Republican Racism ‘Weaponized’ Kamala Harris?
2nd August 2023
One of the most annoying ploys of liberal journalists is to advise Republicans that the truly wise path in politics is to surrender to liberals on everything, and the dumbest path is to oppose them emphatically.
The latest flagrant example of this is a column in the Los Angeles Times with the provocative headline “Republican racism has finally weaponized Kamala Harris.” The columnist, Jackie Calmes, was falsely categorized for decades as an “objective journalist.” Moving over to the opinion pages isn’t really a significant change. Calmes begins by acknowledging Harris is deeply unpopular. But, shazam! Republicans “keep doing stupid stuff underscoring their racial insensitivity” — like Ron DeSantis and his government in Florida claiming a “silver lining to slavery” in their new African-American history standards for schools.
It doesn’t matter that the Florida standards explicitly demand slavery be presented to students as a dehumanizing horror. It doesn’t matter that the original standards that DeSantis criticized also had a passage about a so-called “silver lining to slavery.” It doesn’t matter that the “silver lining” for slaves came after slavery ended or after they escaped slavery. What matters is trying to construct a spin that makes Kamala Harris less of a liability for Democrats.