What Donald Trump should beware of in the debate with Kamala Harris

Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of 'Midnight in the American Empire,' How Corporations and Their Political Servants are Destroying the American Dream.

4 Aug, 2024 21:11 / Updated 5 months ago
The former president should be cautious about challenging the VP on her gender and race credentials

Mark your calendar, ladies and gentlemen, Kamala Harris has done something extraordinary. She has become the only candidate in half a century to become the presidential nominee without winning a single primary vote. Biden’s vice got enough delegate votes in the virtual roll call process to become the official Democratic nominee. Interesting how not winning votes has had an uncanny way of getting this severely unqualified woman one cackle closer to the Oval Office.

But the shock and awe does not stop there, so be advised to have a seat. The absolutely, positively 100% legitimate corporate media monstrosity with blood-soaked hand to its heart reports: Harris is now more popular than Joe Biden or Donald Trump have been at any point in the 2024 election cycle.

Yes, a Morning Consult poll of 11,538 registered voters between July 26 and 28 found 50 percent have a favorable opinion of the sitting vice president, while 46 percent have an unfavorable opinion. According to the pollster, “Harris’s 4-point net favorability is a higher rating than Biden or Trump have posted all cycle.”

Is anyone really buying any of this, aside from those people who would rather see Donald Duck, for example, as commander-in-chief than Donald J. Trump?

Incidentally, let’s not forget that this is the same unbelievable, super-sensational candidate who had her presidential dreams (temporarily) demolished in less than five minutes by a tenacious Tulsi Gabbard during the 2020 Democratic primary debates. The problem, however, had nothing to do with the deeply unlikeable Deep State darling, of course, but rather with a little problem known in the world of politics as cash flow, the primary grease responsible for slipping the most despicable people into positions of power over the years.

As CNBC reported shortly after the debate debacle, “[w]ith Harris falling behind former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, among others, some of Harris’ lead bundlers have struggled to convince members of their networks to write checks to her campaign. In some cases, many of her supporters have told the campaign that they will not host events for her.”

Now, just four lackluster years later, without a serious signature project to call her own, cash is no longer a problem for female, Black and Asian-American Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s ultimate DEI hire. The Harris campaign announced over the weekend it had raised $310 million in July, more than double Trump’s take last month, thereby strongly pointing to the obvious: for whatever reason, the money and media machine is churning in high gear for the political left, as it has since time immemorial, and woe to the mortal who thinks this has anything to do with power-hungry vultures perched on Capitol Hill, waiting for their next feeding time.

And this is where Trump has all the reason in the world to distrust the merchants of media – even if they happen to be the notorious backstabbers at Fox News – as it plays ‘neutral’ arbitrator in the upcoming debates. As proof, as if proof were needed, here is something that Harris and not some AI-generated body double uttered just a few days ago during a rally:

“Donald Trump does not care about border security; he only cares about himself,” the invisible border czar told a crowd of worshipful supporters. “And when I am president, I will actually work to solve the problem.”

The fact that Kamala Harris is able to utter such inanities without any pushback or laugh track shows that the media is seriously gas-lighting the American people, and not playing fair with Trump.

But in the perennial fight against left-wing media forces, Trump has a knack for being his personal Darth Vader, namely due to his willingness to speak his mind, and occasionally the truth, no matter who it hurts. In a less moronic age that was known and welcomed as candidness.

Consider, for example, the extremely hostile interview the former president had during a conference of the National Association of Black Journalists last week.

“I’ve known her a long time, indirectly,” Trump said with regards to his political opponent. “And she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I did not know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black.”

“I respect either one,” he added, “but she obviously doesn’t, because she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden, she made a turn and… she became Black... Somebody should look into that, too.”

“Is she Indian or is she Black?” he asked totally unfazed despite the hisses from the crowd.

In these maddeningly diverse times, this is not the first time a politician was called out for not being Indian, Black, Sequoia, or what have you. In 2019, Senator Elizabeth Warren went through the embarrassment of a DNA test to prove that she was, as many suspected all along, a very White Democrat from Massachusetts and not a member of the Cherokee Nation tribe. The question of race, however, was not so obvious when it came to Harris. Here, Trump provided his opponent – and the vexatious media – with an unnecessary box of free ammunition by questioning Harris’ Black identity as the wagons were circling. And as much as it would be entertaining to run with the line that Harris has concealed 50% of her racial lineage for most of her lifetime, that would be twisting the facts.

Harris, 59, is the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother – both legal immigrants. And although her parents went their separate ways when Harris was just seven years old, and she went on to live with her mother, that did not prompt an alienation from Black culture.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, she was brought up in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Berkeley, Calif., because, she said, “her mother thought her daughters would one day be seen as Black women and wanted them to have strong role models around them.”

Harris went on to attend Howard University, a historically Black institution in Washington, D.C., and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a Black sorority.

Needless to say, the White House had a field day with Trump’s reckless foray into such foreign affairs.

“What he just said, what you just read out to me, is repulsive, is insulting,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “No one has any right to tell someone who they are, how they identify.”

While it is questionable as to whether Trump was actually telling Harris who she was, how millions of Black Americans will interpret Trump’s comments is another matter. Regardless, he has set himself up for what could be a very uncomfortable – even disastrous – exchange with Harris, who, as a far less accomplished speaker than The Donald, will jump on any opportunity to play the victim card. And Trump may have just unwittingly handed her the ace of spades.

On top of the race card, Trump will also be entering the lion’s den as a climate-change-denying “convicted felon,” misogynist, and an anti-abortion supporter – quaint little sound bites that Harris is certainly remembering by heart.

However this tragicomedy plays out, expect lots of handwringing and lecturing from the female (check), Black (check), Indian (check) candidate as she attempts to portray herself as the deserving underdog in a white man’s game.