The Republican reaction to the news that President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate was to be expected. It was the same when he picked her as his running mate in 2020.

“One hundred percent, she was a DEI hire,” Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee said. “When you go down that route, you take mediocrity. … Her record is abysmal at best.” Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin said she was chosen for “her ethnic background.”

Republicans have been on the offensive against diversity for some time, after wreaking havoc first on affirmative action and then critical race theory as part of their culture war.

Affirmative action is about policies to make colleges and corporations – and government — more representative of a nation whose population is more than 40 percent non-European American. The conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional on June 29, 2023.

Critical race theory is a highly technical area of study, mostly in law school, of the enduring adverse impact of the nation’s past. It was not taught in public schools but still several Republican-led states banned it.

And then there is “diversity,” as in diversity-equity-inclusion (DEI) policies which are also intended to open the door to opportunity a bit wider. Opponents claim that “DEI hires” are inferior to others and blame them for a variety of problems, including aircraft mechanical problems. The tactic has been working.

Several major corporations and colleges have abolished DEI programs, downgraded them or changed the titles of staff.

As former President Donald Trump pursues re-election, his supporters dredged up “diversity” and “DEI” while they retooled their campaign for the changed presidential election scenario. They habitually throw stuff against the proverbial wall to see what will stick, so why not give diversity a toss? After all, the underlying racist theme plays well in their overall messaging aimed at a mostly European American base.

But it is way off mark regarding Harris. An attorney, she worked in the Alameda County prosecutor’s office in the San Francisco Bay Area in her home state California. She is the first woman and the first of African and Asian descent elected – twice – as San Francisco district attorney. She was elected – again, twice – as California’s attorney general, again making history. She was elected a U.S. senator, the second African American woman – after Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois — in the job. Biden chose her for his vice president even though she had challenged him for the nomination.

Harris, as a senator, notably asked U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh this about the right to abortions: “Can you think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?” Kavanaugh replied, “I am not thinking of any right now.” But he joined with the conservative majority to overturn Roe v. Wade and reassert government control over women’s bodies.

Harris’ record contrasts sharply with that of Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, who claimed that all she has done is “collecting a government paycheck for the last 20 years.” Vance, also an attorney, served in the U.S. Marine Corps and entered the world of hi-tech investments before being elected an Ohio senator in 2022.

Trump acolytes have made other personal attacks against Harris. Media personality Megyn Kelly angered Trump when, as a Fox News host, she was a moderator of a 2016 presidential debate and reminded him that he had called some women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.” Trump later said of her, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her whatever.”

Kelly, now a podcaster on, of all things, a Trump channel on SiriusXM, recently said of Harris, “She actually did sleep her way into and upwards in California politics and most women (and men) may learn that and see it for what it is: evidence of an unqualified political aspirant getting ahead based on something other than merit.”

Kelly was apparently referring to the fact that Harris once dated then San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. However, as The Guardian has pointed out, their relationship was no secret and Brown, who was separated from his wife at the time, wrote an article about it in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2020 headlined “Sure I dated Kamala Harris. So what?”

Also, Vance, in his Senate campaign, named Harris as among “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”

While Harris has no biological children, she helped raise her husband Doug Emhoff’s two children. They nicknamed her “Momola” – as in Mom and Kamala. “She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it,” Emhoff’s ex-wife Kerstin Emhoff stated.

Then there is Trump himself. In a phone call with reporters, he described Harris as “a radical left person and this country doesn’t want a radical left person to destroy it.” Speaking later at a rally in Michigan, he said, “I call her Laffin’ Kamala. You ever watch her laugh? She’s crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh. She’s crazy. She’s nuts.”

Trump, boasting about being endorsed by the National Association of Police Organizations, said, “Kamala Harris wants to be president for savage criminals, illegal aliens. I will be the president for law-abiding Americans.” That from a convicted felon who faces three additional indictments, one of which accuses him of instigating the Capitol insurrection in which at least 140 police officers were attacked. That was “likely the largest single-day, mass assault of law enforcement officers in our nation’s history,” Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, has said. A number of officers died as a result of the confrontation.

Harris’s response: “I took on perpetrators of all kinds – predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.”

At a rally on July 26, in Palm Beach, organized by Turning Point Action, a Christian advocacy group, Trump stated, “Christians, get out and vote! Just this time – you won’t have to do it anymore. You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.” He had said elsewhere that as president he would be a dictator “on day one.”

Harris, like Biden, sees Trump as a threat to democracy. “In this election,” she said in an early campaign ad, “we each face a question: What kind of country do we want to live in? We Choose Freedom.”

Meanwhile, Harris’ potential candidacy is generating considerable excitement. Within the first week, she raised $200 million and 170,000 people signed up as campaign volunteers. She locked in 3,100 of the total of 4,000 available delegates for the nomination, although needing only 1,976.

On a Zoom call which a few thousand sorority sisters were expected to join, 44,000 took part and pledged more than $1 million in three hours. The next night, more than 50,000 African American men raised a similar amount in a digital rally.

A group known as White Women for Kamala raised $8.5 million and another group, White Dudes for Harris, raised $4 million.

Members of Generation Z – those born between 1981 and 1996 — named her “Kamalove.” She joined TikTok on July 25 and the first four videos she uploaded garnered seven million likes and 2.7 million followers within 48 hours.

So the stage is being set for a showdown between a 59-year-old African American woman who knows she did not just “fall out of a coconut tree,” with a laugh in her voice and an eye toward the future and a 78-year-old surly, sore loser European American man with revenge in his heart and grievance his message.

All that remains for Harris is to be confirmed as the Democratic candidate and pick a running mate. She is almost certain to select a European American male to balance her ticket – sort of like a DEI hire?