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What political benefits, in electoral terms, can be offered by managing the identity of candidates? The Economist The article takes a look at the cases of Obama, Donald Trump, James David Vance and Hillary Clinton to get a glimpse of what Kamala Harris’ strategy might be. The masters in the art of playing the identity card in politics have undoubtedly been Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The former turned the prospect of his election into praise, not for himself, but for the United States, for having overcome the weight of history. It was perhaps the most elegant judo move in American politics, as the weekly describes it: “he turned the weight of racism against himself.” Trump’s view of identity politics, on the other hand, is a zero-sum game: a gain for one group means a loss for another. His recent choice of JD Vance as his running mate is another example of exploring the potential of identity in politics. Like Obama, Vance has also written an autobiography that is also a self-exploration. In it he claims his origins and all those whom “Americans call” paletos, palurdos o “white trash.”
What will Kamala Harris do? At the moment she seems to have everything in her favour to exploit the identity route. As the article says, “by virtue of her identity – of several of her identities – she could make history: the first woman president, the first woman and black president, the first Indian-American president.” It seems that she is not going in that direction, despite what she revealed in her memoirs. There she revealed that her mother told her: “Don’t let anyone tell you who you are. Tell them who you are.” She has not done this, as the article points out, either in her presidential candidacy or in her three years as vice president. She seems to be leaning more towards Obama’s strategy. She has presented herself emphasizing not her identity, but her experience as a prosecutor, the issues she defends and her aspirations for the entire country, rather than for any particular group. “Perhaps a black Indian-American woman, the daughter of immigrants and the wife of a white Jewish man,” the text concludes, “can demonstrate what voters know from their own experience: that people are too interesting to be reduced to silly political stereotypes.”
Article Barack Obama: «My Father’s Dreams». Debate, 2017
AWhen it comes to leveraging identity in politics, the two most effective American candidates this century have been Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The first had written the best campaign book in history, My Father’s Dreams. A Story of Race and Heritage, exploring his own identity. As a candidate in 2008, he recognized that his identity would speak most eloquently for itself, as would the historic nature of his campaign, implicitly but vividly illuminating his message of change. By not dwelling on the obstacles he had to overcome to get this far as a black man, he turned the prospect of his election into a praise not for himself but for America, for having overcome the weight of history. It was perhaps the most elegant judo move in American politics, because it turned the weight of racism against itself. “Yes, we can,” voters said with him. Obama won 52.9% of the popular vote, the largest margin of any president since 1988.
Trump’s approach has been different long before he began spreading suspicions that Obama, with his black skin and strange name, was not born in the United States. Trump’s view of identity politics was forged in the racial and ethnic furnace of 1970s and 1980s New York, when a gain for one group meant a loss for another. Divisions between categories of people were gaps into which political wedges could be driven. Hence his recent talk that immigrants “take jobs from blacks” and “jobs from Hispanics.” This approach has never won him a majority.
JD Vance: «Hillbilly, a rural elegy». Deusto, 2017
Trump considered several candidates when deciding on his vice presidential nominee, but ultimately chose a running mate who became famous as a tribune of Trump’s own political base. J.D. Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio, is the author of another excellent memoir, Hillbilly Elegy (translated as Hillbylly, a rural elegy), in which he also explores his own identity. “I identify with the millions of working-class white Americans of Scots-Irish descent who do not have a college degree,” Vance wrote. «Americans call them paletos, palurdos or basura blanca».
Unlike Obama, after that post, Vance continued to substantially revise his understanding — or at least presentation — of his identity. He went from blaming poor whites, such as those he called “welfare queens,” for his bad choices to viewing them as victims. As he did in his speech to the Republican National Convention on July 17, he now blames the “establishment” for making bad decisions, condemning those in “America’s heartland” to unemployment and addiction. Nor does he insist anymore that he and the people he identifies with are white. As a candidate, he seems to recognize, as Obama does, that his racial identity speaks for itself.
Unlike Obama, too, Vance appears to be looking for racial trouble. “Are you racist?” he asked, pointing his finger at the viewer in an ad during his Senate campaign two years ago. He said that “the media calls us racist” for wanting to build a wall on the southern border. “Whatever they call us, we will put America first,” he concluded. It is a policy Obama foresaw but failed to defuse. In 2008, when forced by a political crisis to address race head-on, he gave a penetrating speech in Philadelphia in which he spoke of the sources of black anger, noting: “And yet to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to call them wrong or even racist, without acknowledging that they are based on legitimate concerns — this too widens the racial divide and blocks the path to understanding.”
It seems like a long time ago. One of the themes of Trump’s campaign is that Democrats are pursuing policies that harm white people. “I think there is a clear anti-white sentiment in this country and that cannot be allowed,” he told the magazine. Time in April. “There is absolutely a bias against white people.”
Her mother’s dreams
This is the slippery slope that Vice President Kamala Harris is treading on as the Democratic candidate. By virtue of his identity—several of his identities—he could make history: the first female president, the first female and black president, the first Indian-American president. But will this make her the ideal challenger to Trump, or his ideal rival? Some Republicans are already calling her the “DEI hire,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Kamala Harris: “Our Truth.” Peninsula, 2021
Harris’s own campaign bookThe Truths We Hold (Our Truth, on the Peninsula), lacks the revelatory quality of Obama’s or Vance’s. Indeed, like most campaign books, it’s a bit pedestrian. (Published in 2019, it seems preoccupied with explaining, at a time when the Democratic Party was veering left on law enforcement, why she made a career as a prosecutor.) “One of my mother’s favorite sayings was, ‘Don’t let anyone tell you who you are. You tell them who you are,’” she writes. But, in her presidential bid and in her three years as vice president, she never really did so.
Harris chose “Pioneer” as her Secret Service code name, and when explaining or defending herself, she has occasionally resorted to describing her pioneering spirit and the resistance it can provoke. Such arguments, while fair, are best left to others. As Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign demonstrated, “I’m with her,” however flattering for a history-making candidate, is the wrong way to say “she’s with us.”
So far, as a candidate, Harris has wisely followed Obama’s lead and presented herself by emphasizing not her identity, but her experience as a prosecutor, the issues she champions, and her aspirations for the entire country, more than any group. Americans may no longer be in the mood for Obama’s call for transcendent unity, but they are clearly uncomfortable with Trump’s zero-sum politics.
Perhaps a black Indian-American woman, the daughter of immigrants and the wife of a white Jewish father, can demonstrate what voters know from experience: that people are too interesting to be reduced to silly political stereotypes.
This article originally published in The Economist, As indicated in the text, July 25, 2024 is reproduced here with permission from the media and translated by Pilar Gómez Rodríguez.
