Vice President Kamala Harris has come in for some bad press of late. Stories of discontent, political failure, and a mass staff exodus have accompanied the first Black woman vice president, who privately told allies that "the news coverage of her would be different if she were any of her 48 predecessors, whom she has described as all white and male," The New York Times reported.
But the truth is, if Harris were white and male, she wouldn't be vice president. Because Harris is our first diversity hire V.P.
This was never a secret, or even an issue. Then-candidate Joe Biden was very explicit about his plans to pick a woman of color to share the ticket. After it became clear that Biden was to be the Democrats' nominee for president in 2020, Biden said during a CNN-Univision debate, "If I'm elected president, my Cabinet, my administration will look like the country, and I commit that I will, in fact, appoint a, pick a woman to be vice president." In a separate press conference, this one a roundtable with Black journalists, Biden was even more specific: "Preferably it will be someone who was of color and/or a different gender," he said of his potential running mate.
From the get go, the plan was to pick a woman of color. Not the most competent person, or the most liked, but someone who simply won the "by birth" lottery. A man of Joe Biden's age and dwindling health decided that what America needed was for us to be one heartbeat away from our first diversity hire President of the United States.
I am old enough to remember when Democrats were outraged when Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he had "binders full of women" to pick from to work in his administration. They were rightfully insulted that Romney used women as another box to check to satisfy a diversity requirement, instead of choosing the most qualified to shine through regardless of sex.
Eight years after that incident, the Democrats have taken this exact mentality and injected it with steroids.
Some may say this mentality always existed. Maybe so. But now they are proud to be overtly identity oriented. Throughout the Democratic primaries in 2020, it became increasingly clear that the political party that I felt strongly associated with, the party which I always believed was the party of the people, the party of true liberal values and the party of diversity had become nothing more than the party of rigid identity before my very eyes.
The days of being proud that people from diverse backgrounds chose to be Democrats because of their overall good policies are no more. The Democrats are now the party of ideologically tailored policies based on identity, as if we no longer share common interests.
When the day came for Joe Biden to announce that he had found his woman of color, Kamala Harris, it only solidified my belief in the ridiculous nature of choosing people for diversity points. Though she was a senator from California, Harris was deeply unpopular—something voters made known throughout the presidential primaries. Her campaign was such a mess that Tulsi Gabbard lasted longer than Harris did. Harris was never the "top-tier candidate" she named herself to be.
Harris' unpopularity as a candidate is mirrored in her unpopularity as vice president; she has a groundbreaking 28 percent approval rating. And her questionable track record as a prosecutor is mirrored in her failures since the election, compounding my fears that she truly was simply a "woman of color" in Joe Biden's binder.
The Democrats' obsession with having the first of a demographic category in a position of power has led them to discard any semblance of meritocracy or consideration for popularity or effectiveness. The Democrats wanted to achieve historical greatness by forcing diversity, but the only achievement Harris has to her name is having amassed the lowest approval rating of any modern vice president.
People who do not earn their way into a position of prominence know it. And that's what's happening here: Harris knows how she got her position. Much in the way her race and sex were how she got her job, her race and sex are now being weaponized against legitimate criticisms—including by Harris herself.
The Left's obsession with identity has resulted in promoting an undeserving political figure and disenfranchising moderate Democrats who refuse to let identity decide someone's qualifications or importance. Yet despite its obvious cost, the Democrats' addiction to identity politics shows no signs of abating.
It gave me no pleasure to realize that the party I believed in doesn't actually believe minorities can compete—because if they did, they wouldn't have undeservedly anointed Harris into such a position of prominence, seemingly based purely on immutable characteristics.
The savior complex reigns supreme within Democrat politics. They seem to feel they must uplift Black people, even the undeserving ones, in order to appear as our morally righteous saviors. It is the Democrat establishment, not Black people, that needs to be saved.
Adam B. Coleman is the author of "Black Victim To Black Victor" and the Founder of Wrong Speak Publishing. Follow him on Twitter @wrong_speak.
The views in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
