A senior Democrat has told the party it must reaffirm its commitment to identity politics, even if the face of Kamala Harris’s crushing electoral defeat to Donald Trump.
On Thursday, Democrat National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, an African American, blasted critics who believe the party’s reliance on identity politics was the reason for Kamala Harris’s loss. Harrison was speaking at a meeting of Democrat chairs in Arizona.
“When I wake up in the morning, when I look in the mirror, when I step out the door, I can’t rub this off,” Harrison said, gesturing towards his face and his skin colour.
“This is who I am. This is how the world perceives me.”
“That is my identity,” he continued.
“And it is not politics. It is my life. And the people that I need in the party, that I need to stand up for me, have to recognize that. You cannot run away from that.”
Harrison’s tenure as Chairman will end in early 2025. During his speech he suggested that he has further grievances to air and that when his replacement is elected “the muzzle comes off.”
The Democrats are currently locked in an acrimonious blame game over Kamala Harris’s defeat to Donald Trump, with some blaming an excessive focus on identity politics and others saying that Americans are simply more bigoted than was previously thought.
There is significant anger about the extent of Harris’s spending. Senior strategist James Carville said the Vice President has done “unfathomable damage” to the Democrat cause by spending well over a billion dollars.
Hellbound and Down 