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This probably comes off as trying to paint a political gotcha, but really I just think that turning this frame around is kind of insightful, so hear me out…
Is Kamala choosing a midwestern white guy a form of DEI?
Let’s go through some scenarios.
If the ticket was two women it’d be seen as overly feminine, there’s no male voice. I do believe personally that this could be an issue and I suspect the political right would agree.
If it was two black people, white people wouldn’t feel represented.
Even choosing the gay white gay is sort of problematic and probably won’t happen even though he’s midwestern and an excellent speaker.
I’m a white guy who is critical of DEI and particularly its excesses, but having the shoe be on the other foot does give more of a felt sense of where this idea comes from originally.
For the average white guy, he wouldn’t feel represented if the president and vice president were both black. He’d probably suspect that deep down the needs of his community are not a priority.
If it was two women, he likely wouldn’t feel that his demographic is being represented well either. There needs to be a masculine voice in there.
Kamala Harris picking a white midwestern guy is essentially done so that the ticket has more diversity and inclusion. An all black ticket would be seen as problematic among white people. An all female ticket would be seen as problematic among men. A black woman and a gay guy probably doesn’t cut it to pander to the straight white male demographic in the way that it needs to so they feel comfortable to pull the lever.
We’re probably not that long away from the point where white men feel the need to make a case for inclusion so that decision making bodies have more diverse voices at the table to better represent the communities that might otherwise not be prioritized.
It is has always been the case that party bosses have chosen political candidates based on superficial and identitarian reasons -- whether that be their home state, their pedigree, or simply being tall and handsome.
However, we were always allowed to notice that and critique that. Therefore, if it is in-bounds to argue, "Ronald Reagan isn't actually a competent executive, he is a handsome and well-spoken movie star who is an actor playing the role of a competent executive" or "Going to Yale and Phillips Andover doesn't prove GW Bush was smart, because he was a rich legacy and probably got in because of that", then it is also in-bounds to argue that Kamala is not actually that accomplished, she simply has collected a lot of high positions on her resume because she was picked for because of her race and sex.
The other thing is that most of us Americans were taught in grade school that while it is ok to show preferences based on some demographics features ("He was raised on a farm and chopped wood every morning" "She is the daughter of a teacher and a blacksmith, she has the common touch") it is double plus ungood to show preferences purely on race. Even though we were later taught that that race-based affirmative action is a thing and it is good, seeing it in blatant form still creates a dissonance at a very basic level between with what was drilled into us as children.
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If its Shapiro/Kelly, or someone like that, it would be fairly silly to call it a "DEI selection." They (and most of the others whos names have been floated) would be VP considerations without taking into account race/sex. Consider:
Harris is a former senator from a coastal state and current VP in an administration who's record she cannot run on because it is an unpopular administration with a record repellent to voters. Harris also can't run on her senate record, as again it is repellent to voters. So she has to forge a new identity that isn't repellent to voters. To do this she has to appear to tack to the center and she needs someone else's record to basically run on. A midwest or southern governor who is popular in their own state makes perfect sense, as does a veteran + senator who is seen as somewhat moderate.
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The electoral college is DEI for white people so given the system it makes sense to have a DEI white candidate.
Explain??
Without the EC the popular vote would practically always favor the Dems because in most red states the cities (which are less white than the countryside) are blue.
I feel like you're skipping half the argument, and I can't fill in the blanks on my own. Is it:
or something else?
Yes? I do not preclude a realignment with the GOP going through a crisis and reinventing itself, but the EC as it is right now ensures that it is competitive even when having less people willing to vote for its candidate.
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In addition to the things other people have written i'd argue that there is an issue similar to that of main characters is in major movies, in that only white men (or maybe men) are allowed moral complexity and actually be characters. Women get pigeonholed into a particular cardboard cutout role and it's similar with minorities in politics. Since they are a minority their being a minority is what defines them politically (to a very large extent).
Choosing a white man isn't the same as choosing a "minority" because you're expecting something more than white man than merely being a white man, racist as that may be. Is there some form of representation thinking going on here in the choosing of the VP? Sure, but they're also choosing between popular politicians in key states that can help drag the ticket across the finish line. That their colour doesn't matter much is precisely because there already is a DEI pick on the ticket, IE. Kamala. They don't have to care about "representation" so they can pick whoever has the greatest political value, of which Kamala has none or even negative.
If there was a popular black or asian governer in Pennsylvania rather than a Jew I'm sure they would receive strong consideration but since Buttigieg isn't popular enough and Whitmer has stated numerous times that she doesn't want the position we're left with three (or four) people who are white, male and straight (although one is Jewish).
To be fair I think that even if Whitmer wanted the job, and was the most qualified, it’d probably be smart to still choose someone else anyway, and the same for Buttigieg.
The optics (u/dasfoo below is making a point to differentiate this from DEI, Perhaps that’s fair) of this just doesn’t work well.
Two women, that’s a very feminine government.
A woman and a gay guy, the right wing attacks about the decline of the west to DEI write themselves!
But I wrote below that I think merit and inclusion should be thought of as two axes.
Let’s say for the sake of the argument that Buttigieg is the most meritous candidate (tbh this is my opinion, if the game we’re talking about is to rhetorically dismantle your enemies talking points on national tv and flip it on them, he’s extraordinarily gifted).
But high merit pairs with low inclusion for him. He represents the Midwest but he’s likely to make straight independent and center right guys feel not represented by a woman/gay guy ticket.
Thus the inclusion axis dictates that it should be a straight white guy. And the electoral map dictates that he should be from a swing state to make that state feel included. When inclusion wins over merit, that to me is what we usually mean by DEI.
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I think what you're talking about it more "optics" than "DEI," unless the intent is to remove DEI from the context that actually makes it negative.
A lot of VPs are picked to balance out the weaknesses of the main candidate. Trump picked Pence to give his ticket someone grounded in traditional GOP politics. He picked Vance to give his ticket some youth. Obama picked Biden to balance "inexperienced young black" with "seasoned journeyman white," etc. etc.
DEI is a subset of optics, and more cynical one. Not many people would argue with the generic values of "diversity, equity and inclusion" if defined broadly (well, "equity" is problematic unlike "equality") but the specific policy implications of brand-name DEI as practiced by its proponents is corrosive, and the acronym just becomes a shorthand for criticizing those implications.
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I agree, it's at least analogous to DEI. A lot of picks for important positions (CEOs etc) have basically had to be white men in the past in order to win the trust/loyalty of other white men (such as shareholders). In this instance it is the novelty of a black woman as lead candidate that makes the need for a white male VP stand out in an especially legible way.
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I saw someone making this sort of up their own ass and out the other side argument before. They expanded the context of DEI to the point where they claimed all vice presidential picks have been "DEI" picks. Because they are largely chosen on the basis of choosing someone based on identity to shore up the political coalition you are the head of.
I think that's bullshit, and that's not DEI. DEI is way, way dumber than that. DEI is the hammer that thinks every problem is a nail. In no world where George W Bush is choosing a "DEI" VP candidate to shore up his political coalition does he choose Dick Cheney. There were darker motives at play there.
DEI in practice is putting the cart before the horse. It's an almost religious belief that merit is a myth, and that you can assign job positions of the highest importance based on "equity" and the poor oppressed peoples denied the chance to prove themselves will rise to the occasion. It almost goes out of it's way to hire unqualified diverse candidates to make that point. Then it frequently obfuscates all markers of success or failure in the position. Frequently when the failure is so naked to see it cannot be obfuscated, it acts like success or failure was not the point, but only "equity".
So when people call Kamala Harris a DEI VP, it's because of that. Because Biden, bafflingly, didn't just pick a "black" woman. He picked the most unpopular, least qualified, dropped out first candidate from the roster. The fact that the always loser Stacy Abrams was also in the running is telling. As opposed to Tulsi, Yang, Buttigieg or any of the other people who hung in past Iowa that still count as "diverse" and might have actually brought some coalition building to the ticket.
Now if Kamala picks an absolute loser idiot white guy because she feels the need to placate white liberals, I could accept that being DEI. But it's looking like she's going to pick someone that actually brings something to the ticket, unlike she did in 2020. Most likely counting on Josh Shapiro to deliver PA's electoral votes.
FWIW I tend to agree with you in practice. DEI attached to an ideology that merit doesn’t matter or even in a more toxic form, that measures of merit are relics of white supremacy and patriarchy are pretty obviously ridiculous, and a road to ruin for any organization or institution that gets infected by this.
But I think you can also steelman the DEI ethos and get at some core realities underlying it.
Namely, there’s all sorts of implicit biases and lived experiences that might make it likely that for example, a black president/VP combo would prioritize issues that affect black communities and leave white guys feeling somewhat unrepresented, whether for legitimate reasons or even just illegitimate vibes based reasons.
This obviously is a framing that I set up to convey to white guys such as myself some of the gut level reactions that people who historically were never really represented in the way that us white guys have experienced as the norm.
Once you flip that, I think even conservatives would start to understand some typically progressive language, such as the importance of having diverse voices at the table, the dynamics of inclusion vs marginalization, equity for different groups when in comes to what decisions are made by the power structure, etc.
These terms have all become sort of strawmen and the well has become poisoned by all the crazy excesses that have gone on.
But at the core, IMO these are fundamental concepts of any race or cultural relations in a society and the typically dominant group would very quickly find themselves having to wrangle with similarly coded language if suddenly they were excluded.
So I could foresee a future in which conservative white guys see a need to argue for inclusion, I think it’s just a part of being in any multicultural society that representation at the seats at the table of power is going to be one of the primary sources of resentment.
And going all the way with this, it can even make sense why in some cases the inclusion of different groups at the table in some cases supercedes pure meritocracy in a democracy.
This is essentially why we aim to have representatives from all districts of a state. Say there’s a state with a blue tech hub but also an underdeveloped and neglected red district with some Appalachia or Deep South type issues regarding education, infrastructure, health, addiction, etc.
We should have some representatives from that community even if they aren’t at the top of the meritocracy.
That way they have a seat at the table and can at least provide a voice for that communities needs. Otherwise it’s just the tech hub guys and the backwoods are out of sight out of mind.
But there’s this delicate balancing act where meritocracy still has to form a fundamental pillar. Part of what I see the left wrangling with is trying to arrive at the synthesis of how to balance tribal desires for inclusion especially in a system where bias exists with meritocracy and the consequences of not giving it its due.
I think that flipping the frame to consider other examples helps think through the problem better. For example, how do we increase the representation of conservatives in academia? Should we? Is it pure meritocracy or are there a bunch of subtle factors and biases that led to the current state of affairs? Wading into the weeds of all this helps illuminate the culture war better IMO.
Flipping the frame does not work because the frame is held on by power.
You're not going to get academia to not be racist against whites because they don't hold these ideas for scientific reasons. You can't debate with power.
And attempting to dislodge power by remaining in its frame is a fool's errand.
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So do you think Biden deliberately picked the worst black woman available? Isn't it much more likely he thought/thinks she was the best on some measures?
I mean, given how broken his brain is, I can't rule it out.
But the vibes I always got is that he gave an on the spot pledge to pick a black woman as VP without thinking it through, and then when push came to shove picked the least threatening VP possible. Someone without the acumen or political capital to get "uppity". Because one of the things we've always heard about Biden was that he's controlling, and increasingly so in his old age, and doesn't have any patience for people questioning him, talking back, or having their own ideas. It's one of the most consistent behind the scenes characterizations of him we've had since he entered politics.
Even this, well, not exactly a steel man, but the only reason I give aside from "Biden's brain is broken", isn't very far off from "Yes, he picked her because she's a fucking idiot."
Now we have Kamala crowned his successor without anyone ever voting for her, despite her never having accomplished anything, and having a history of everything she ever touches turning to shit.
I think once you've locked yourself into picking a black woman it's entirely defensible to go with Harris over a Stacy Abrams or a Susan Rice. Harris was a US Senator, Abrams used to be a member of the Georgia legislature and lost the race for Governor, Rice thought about running against Susan Collins in Maine but decided not to.
There is also the option of going for someone thats not a politician, i suppose.
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We don't need to speculate too much. We have most of the facts. We know he committed very early on to pick a woman (maybe I'm misremembering but the Black half of that I think came later?), and that's mostly due to the overall political environment and happens on both sides for at least a decade, and also to offset the fact that he's extremely white and also quite old, so having some counterbalance is mostly common sense. He has to uphold at least some of the Obama diversity legacy, after all.
But when I say we don't need to guess I mean it. We have some good quality reporting for example here and especially here that explains what the process looked like. Kamala specifically won the final round because of a mix of personal comfort and Biden liked her pitch on being loyal.
...
I think these points are extremely consonant.
I mean, basic reasoning/logic my friend, just because she's loyal and Biden valued loyalty doesn't actually mean she has a lack of other positive traits. At least, it doesn't necessarily follow. There's a stereotype of dumb but loyal sidekick, but it's just that, a trope, and each major politician needs to be evaluated on their own merits.
I think there's a decent chance she's actually somewhat dumb (or at least as dumb/deluded as someone who is eventually able to pass the bar exam can be) but I'm going to give her a month or so to demonstrate it one way or another. I really don't give much of a shit about DA records, I have zero confidence in my ability to distinguish an effective or good DA from a bad one, but her Senate record which I do keep an eye on looked pretty thin (although it's still worth noting that her entire time was squarely during the Trump years where they basically had little to no room to work with). But all of this is beside the point. You're trying to present her very selection as VP as evidence of her incompetence, but that's not actually evidence. Nor is "uppityness" a good proxy for effectiveness either (and I'd be hesitant to use that word anyways, because it actually does have a legit and documented history of racial and discriminatory use, so it's a little too close to a slur for comfort).
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I think Biden picked her less because she's an idiot and more because she's a machine politician who does what she's told.
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I feel like we can think of meritocracy and inclusion as two axes.
Is it dumb to only consider the inclusion axis?
Obviously, someone with negative merit would be a terrible choice.
But should we neglect the inclusion axis and only look at the merit axis?
I think that’s also a mistake when we’re speaking about a representative democracy with very different communities inside of it.
But that brings the question, what’s the relative importance that we should assign to the merit axis and to the inclusion axis?
This part is tricky and has been the source of missteps for the left which has lost them a lot of political and cultural capital.
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I'm not sure you can call it DEI, in the sense of being non-meritocratic. Harris isn't planning to pick a midwestern white guy because she believes that midwestern white guys are unfairly underrepresented or suffer discrimination or she believes that x% of politicians should be midwestern white guys because of vague equity reasons.
She's planning to pick him because she thinks it will help her win, and helping her win is the VP candidate's only job (at least before the election). In that sense, she's trying to pick the most qualified candidate.
Now of course there are cases of quotas where 'representation' may actually be part of the role, even if it isn't exactly part of the job's day to day tasks. For example, in Northern Ireland the police force had quotas for Catholic recruits in order to get rid of the (basically correct) perception that the force was a protestant militia. This is very different from the recent case with air traffic controllers.
When people criticise DEI quotas, the criticism is usually directed towards the latter and much less towards the former. Having a police force that is trusted by the majority ethnic group or having a ticket that wins an election are far more sympathetic aims than getting (percentage) of (demographic) in (industry) for unproven assertions that (industry) would be exactly (percentage)(demographic) without claimed discrimination.
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