By While liberals have freaked out about calling Kamala Harris a “DEI candidate,” pretending it is racist or sexist, the vice president’s campaign has oddly embraced race and gender-based Zoom calls as part of their campaign strategy.
Update
The White Women for Kamala organizing Zoom call has well over 100,000 participants tonight.
Organizers say that there are so many participants on the call that Zoom is having glitches.
The “White Women For Kamala” group came about after Black women and Black men… pic.twitter.com/rEraJQypLr
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) July 26, 2024
Reuters writes that the Harris campaign, at least early on, resembles DEI training at a corporation or liberal university rather than a presidential campaign looking to win in the Midwest and the South.
More than 160,000 people joined a Zoom call on Thursday night to build support for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris among white women, a voter demographic that has supported Republican nominee Donald Trump in the past two elections.
Organized by Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, a gun-safety group with about 10 million members, the video call included activists, podcasters, the singer Pink and regular voters, several who said they regretted not doing enough before the 2016 election that put Trump in the White House.
A series of video calls supporting Harris’s 2024 election bid has been hastily put together after President Joe Biden’s announcement on Sunday that he would step aside in the race.
Hours after the announcement, more than 40,000 people joined a Zoom call for Black women supporters. One for Black men on Monday drew over 50,000 people and there have been separate calls for South Asian women, LGBTQ allies, and white men.
On Monday, “White Dudes For Harris” will be holding a Zoom call to have an “honest, open, and ready” conversation to support “our first black woman president.”
Calling all White Dudes For Harris!
We up next.
RSVP: https://t.co/dzTIZBdTrU
!! come through with your whole crew !! pic.twitter.com/szcdjOyTc4
— Michael Skolnik (@MichaelSkolnik) July 26, 2024
Despite the temptation to lean into mocking this odd way to divide a campaign, Republican pollster Whit Ayres shared in a recent interview that it would be a mistake for former President Trump to join some Republicans in labeling Vice President Harris as solely a diversity, equity, and inclusion candidate.
Ayres informed The Washington Post that he is closely observing Trump’s response when questioned about whether Harris’s presidential run, which began after President Biden exited the race last Sunday, will expose or amplify vulnerabilities in Trump’s campaign.
“If he follows the examples of some of the irresponsible members of Congress and starts taking shots at her race and her gender and talking about a DEI candidate, that’s going to backfire,” Ayres said.
Ayres said he believes Trump should focus on the vice president’s often strange leftwing comments.
“On the other hand, if he focuses on policy differences and calls her a San Francisco liberal who wants to ban fracking, ban offshore drilling and eliminate private health insurance, then I think he will be helped by the Kamala candidacy,” he said
The Hill noted, “In the days since Harris emerged as the party’s next candidate, several Republican lawmakers have claimed Harris was a DEI hire. Harris, of Jamaican and Indian descent, would be the first woman and first woman of color to serve as the country’s president.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) called Harris a ‘DEI hire.’ He later doubled down on his claim even though he admitted he regretted calling her that. Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) said Harris was the ‘bottom of the barrel,’ calling her a DEI hire as well. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) said Democrats feel like they have to stick with Harris after Biden dropped out ‘because of her ethnic background.’”
Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told some of his caucus to knock it off:
[Read More: Obama Does Not Have Nice Things To Say About Kamala]
