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Careful readers know to make a distinction between the Wall Street Journal‘s superb editorial pages and its regular news pages, which are conventionally liberal, even if not quite as bad as the New York Times or Washington Post, at least when it comes to business news, which is supposed to be its main focus anyway. This morning the Journal‘s news pages provide a preview of what is sure to be the mainstream line if Kamala Harris replaces Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee:
WASHINGTON—The intensified focus on Vice President Kamala Harris as President Biden faces continued calls to withdraw from the race for the White House has made her even more of a target on the right, at times in racist and sexist ways. [Emphasis added.]
Here we go.
So what are the specific “racist and sexist” attacks? Best to quote verbatim:
Sebastian Gorka, a former aide to Donald Trump, recently referred to the vice president as “colored” and a “DEI hire.” The former president’s campaign referred to Harris as “Low IQ Kamala” on social media. Some of the former president’s supporters have for years donned shirts, carried signs or sported “Joe And The Hoe Gotta Go” bumper stickers.
First, while “colored” is an archaic term, it is unclear to me why it is racist. After all, the left likes to use the term “people of color” relentlessly, and I note that one of the oldest civil rights organizations still calls itself the “National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.” Apparently only the left can use the term “colored.” Any other use is ipso facto racist.
Second, I thought DEI was supposed to be a good thing. But let’s be clear: Harris (like Ketanji Brown-Jackson at the Supreme Court) was selected solely on the basis of gender and color. Why is it off-limits to point this out? In promising in 2020 to name a black woman as a running mate and to the Supreme Court, Joe Biden pre-emptively ruled out 94 percent of the entire American population for consideration. Yet we’re told it is racist to point this out?
Third, “low IQ Kamala” speaks for itself. She’s still using, once again this week, her third-rate Kahlil Gibran-imitation comment about being “unburdened by what has been.” She’s certainly unburdened by making a fool of herself repeatedly.
Fourth, the “hoe gotta go” language is crude and crass, and I don’t use it in my discussions of Harris. But you have to read down to the 24th paragraph of the story to learn that this line refers to the fact that she dated California’s legendary power broker Willie Brown, who first appointed Harris to a well-paying state sinecure (the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board) that has long been a patronage body for political hacks. The Journal neglects to mention that Harris “dated” Brown while Brown was still married.
Expect this to be the template of media coverage of a Trump-Harris race if it comes to pass. Prediction: It will likely backfire. The mainstream media have no idea how broadly identity politics is resented by a majority of Americans—including many minorities.
I expect there is an unwritten rule that the WSJ editorial page does not critique stories from its news pages, though that restraint didn’t stop a large number of news page reporters complaining publicly about the editorial pages a few years back, to which editor Paul Gigot said—sod off swampy! (Or words to that effect.) We’ll be happy to take this beat from them.
By the way, the WSJ editorial pages are produced with a total staff that is less than half the size of the New York Times‘s editorial page staff. The Times might improve if it laid off half its staff. Think of how excellent it would be if they laid off all of its staff.