With the polls starting to show a shift toward Trump, the Harris-Walz campaign is showing signs of desperation. They’re not just sending Kamala out to do softball interviews; they’re sending past presidents like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to seal the deal for her.
On Thursday evening, Barack Obama was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, tasked with the job of boosting black voter turnout for Kamala Harris. More specifically, Obama’s goal was to help Kamala win over black men, who are increasingly leaning toward Trump.
Obama’s messaging was, to say the least, insulting. Like Joe Biden’s “you ain’t black” moment in the 2020 campaign, Barack Obama used race and gender to shame black men for not supporting Kamala.
He implied that black men are reluctant to support Harris because she’s a woman and urged them to reconsider, suggesting that real strength isn’t about supporting Trump’s “bullying” behavior. Obama painted Harris’s leadership as a way to stand up for those in need, framing Trump’s policies as harmful.
"Because part of it makes me think—and I'm speaking to men directly—part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you're coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that,” Obama reportedly said. "And now you're thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that's a sign of strength, because that's what being a man is? Putting women down? That's not acceptable."
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Sending Obama out there to boost the black male vote for Kamala was, on its face, desperate, and yet Obama’s rhetoric somehow managed to make it worse. For Obama to insinuate that black men vote based on identity, or accusing them of rejecting Harris solely due to her gender, reveals the campaign’s underlying concern. Obama’s rally speech only underscored his doubts about Harris’s ability to win, as he couldn’t credibly argue that Harris’s policies have improved black lives during her vice presidency.
Former Democratic Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner blasted Obama’s rhetoric on CNN.
“Why are black men being lectured to?” she asked. “Why are black men being belittled in ways that no other voting group?”
“Now, a lot of love for former President Obama,” she continued, “but for him to single out black men is wrong. And some of the black men that I have talked to have their reasons why they want to vote a different way. And even if some of us may not like that, we have to respect it.”
Turner, who was the former national co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, wasn’t finished blasting Obama.
”So, unless President Barack Obama is going to go out and lecture every other group of men from other identity groups, my message for Democrats is don't bring it here to black men who, by and large, don't vote much differently from black women,” she continued. “But this is wrong for President Obama. It is a wrong course for the Harris-Walz campaign to lay at the feet of black men when they have their reasons.”
Black men and Black women do not vote much differently, it’s wrong to single out Black men when Black men are the most loyal male voting block for Democrats.
— Nina Turner (@ninaturner) October 11, 2024
It’s patronizing and wrong. pic.twitter.com/2OXmq9q1TW
Ouch.
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