Vice President Kamala Harris’s interview with the National Association of Black Journalists was starkly different from former President Donald Trump’s with the same organization.
He was instantly faced with a hostile statement masquerading as a question about why black voters should trust him after he’d “pushed false claims” about minority rivals, told others to “go back where they came from,” and called others “animals” and “rabid.” It was, in short, almost laughably biased. A Republican nominee faces tendentious questioning! So far, so normal; most political journalists now think it’s their job to stop Trump being reelected.
NABJ interviewers, as you’d expect, questioned Harris in the most neutral way possible. “Polling shows some black men are considering voting for Donald Trump and they see him as better for the economy. What’s your message to young black male voters who feel left out of this economy…?”
This points to two key matters. First, black men, especially young ones, understand Trump’s appeal easily enough. His tax cuts disproportionately helped those low on the income scale, and he delivered record-low black unemployment. So even if Trump’s NABJ interviewers can’t see why a black person might vote for him, those interviewing Harris grasped his appeal perfectly well.
The other key point was in Harris’s answer. “It is very important,” she said, “to not operate from the assumption that black men are in anybody’s pocket. Black men are like any other voting group. You’ve got to earn their vote, so I’m working to earn their vote, not assuming I’m going to have it because I’m black.” She might have added, “or because I’m a Democrat.”
The question was perfectly pitched, perhaps intentionally, to cue up a statement from Harris that tackles the fact that Democrats have taken black voters for granted for decades while giving them handouts rather than allowing them to live with self-reliant dignity. This could cost her the White House.
One in every 4 black men under 50 supports Trump. Unless Harris can bring some back into the Democratic camp, she’ll be responsible for a sixth successive election cycle in which black support for the blue party erodes. It could put Trump back in the Oval Office.
This should be unsurprising, much though it perplexes the lumpen left-liberal, legacy media. Black and other racial minorities are disproportionately in the working class, and Democratic economic policies and cultural radicalism repel them. They aren’t interested in the false virtues of woke militancy. They care about the economy and other issues central to their well-being.
The Trump campaign suggested Harris’s answer admitted his policies are better for black men than hers. Not quite. But either way, Harris is smart to take on the matter directly. For all her vacuity and deliberate vagueness — her refusal to do press conferences — she is strategically campaigning to repair the most dangerous cracks in the Democratic coalition.
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Trump is less diligent and focused. He should be amplifying Harris’s weakness on the economy, the very issue that addresses all voters’ top concern and could win crucial black votes. Instead, as election guru Karl Rove notes, the former president is campaigning as though he has time to waste.
He doesn’t and he’d better snap out of it. His opponent is not wasting her time.