientation over actual qualifications.
Of course, the media are predictably jumping all over anyone who dares make similar claims to Gabbard’s, with some – like CNN’s Brian Stelter – even going so far as to suggest it’s a “white identity politics” thing, but not only is that stupid but it also completely misses the point.
A person’s skin color and/or gender should be an incidental factor when it comes to being selected for a job, no matter whether it’s for an office manager position or a Supreme Court Justice.
Stating as Joe Biden did that he would nominate a woman of color both as VP and then as a SCOTUS contender does a great disservice not just to the process but also to minorities in general. Why? Because thanks to the very words of the person doing the nominating (in this case, Biden), whoever the eventual nominee ends up being will forever be known as the person who was picked first and foremost based on their skin color and/or gender with their actual qualifications being a less relevant factor.
That hurts other qualified women, black people, Hispanics, etc. on down the road, most of who want to be judged/considered by/for what they bring to the table, not on how they look.
As Gabbard says, this is why identity politics needs to go away and go away for good. Because no matter what the “woke” left says, this is not how things are supposed to work in this country. It’s just not.
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