Kamala Harris' rise triggered a primordial rage in Donald Trump. Expect him to ramp up the racism
Vice President Kamala Harris's performance during her first (and now only) debate against Donald Trump last Tuesday was one of the most dominant in modern American history. In many ways, it was a mirror image of President Biden's massive failure of a debate against Trump months earlier. Harris utterly exposed the corrupt ex-president for the racist, ignorant, demagogue, and blusterous aspiring dictator that he truly is.
As I and others have explained, Donald Trump is best understood as a political version of a professional wrestling heel (villain) who lies, cheats, steals, and will do anything to win as he gains power from the boos and ire of the crowd. Trump is truly excellent in the role; the mainstream news media and political class are still unable to effectively grapple with Trump and his MAGA movement because they refuse to understand fascism and Trumpism as forms of performance theater.
In the context of professional wrestling, Kamala Harris would be what is known as a "shooter": someone who has actual fighting skills, usually from boxing, martial arts, or Olympic wrestling, and can force an opponent to submit during a match if need be. In the world of professional wrestling "shooters" are among the most feared opponents because they have the potential to embarrass and cause serious physical harm to their opponents if they choose to.
During their debate, Harris metaphorically did exactly that. She is a former prosecutor who deftly presented her case against Trump as being unfit for office before an audience of tens of millions. In all, "The Prosecutor" versus "The Felon" was and is a marquee matchup right out of professional wrestling — and it more than lived up to its billing.
However, during the debate, there was something else happening with the 78-year-old Donald Trump. What transpired was disturbing and all too familiar for Black and brown Americans (especially those of a certain age with the lived experience of surviving the Jim and Jane Crow white supremacist terror regime). Trump's face and overall emotions and demeanor were a portrait of White (male) rage. Kamala Harris, a Black South Asian woman, was humiliating Trump publicly and showed no outward fear of him. This was a type of narcissistic injury to the country's first White president , his MAGA supporters, and others who are materially and psychologically invested in the white authoritarian political project. For many Black and brown folks (and I imagine a good number of white people too), watching Trump be made so uncomfortable by a Black woman was beautiful even though his menace and threat were palpable.
It has been reported that Trump uses misogynistic language when he talks about Harris in private. Trump's nephew alleges that he uses racial slurs when discussing Black people in private as well. One does not have to be psychic to imagine what two-word phrase was repeatedly going through Trump's mind during his losing debate against Harris on that Tuesday evening.
In the week or so since his defeat by Kamala Harris, Trump and his campaign had a choice to make. Would they pivot to "the issues" and be more "disciplined"? Or would they double and triple down on their feral horror politics? Digging deeper into that old ugly offal and waste-filled bucket of racism, white supremacy, hatred against Black women, and other vile things and smearing it on themselves as they attack Harris, the Democratic Party, and by extension its voters, and specifically Black and brown people?
The question is, will that approach backfire among those potential voters who are outside of the 47 percent of Americans who consistently support Trump and the MAGA political cult? The political polls and other data strongly suggest it may – but that is far from guaranteed.
As part of their feral racist white supremacist attack strategy, Trump and his agents have both explicitly stated and implied Harris is dumb and have repeatedly attacked Harris' personhood, suggesting that she is some type of racial "fraud" or trickster who cannot be trusted because she identifies as a Black woman whose mother is South Asian.
On Sunday, Vance echoed a racist slur about Harris, fried chicken, and curry. Trump and Vance are now going so far as to advance the conspiracy theory that Haitian refugees in Springfield, Ohio are stealing (white) people's dogs, cats, and other pets and eating them like some type of barbaric savages. This is an extension of the now standard right-wing talking point that President Biden, and specifically Harris in her role as the fictive "border czar," have orchestrated an "invasion" across the "Southern border" of brown and Black migrants, refugees, and undocumented immigrants who are rampaging in white communities, as they rape, murder, "steal jobs" and commit all manner of crimes like a band of "Hannibal Lecters" and drug cartel members against (white) Americans.
JD Vance has been forced to publicly admit that his attacks on the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio that they are stealing people's dogs and cats and eating them is a lie. But this has not stopped him: Vance is now saying that Haitians are disease carriers who are polluting and infecting the United States with HIV and tuberculosis .
Trump and his agents' race war fantasies and weaponized conspiracy lies have, predictably, resulted in bomb threats and other terrorist menacing in Springfield against the Haitian community and other non-whites. Unfortunately, it is only a matter of time before a Haitian or other person of color is injured or killed because of Trump and his propagandists' racist lies and provocations. In a powerful new essay in the Financial Times, Ed Luce condemns Trump and his hate campaign, writing that "Trump and Vance are playing roulette with real human beings."
Trump's feral political campaign is an example of what is known as "old-fashioned" racism. This type of racism was largely believed to have been vanquished from the mainstream of American life by the successes of the civil rights movement.
Social scientists and other experts have shown that since the 1960s American society was changing to one where the "new racism" ("symbolic racism") with its code words and dog whistles about Black people and their supposed "bad culture," "laziness," "welfare queens", and how they violate traditional norms of patriotism and "American values" would be the predominate language of white racism in this country.
The Age of Trump with its white backlash politics and resurgent white supremacy combines both the new racism and the old racism. As seen on Jan. 6, and in Charlottesville, Buffalo, El Paso, Pittsburgh, and many other places across America, this mix is synergistic and highly combustible. As philosopher Jason Stanley explained to me in a recent conversation here at Salon , "Donald Trump has made explicit xenophobia acceptable, and explicit racism more acceptable. But it is still the case that in America you need some code words for racism."
In the last week or so since their debate, I have been returning to how Harris publicly humiliated Trump, a very rich, very powerful, and very dangerous White Man, during their debate. If Harris defeats Trump and the MAGA movement in November that will be a historically supreme humiliation for him and those who flock to his banner. Not too long ago, for a Black person, especially a woman, to humiliate, resist, or otherwise assert their dignity, humanity, and autonomy against a white man in public (or private) would have been de facto illegal and punishable by death and the lynching tree (and even worse acts for a woman).
This fact and experience live simultaneously alongside the reality that America is no longer that country in the same way because of the great triumphs and sacrifices of the Black Freedom Struggle and the leading role that Black women played in it.
Vice President Harris is very brave as she carries that legacy and burden on her shoulders, risking her health and safety as she is marching forward against the tides of American history while also being propelled forward by them to become the country's first Black and South Asian woman president.
On Election Day the American people will decide if they are going to channel the best parts of who they are as a people and protect multiracial democracy and freedom by supporting Kamala Harris or will they succumb to their worst impulses and some of the worst parts of their past and national character by putting Donald Trump back in the White House.
Who are we really? We will soon find out.
