An anti-racism protest. The election results shake our faith that the U.S. is a country that cares about basic justice. | Getty Images
A policy tweak here. A change in messaging there.
This, apparently, was what had to happen to thwart Donald Trump and elect Kamala Harris president on Nov. 5, according to the experts’ election post-mortems.
Sorry, but there is an elephant in the room. Policy? messaging? It goes far deeper than that.
We had a Republican candidate who campaigned by checking all the ism boxes. He bet heavily on racism, white nationalism and toxic masculinity that channeled his long history of misogynistic anti-feminism.
And voters preferred even that to a Democrat. Perhaps any Democrat. We don’t know if the outcome would have been any different if Trump hadn’t faced a woman of color this election.
This is not solely a party problem. It’s a national one that lays bare our majority identity.
Few are owning up to it, neither the Republican voters who embraced Trump’s message nor the Democrats who dare not speak the isms lest they further alienate voters whose support they covet for the next election.
We must grapple here with a distasteful probability.
This is who we are.
We say voters simply preferred Trump’s policy prescriptions to Harris’. We say that Harris projected weakness and Trump strength.
And we refuse to acknowledge the deeply retrograde impulses that underly many of Trump’s prescriptions, particularly those dealing with immigration. And we refuse to accept that many assign strength and weakness according to gender, misunderstanding both true strength and weakness.
Yes, we heard Trump plainly vilify undocumented immigrants as rapists and killers. We heard his condescension on protecting women whether they want it or not. We were savvy to his actions that led to upending Roe v. Wade. We know of his bromances with the world’s authoritarians. We bought that this election was about fixing an economy that wasn’t really all that broken. Voters bought the fear Trump was peddling not of just immigrants who supposedly suck up tax dollars for benefits they have no chance of accessing, but transgender people in bathrooms and locker rooms. We even knew of Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, of his felony convictions and the charges still pending.
But people dismissed the news about Trump’s corruption, racism, anti-democratic goals and misogyny as politically correct whining.
Many delude themselves about who and what Trump is. So, we can all delude ourselves about who we are, the nation that elected him..
A fear: Democrats will draw a faulty lesson from Harris’ failed bid, refusing to acknowledge the party’s own culpability in not forcing President Joe Biden to withdraw from the race far earlier.
The lesson I fear they will draw is that the nation – primarily the nation’s males – are just not ready for a woman president much less a woman of color.
Too risky to let this happen again, they will say – which amounts to tacit acknowledgment that this is who we are.
The shift toward Trump might say more about those voters as men than it does about voters of color. We still have a national problem if a sizable minority of men of color equate women with weakness.
Pander to or ignore these sentiments for the next election or deal with them in patient, straightforward fashion? This is the question Democrats face.
If it’s pander, voters of color may very well start believing that there really is no difference between the major parties.
We won’t go back. That was Harris’ failed pitch to voters. But what if this vote is a sign that we haven’t moved as far forward as we thought?
This is who we are.
The question moving forward: Is this who we have to be?
The Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, speaks at a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump promised “America’s new golden age” of closed borders and world peace as he rallied a capacity crowd at Madison Square Garden in his home city in the final stretch of the 2024 presidential contest against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump headlined the over six-hour rally that featured nearly 30 speakers, some of whom insulted Latinos and attacked Democratic nominee Harris over her race, and he vowed “to make America great again, and it’s going to happen fast.”
“It is called America first, and it is going to happen as no one has ever seen before,” Trump said, adding “We will not be overrun, we will not be conquered. We will be a free and proud nation once again. Everyone will prosper.”
But the event also generated intense criticism from Democrats for remarks made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who spoke during the afternoon hours ahead of Trump and called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now.”
The joke could prove politically problematic for Republicans, who have been courting the Latino vote, and particularly in the swing state of Pennsylvania, where hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans live.
The United States is home to 5.6 million Puerto Ricans, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census data, and about 8% of them live in Pennsylvania.
Hinchcliffe, who hosts a podcast called “Kill Tony,” also said Latinos “love making babies” and made a lewd joke about them.
Florida Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, whose state is also home to hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans, on X wrote, “It’s not funny and it’s not true. Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans!”
Democrats brought in U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is Puerto Rican, and the vice presidential nominee, Tim Walz, to blast the joke. “When you have some a-hole calling Puerto Rico floating garbage … that’s what they think about anyone who makes less money than them,” she said.
Harris on Sunday in Philadelphia laid out a new policy proposal focused on Puerto Rico.
The former president’s 80-minute speech mostly featured his standard campaign promises and stories, though he added a proposal to his list of tax breaks — a benefit for those caring for sick or aging relatives in their homes. Harris also introduced a policy for at-home care for seniors earlier in October.
Trump repeated his popular pledges to “get transgender insanity the hell out of our schools,” “stop the invasion” at the border and restore peace to Ukraine and the Middle East, which he claims would have never become war-torn had he been in office.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told the crowd his time campaigning around the country for Trump has revealed “something very powerful out there happening among the base.”
“I’m telling you, there’s an energy out there that we have not seen before,” Johnson said.
NYC stop a detour
Trump held the rally nine days before polls close on Nov. 5. Nearly 42 million Americans have already voted early, in person or by mail, in more than two dozen states, according to the University of Florida Election Lab’s early voting tracker.
Trump’s New York stop detoured from the seven battleground states in this election’s spotlight — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. His campaign also announced on Sunday two upcoming stops in New Mexico and Virginia during the contest’s final week.
Still, both candidates once again hit Pennsylvania over the weekend, with Trump delivering remarks Saturday at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania, and Harris spending Sunday rallying a crowd in Philadelphia.
Harris spoke to the press in Philadelphia, a city she described as “a very important part of our path to victory.”
“I’m feeling very optimistic about the enthusiasm that is here and the commitment that folks of every background have to vote and to really invest in the future of our country,” Harris told reporters.
The vice president criticized Trump for using “dark and divisive language,” including his comments this week that America is the “garbage can of the world.”
“I think people are ready to turn the page,” she said.
Tucker Carlson goes after Harris
Numerous speakers attacked Harris’ record — a standard feature of political rallies — but some comments invoked her race. Trump’s childhood best friend, David Rem, clutched a crucifix and told the crowd Harris is the “antichrist.”
Conservative media personality Tucker Carlson described Harris as a “Samoan Malaysian low IQ former California prosecutor” as he was spinning a scenario in which the Democrats reflect on their candidate post-election.
“Donald Trump has made it possible for the rest of us to tell the truth about the world around us,” Carlson said earlier in his speech.
Harris’ mother was Indian, and her father is Jamaican. Trump has previously questioned her race during his interview with the National Association of Black Journalists.
Carlson, who was fired by Fox News in April 2023, accused Democrats of telling “lies,” and said in a mocking voice, “Jan. 6 was an insurrection, they were unarmed, but it was very insurrection-y.”
The violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 by thousands of Trump supporters came after months of the former president refusing to concede the 2020 presidential election, which President Joe Biden won.
Twenty-eight speakers preceded Trump, beginning at just after 2 p.m. and holding court until the former president took the stage at 7:13 p.m. Trump’s wife, Melania, in a rare campaign rally appearance, introduced him and spoke briefly.
The lineup included the founder of Death Row Records, TV personality Dr. Phil and pro wrestling’s Hulk Hogan and Dana White — some of whom spoke at July’s four-day Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, whose super PAC has flooded more than $75 million into the campaign, was among the cast of speakers.
Musk told the crowd to vote early and that he wants to see a “massive crushing victory.”
“Make the margin of victory so big that you know what can’t happen,” he said, referring to debunked claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Focus on NYC
The day was heavy on the mystique of New York and Trump’s ties to it. New York City is not only where Trump grew up and followed his father’s path into real estate, but now also where he was convicted in May in a Manhattan court on 34 state felony counts for a hush money scheme involving a porn star.
A vendor hawking campaign gear to supporters waiting to enter Madison Square Garden Sunday morning advertised a hat that read “I’m voting for the convicted felon.”
Several speakers credited Trump with changing the New York City skyline. The 58-story Trump Tower stands on 5th Avenue in midtown Manhattan, among his other real estate holdings on the island.
“New York City made Donald Trump, but Donald Trump also made New York City,” said Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law and co-chair of the Republican National Committee.
Howard Lutnick, chair and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and co-chair of the Trump campaign’s “transition team,” told the story of losing just over 650 of his employees in the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, 2001 masterminded by known terrorist Osama bin Laden.
“We must elect Donald J. Trump president because we must crush jihad,” Lutnick said.
Lutnick bantered with Musk on stage, estimating the pair could possibly cut $2 trillion in federal spending under a second Trump administration. Trump has chosen the duo to lead a commission on government efficiency if elected.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who took a leading role in spreading Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election, received a standing ovation from the full arena.
He accused Biden and Harris of spreading “socialism, fascism and communism.”
Giuliani, a major player in Trump’s false claim that he won the 2020 election, appeared at the rally just days after a federal judge in New York ordered him to surrender his apartment and valuables to election workers in Georgia whom he was found guilty of defaming.
Giuliani, along with a handful of other speakers, also implied that Democrats are responsible for the two assassination attempts on Trump.
“I’m not gonna do conspiracy,” Giuliani said, “but it’s funny that they tried to do everything else, and now they’re trying to kill him.”
The accusation was a theme throughout the daylong event. Speaker after speaker implied or outright blamed Democrats for the two attempts on Trump’s life, never mentioning the perpetrators. The gunman in the first attempt was killed by law enforcement, and the second, who never fired at Trump, has been charged in Florida; neither has been found to have ties to Democrats.
Trump focused some of his comments on New York City, referencing his childhood and adding that he felt sympathy for the city’s indicted Mayor Eric Adams.
The rally ended, not with Trump’s signature closer “YMCA” by the Village People, but with a live rendition of “New York, New York” by Christopher Macchio.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks onstage during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 53rd Annual Legislative Conference Annual Phoenix Awards Dinner at Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Sept. 14, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Congressional Black Caucus Foundation)
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, warned members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Saturday that its vision is “under profound threat.”
Harris, alongside President Joe Biden, cautioned the crowd on what’s at stake if the GOP presidential nominee — former President Donald Trump — takes back the White House in November during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Phoenix Awards Dinner in Washington, D.C.
The gala followed a series of events during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual legislative conference this week. According to a pool report, about 3,500 people were in attendance at the dinner at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
“The CBC has always had a vision for the future of our nation, a future where we can see what is possible, unburdened by what has been, a future where we fulfill the promise of America, a promise of freedom, opportunity and justice, not just for some, but for all,” Harris said.
“While we moved and fight to move our nation forward toward a brighter future, Donald Trump and his extremist allies intend to take our nation backward,” she said, adding that “they will give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations, cut Social Security and Medicare and end the Affordable Care Act, which the CBC fought so hard to pass — but we are not going back.”
Harris — who now has the chance to become the first woman president, the second Black president and the first president of South Asian descent — was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus while she served as a member of the U.S. Senate from California.
After Biden passed the torch to Harris following his disastrous debate performance in late June, the veep has conducted an unprecedented and expedited campaign as she and Trump vie for the Oval Office.
“Let’s be clear: there are old ghosts with new garments trying to seize your power and extremists coming for your freedom, making it harder for you to vote and have your vote counted, closing doors of opportunity, attacking affirmative action and the value of diversity, equity and inclusion — banning books, erasing history,” Biden said Saturday.
The president received the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award ahead of his remarks. He was praised by Rep. Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat and the chair of the board of directors of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, and Rep. Steven Horsford, a Nevada Democrat and the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.
The White House hosted its first-ever brunch in celebration of Black Excellence on Friday, where Biden underscored some of the efforts of his administration in aiming to advance opportunities and equity for Black communities.
Biden on Saturday again denounced the attacks against Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, saying “it’s wrong” and “it’s got to stop.”
He added that “any president should reject hate in America” and “not incite it.”
On the other side of the presidential campaign aisle, Trump has been demonizing immigrants, most recently at a rally in Las Vegas on Friday night. He’s made false and baseless claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, and Venezuelan gangs in Aurora, Colorado, while threatening mass deportations if he wins another term.
At a press conference in California on Friday, Trump promised that, if elected, he would carry out the “largest deportation in the history of our country” — and that it would “start with Springfield and Aurora.”
Actress and film producer Marsai Martin delivers remarks during a brunch held to celebrate Black Excellence on the South Lawn of the White House on Sept. 13, 2024 in Washington, D.C. President Biden hosted the brunch during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual Legislative Conference this week to recognize achievements in the Black community. At right is Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young. (Photo by Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden, in the last months of his four-year term, detailed his administration’s efforts in seeking to advance opportunities and equity for Black communities on Friday during the White House’s first-ever brunch in celebration of Black Excellence.
The event came as the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation hosted its annual legislative conference this week in Washington, D.C.
“Today, we honor this simple truth: Black history is American history, Black excellence is American excellence, and folks, we don’t erase history like others are trying to — we make history,” Biden said to a crowd on the South Lawn that included members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other Black leaders.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre; Trell Thomas, founder of Black Excellence Brunch; Marsai Martin, an actress and producer; and Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, gave brief remarks ahead of Biden.
“I know it because I’ve seen it. I’ve been vice president to the first Black president in American history, a president to the first Black vice president — and God willing, to the first female Black president in American history,” Biden added.
Biden — who originally sought a second term — passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris in mid-July following his disastrous debate performance in June against the Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump.
Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, now has the chance to become the first woman to serve as president, the first Black woman president, and the first president of South Asian descent.
Biden also underscored some of the administration’s key efforts in regard to Black communities, such as achieving the lowest Black unemployment rate on record. As of August, the administration has created 2.4 million jobs for Black workers, according to a White House fact sheet.
He also emphasized the administration’s efforts to ensure that more Black Americans have health care than ever before. The White House says it’s done so by “lowering premium costs by an average of $800 for millions of Americans, increasing Black enrollment in Affordable Care Act coverage by 95%, or over 1.7 million people since 2020,” per the fact sheet.
Biden added that “on this very lawn, in front of the White House built by enslaved people, we hosted the first-ever Juneteenth concert after I made Juneteenth a federal holiday, and on this lawn, we celebrated the first Black woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, the best decision I made: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.”
He also condemned racism toward Haitian migrants to the U.S., saying the community is “under attack in our country right now” and calling it “simply wrong.” Conspiracy theories about migrants and bomb threats continue to rock Springfield, Ohio.
Trump at Tuesday’s presidential debate hosted by ABC News amplified false claims about Haitian migrants there, saying: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” adding that “they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Appearing to allude to Trump, Biden added that “there’s no place in America. This has to stop, what he’s doing. It has to stop.”
Meanwhile, Biden and Harris are both slated to speak at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Phoenix Awards Dinner Saturday in Washington, D.C.
The Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, greets the Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, as they joined other officials at Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2024, honoring the lives of those lost in the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. The handshake came the day after a fiery debate between the candidates. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump intensified in the days following their first, and likely only, debate, as both hit swing states with just over 50 days until the election.
The Harris campaign rode a wave of momentum to the week’s end, cutting ads featuring debate clips and kicking off an “aggressive” blitz of battleground states that it dubbed the “New Way Forward” tour.
Trump and Republican Party officials meanwhile filed what they described as “election integrity” lawsuits this week targeting voter registration and absentee ballots in Nevada and Michigan.
While numerouspollsshowed Harris outperformed the former president at Tuesday’s debate, Trump continued to tout his performance at a press conference Friday and chastised a reporter for suggesting some Republicans thought he gave a poor showing.
“We’ve gotten great praise for the debate,” he said, adding “You know, look, you come from Fox (News), you shouldn’t play the same game as everybody else.”
Trump spoke for roughly an hour and took a dozen questions at the Trump National Golf Course in Los Angeles where he promised, if elected, “to start with Springfield and Aurora” when he carries out the “largest deportation in the history of our country.”
Trump has repeated baseless rumors that Venezuelan gangs overtook an apartment building in Aurora, Colorado. In an unforgettable moment during Tuesday’s debate he claimed Haitian migrants are eating domesticated pets in Springfield, Ohio — a lie that circulated among the right on social media, including from his running mate, Ohio’s junior U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance.
Hundreds of thousands of Haitians live in the U.S. legally under temporary protected status after the nearby Caribbean nation was rocked by a violent government collapse this spring.
When asked by a reporter Friday if he felt any concern for the Ohio community that has been thrust into the national spotlight and is now the target of bomb threats, Trump said no.
“The real threat is what’s happening at our borders,” he snapped back.
Trump also lobbed similar attacks at a Thursday night rally in Tucson, Arizona, describing a small western Pennsylvania town of Charleroi as “not so beautiful now” because Haitian migrants moved in.
In reality, Charleroi has suffered population loss and blight for decades following the collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s.
Harris campaigns in North Carolina, Pennsylvania
Prior to the debate, a national New York Times/Siena poll showed Trump with a slight edge over Harris.
“We are the underdog, let’s be clear about that,” Harris told a roaring crowd in Greensboro, North Carolina Thursday night. “And so we have hard work ahead of us, but we like hard work.”
Harris held back-to-back campaign rallies Thursday night in North Carolina’s Raleigh and Greensboro that together drew 25,000, according to campaign figures.
The vice president headed to the battleground state of Pennsylvania Friday, where she first visited Classic Elements, a bookshop and cafe in the ruby-red Johnstown area before a nighttime rally in Wilkes-Barre.
The commonwealth’s junior U.S. Sen. John Fetterman and wife Gisele accompanied Harris to the small business, where she told about a dozen patrons, “You’ve created a space that is a safe space, where people are welcome and know that they’re encouraged to be with each other and feel a sense of belonging,” according to reporters traveling with her.
“I will be continuing to travel around the state to make sure that I’m listening as much as we are talking,” Harris said. “And ultimately I feel very strongly that you’ve got to earn every vote and that means spending time with folks in the communities where they live. And so that’s why I’m here and we’re going to be spending a lot more time in Pennsylvania.”
Harris garnered the coveted endorsement from mega pop star and Pennsylvania native Taylor Swift immediately after the debate.
Both Trump and Harris at 9/11 ceremony
By week’s end the vice president added to her list of Republican endorsements, when the Bush-era Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez announced his support. Gonzalez, who served under former president George W. Bush, wrote Thursday in Politico that Trump poses “perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation.”
Tuesday’s debate was immediately followed by the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Harris joined President Joe Biden at multiple ceremonies.
Trump also attended events in New York City and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, accompanied by far-right activist and 9/11 conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. He defended her at his press conference Friday, calling her a “free spirit.”
Several Republicans havecriticized Loomer in recent days.
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