‘DEI Hire’: How A Racist Attack Is Blowing Up in Republicans’ Faces
Even Republican Kevin McCarthy calls it “totally stupid and dumb”
A Republican congressman apparently thought that he was being clever when he took a swipe at Vice President Kamala Harris as a “DEI hire.”
However, the racist jibe only has been blowing up in the faces of Republicans looking to gain a footing against Harris’s nascent campaign for president against Donald Trump.
Rep Tim Burchett, of Tennessee, attempted to mock the vice president on Monday, using the “DEI” acronym which those on the political right have been trying to weaponize as a racist dog whistle.
He said that “100%, she was a DEI hire,” suggesting that because she is Black, Harris is not capable of her job.
“It’s the most offensive thing that I have heard someone say,” said Rep Steven Horsford (D-Nev), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. “She is the vice president the United States. She is the most qualified person to be our nominee.”
Not only is the insult racist, but evidence is mounting that it’s only backfiring on Republicans looking to attack Harris now that she has replaced President Biden as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
Republicans want to reach out to increase the support among Black men, in particular, for Trump and his running mate — Sen JD Vance, of Ohio — while simultaneously launching racist invectives against the incumbent Black vice president of the United States.
Even a prominent former Republican officeholder is warning members of his party to ditch the “DEI” talk.
“Let me say this to all the white Republicans: Black people, we don’t care what y’all think. Why am I saying that? Every accomplished Black person, we have had, ‘You are an affirmative action hire. You are a DEI hire. You got here for quotas.’ Listen, we heard that crap in college, we’ve heard it on jobs. We are not [Justice] Clarence Thomas. We are not going to sit here and wilt and go, ‘Oh my God, they are criticizing me, I’m not one of them.’ We don’t care,” said Roland Martin, a Black journalist and commentator. “Her resume politically, J.D. Vance can’t even touch. So, Megyn Kelly, you can go to hell. Jesse Watters, you can go to hell. And the rest of y’all.
“What did [Sen] Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska say? ‘Of course it’s not appropriate. For heaven’s sake, what are they just gonna say if you’re not a white male? It is a DEI candidate? I’m sorry, no,’” Martin added. “And lastly, white women, y’all need to be calling them out because they call all y’all DEI hires, [like] the Secret Service women who were trying to protect Trump. So, that is just the real deal.”
Vance, too, has treated Harris disrespectfully, according to Joy Reid, a Black host on MSNBC, who was having a conversation on her program with Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.
“J.D. Vance, first of all, has no right to call this woman by her first name, okay? She is not your housemate. You don’t get to call her by her first name, J.D.,” Reid said, on-camera. “She is vice president of the United States. Show her some respect. And J.D. Vance was basically the house pet of [Silicon Valley billionaire] Peter Thiel. He would not have a job if Peter Thiel hadn’t given him a job. He wouldn’t have a career, anything for a Senate campaign. Sorry, how did he earn being a senator?”
“But what did he do before he became a senator? He wrote a book,” Steele interjected.
Ousted Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy advised fellow Republicans to drop two lines of attack, specifically.
“I would say, two attacks I’ve heard Republicans give that are totally stupid and dumb to do is the DEI attack. Okay? The other attack that I would not do is saying that the president has to resign,” he said.
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