Matt Yglesias Criticizes Biden for Picking Kamala Harris Because He ‘Needed’ a Black Woman Despite Her ‘Poor’ Record
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
Progressive commentator Matt Yglesias cited President Joe Biden’s decision to tap Kamala Harris as his running mate as an example of the corrosive effect of the Democratic Party’s commitment to identity politics on Wednesday.
Yglesias’s argument came in response to an implicit question posed by Vox’s Zack Beauchamp, who mused on X that “Once, just once, I would love people who say these things to be specific about what exactly it would mean to abandon ‘identity politics.'”
Here’s how Yglesias responded to his former colleague’s request:
One salient example of “identity politics” that hurt Democrats recently was the decision in 2020 to make Kamala Harris the VP nominee despite her poor electoral track record and unimpressive performance on the campaign trail because Biden “needed” to pick a black woman.
But this also worked in the opposite direction, as when Democrats became so sure in 2024 that Harris’ vulnerabilities were identity-based rather than issue-based that they selected Dopey White Guy Tim Walz rather than someone more impressive or who could help her in key states.
The sentiment that it was sexist to ask Ruth Bader Ginsburg to make a strategically timed retirement was pretty harmful. The jury is still out on the long-term consequences of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus urging [Sonia] Sotomayor not to retire but I have concerns.
These kind of identity obsessions keep cutting both ways.
Joe Biden was thought to have White Boy Electability Magic in 2020 when Amy Klobuchar had a stronger track-record.
On the other hand, Biden clearly lacks confidence in his own press secretary [Karine Jean-Pierre] but won’t fire her.
During the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Biden pledged to pick a woman to be his running mate and later boasted to MSNBC’s Joy Reid that he was considering “four Black women” for the position.
Biden also said on the campaign trail that his first nominee to the Supreme Court would be a Black woman. He nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace the retiring Stephen Breyer in 2022.
