Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, clearly suggested during the 2020 Democratic primary that he is a racist with a troubling history of cozying up to other racists.
It was, in fact, touted at the time as a big moment in her debate performance, helping to propel her from asterisk status to be among the leaders in the race for the Democratic nomination. Harris’s failed 2020 campaign even tried to raise funds on the back of her attacks on Biden’s character!
But that was then, and this is now.
Now, the Biden 2020 campaign would like very much if you forgot all about that unpleasantness with Harris hammering away at the nominee for his past opposition to busing students for the purpose of racial desegregation and his anecdotes about working with segregationists in the U.S. Senate. It is all water under the bridge, that stuff that the Democratic nominee’s own running mate said about him probably being a huge racist.
ABC News’s Robin Roberts pressed Harris recently to reconcile her current support for Biden with her very recent attacks on his personal character. Rather than attempt to thread the needle, the senator merely declined to answer the question.
“I want Joe Biden to be the next president of the United States,” Harris said in an interview that aired this weekend. “I believe in Joe Biden, I believe in his perspective, and frankly, I think that that conversation is a distraction from what we need to accomplish right now and what we need to do.”
A central talking point of Harris’s failed presidential campaign, that Biden has a history of problematic, pro-racist sympathies, is now a “distraction,” according to Harris. She was just distracting you when she said it, evidently.
Earlier in June, as Harris lobbied hard to become Biden’s running mate, professionally unfunny person Stephen Colbert asked her to square her support for the man who was then most likely be the Democratic Party’s nominee with her very recent race-based criticisms for that same man.
Harris declined to respond, opting instead to laugh hysterically at nothing in particular.
“How do you go from being such a passionate opponent on such bedrock principles for you, and now, you guys seem to be pals?” Colbert asked.
“It was a debate,” Harris guffawed.
“Not everyone landed punches like you did, though,” the host noted.
“It was a debate,” the senator said again, still laughing.
“So you didn’t mean it?” an increasingly uncomfortable-looking Colbert asked.
“It was a debate,” Harris laughed again.
Either Harris was correct about Biden having racist sympathies and the campaign is asking us simply to look past the nominee’s history of racist behavior, or Harris was deeply immoral when she falsely suggested on national television that the former vice president is a bigot. In that case, the Biden campaign is asking us simply to look past the fact that the nominee’s own running mate is a conniving liar and a destructive character assassin.
Take your pick! Enjoy voting for the “decency” ticket in the fall.
