Can Kamala lead women to the Democratic side?
Most women are probably thrilled by the prospect of a female vice president. If you are a
Black woman or an Indian American woman, you are beaming with pride.
None of us actually needed Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, to validate our worth as smart, capable and productive members of society by choosing a woman of color as his running mate.
But we are pretty darn glad that he did.
Sen. Kamala Harris is the first Black woman to capture the vice presidential spot on a major party’s ticket. While her name will be on the ballot, she represents every woman in America, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation.
She is a myriad of all of us.
Our heads have collectively hit the glass ceiling so many times that we barely feel the pain anymore. We came close to cracking it with Hillary Clinton. Now we’ve got another shot.
At a time when our nation is more polarized than most of us have experienced in our lifetime, Harris will have the arduous yet essential job of seeing to it that every woman feels as though she has a stake in her success.
In the 2016 election, women comprised 55 percent of the electorate, according to Pew Research Center. In the 2018 midterm elections, women made up 53 percent of the electorate as they have in the previous five midterms.
Women have the power to steer an election. Republicans know that if we choose to coalesce around Biden and Harris, Donald Trump and Mike Pence don’t stand a chance.
Trump supporters will be working as hard as they can to ensure that the mighty coalition of women never gets off the ground. And when it does, they will spend the next three months doing everything in their power to tear it down.
Harris will bear the brunt of the attacks, but the rest of us will be targeted too.
Race profiteers will insist that African Americans have no legitimate claim to Harris, whose mother was born in India and whose father came from Jamaica. They will tell white women that someone of a mixed heritage has nothing in common with them.
Trump began the assault weeks ago. The day after Biden announced Harris as his pick, Trump doubled down with a tweet:
“The ‘suburban housewife’ will be voting for me. They want safety & are thrilled that I ended the long running program where low income housing would invade their neighborhood. Biden would reinstall it, in a bigger form, with Corey Booker in charge!”
Trump’s recent tweets to
“suburban housewives” are desperate appeals to white women he believes harbor racist attitudes toward Black men regarding crime and toward African Americans, in general, on the issue of housing.
He is taking cues from the same playbook former Alabama Gov. George Wallace used in his unsuccessful presidential bid in 1968. It shows just how out of touch Trump is in a world that is becoming increasingly racially and ethnically diverse.
Trump insults the intelligence of the majority of white women by suggesting that they see all Black men as predators ready to devour them like vultures. And he presumes that most white women are so self-absorbed that they prefer to live in lily-white neighborhoods rather than share a street with families who are different.
Unfortunately, there are women who are submerged in those antiquated attitudes. In order to win reelection, Trump must retain them on his team. It’s in Trump’s best interest that women relegate ourselves into enemy camps by focusing on the things that make us different rather than uniting around the issues in which we share a common interest.
Distractors will try to convince us that the interests of Black women, white women, Latino women, Asian women and Native American women are too diverse to share a single goal.
They will whisper into the ears of Black women, suggesting that white women have never had their back. They will remind them that America always has treated Black women as though they were inferior in everything that matters, from economics to social status to sexuality.
They will warn white women that Black, Latino, Asian and Native American women are coming after their jobs, and they should be wary of aligning with those groups because eventually, diversity will push white women out.
They will try to stir up feelings of jealousy and privilege, telling white women that they deserved to have another white woman on the ticket this time, rather than someone whose roots aren’t nearly as deep in this country as theirs.
But Trump’s playbook is tired and worn out. Women have seen every page of it, and we are prepared to challenge it line by line. This time around, we are more united and determined too.
We still have to worry about that 47 percent of white women who voted for Trump four years ago. They could end up deconstructing our coalition. If we can’t figure out how to bring these women into the fold, we must recruit enough new voters to triple our force so that we can outnumber them at the polls.
There is nothing Harris or any woman can do to force conservative women to get behind issues on which we don’t see eye to eye. The most we can do is make sure Trump’s playbook is open in full view so every woman can see exactly who he is.
Harris will be our torchbearer this time. Her experienced command of politics will force Trump’s and Pence’s ineptitude into full display. That’s one of her greatest contributions to the Biden-Harris ticket.
The rest is up to us, and we cannot lose sight of our power.
Women are the gatekeepers to the White House. No one can get through the door unless we choose to let them in.