A GOP congressman called Kamala Harris a ‘DEI hire.’ Some caution it’s a sign of what’s to come

For many, the suggestion that Harris could somehow be unqualified because of her race, traded on familiar racist tropes about women of color in the workplace.

In the first full day of her presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris swiftly earned enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination and raised a historic $81 million. And yet, less than 24 hours after Harris formally launched her bid for the White House, some Republicans zeroed in on a line of attack: her race. In an interview with CNN’s Manu Raju Monday, Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett suggested President Joe Biden selected Harris as his running mate solely because she is Black: “One hundred percent she is a DEI hire,” he said, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion. “Her record is abysmal at best.” It’s a familiar strategy to political analysts who say Burchett’s comments echo tactics Republicans used during the 2008 election to drive the conspiracy around Barack Obama’s birthplace, and caution that it could be a sign of what’s to come along the already turbulent road to Election Day. “There’s been this constant debate about mediocrity versus meritocracy. The truth is for most of American history, White men were the only people who were ever considered, it didn’t matter if they were mediocre,” said Democratic strategist Keith Boykin, who likened this moment to the Republican “Southern Strategy” of the 1960s, where politicians relied on racial grievance to drive White voters to the polls. “(Meritocracy) became a part of the conversation when Black people, and women, and people of color and queer people started to enter into the workforce and society in public ways. And suddenly there became this assumption that anybody who wasn’t a straight White man didn’t deserve to be there.”