Donald Trump is proving heās racist and stupid with his latest post.
In a Truth Social post Thursday morning, Donald Trump appeared to suggest, again, thatĀ presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris isnāt really Black, ramping up his identity-based attacks to the horror of those in his party who consider racism a losing electoral strategy.
Earlier in the week, many GOP strategists, including in the Trump camp,Ā worriedĀ that attacks on Harrisās race and genderāwhich seemed all but inevitable considering Trumpās history of racism and misogynyāwould pose a serious liability for the campaign. āWe hope he doesnāt act like a crazy racist and sexist person, but we canāt control him,ā a source close to the campaignĀ toldĀ The Washington Post.
These hopes were quickly dashed in the course of Trumpās interview with the National Association of Black Journalists Wednesday afternoon, in which the candidateĀ claimedĀ that, for years, Vice President Kamala Harris āwas Indian all the way, and then suddenly she made a turn and she became a Black person.ā
Campaigning these days is not about convincing anyone to vote for one candidate or the other. Everyone who might conceivably vote will have known who theyād vote for before the campaign season even began.
The campaign is about convincing the people who would vote for you that they actually should show up to vote instead of staying home or just going about their day. As a bonus if you make your opponent look like a big enough clown, maybe you can demoralize the oppositionās voting base so they donāt bother showing up to vote.
This is a big part of why Republicans always want to make it as hard as possible to vote: The people who tend to vote Republican have perverse incentives (lower taxes, ban abortion, etc) so theyāre generally much more motivated to get out and vote despite barriers than the typical Democratic voter who just wants a sane government but probably feels like sanity is never delivered on no matter who wins.
That might be true but democrats do have perverse incentives to vote this time. Women werenāt an out group last election.