It seems like Republicans cannot get out of their own way. After a triumphant and unified Republican National Convention last week, it seemed like they were on a glide path to defeat the Democrats, who found themselves forced to swap in Vice President Kamala Harris for the aging President Joe Biden barely three months out from Election Day.
With voters still uneasy about the direction of the economy and the ongoing dysfunction at the southern border, it seemed like all former President Donald Trump had to do was keep hammering away at the issues where voters trust him more than Democrats and call it a day. Add in a promise to be a president for all Americans, as he did last week when he warned of the dangers of “discord and division,” and Trump could even win by a landslide.
But the former president and the deputies most loyal to him haven’t been able to help themselves with Harris as their new target.
After months of promising a “big tent” Republican Party and showcasing their outreach to women and minority voters, it took them less than 24 hours to unleash a series of personal attacks on the country’s first Black female vice president, who is also Indian American, that hearken back to the country’s worst days.
First Trump called Harris “Dumb as a Rock Kamala Harris” on his Truth Social media feed and “Lyin’ Kamala” at a rally a day later. On Wednesday, he called her “a radical left lunatic who will destroy our country.”
“They say something happened to me when I got shot, I became ‘nice.’ … If you don’t mind, I’m not going to be nice,” he said, as the crowd roared. And then Trump mispronounced Harris’ name as Ka-MAL-a instead of the way it is actually said, which is “Comma-luh,” over and over again.
Sometimes a mistake is just a mistake, but sometimes you’re Donald Trump. After four years as vice president, and four more as a U.S. senator during the Trump administration, we all know how to say her name by now. Trump is choosing not to. By any measure, it’s a sign of disrespect. And if Trump has proved anything over the years, it’s that showing respect to someone else, especially a woman in power, isn’t something he’s willing to do.
Plenty of Georgia Republicans have followed him down that road. Former U.S. Sen. David Perdue did it when he attended a rally for Trump in 2020. “Is it Kamala? Kama-la-la?” he asked from the stage. “Har-har!” the audience laughed. It was one of Perdue’s last public appearances before he lost his Senate seat to newcomer Jon Ossoff. Demeaning a Black woman, especially one who was his longtime colleague in the U.S. Senate, didn’t help him with the independent women he needed to win that year.
It also won’t help Republicans expand their reach now. In the moments after Biden endorsed Harris for president this week, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a note to social media calling the vice president Biden’s “DEI hire” (referring to diversity, equity and inclusion policies). U.S. Rep. Mike Collins reposted it. The insult took off in conservative circles.
Exasperated Republican strategists know that belittling and insulting a woman, a Black leader or both at the same time may be the best way for Trump to guarantee he loses Georgia again in November. If he would stick to the issues where he’s strongest, he would win. But being unable to avoid lashing out at Harris is “a key reason this thing is now anyone’s ballgame” one strategist told me.
Where Trump could have taken his devoted followers forward, he is choosing to go back. Where he could have gotten to the work of healing our broken country last week, he added to the brokenness. We’ve all been here before with Trump, but I have to admit that I didn’t think we’d be back in the gutter quite so fast after the former president survived an assassination attempt and said God had spared his life.
Democrats weren’t expecting anything less.
“With ‘DEI,’ that’s a way to substitute the n-word in 2024,” said state Sen. Derek Mallow, a Savannah Democrat. “And even to say DEI stands for ‘didn’t earn it?’ Absolutely not. African Americans have cemented their role in America by working for 100 years for free. … Don’t just talk down to us or think we are some monolith, give us substance.”
U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, a St. Simons Island Republican, said it’s not the way he would have said it, either. But he’ll support Trump at the end of the day.
So where does the ugliness leave the country and the presidential race now?
Harris has a tremendous amount of work to do to deliver an economic message that persuades Americans to trust her, not Trump, to bring down the cost of living. And dubbed “the border czar” by Republicans years ago, she’ll need to embrace a plan to return order to the border and the country’s broken immigration system.
But her job of winning got a lot easier this week with Trump finding a way to offend so many different groups of Americans at once with his relentless attacks on her, her role and her name.
If Republicans keep going down this road, they may never have to learn how to pronounce Harris’ name properly. They can just call her “Madame President” in 2025.
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