The Power of Plain Talk

While Donald Trump trots out his tired racism, Kamala Harris reverberates with voters and refuses to take the bait

“We are not going back,” VP Kamala Harris told an Atlanta rally crowd of about 10,000. (Photo by Julia Beverly via Getty Images)

Donald Trump trotted out his usual racist routine on Wednesday. In a room full of Black journalists, he insisted that Kamala Harris can’t be trusted because she has emphasized her Indian heritage and only later decided to “turn Black.”

As if no one can grasp what it means to be biracial and possess—indeed embrace—multiple identities. As if the Vice President—the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father—just decided to showcase her blackness for political advantage. As if it’s not easily verifiable—by anyone tethered to factual reality—that she attended a historically Black college, joined a Black sorority and was a member of the Black Caucus in the Senate.

“I didn't know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black,” Trump said, as if his tired old trick would still work. “So I don't know, is she Indian or is she Black?”

We can assume he came to the annual meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) prepared to whip up and hold the news cycle with racist remarks delivered in a room filled with Black journalists. Surely, he could count on his followers’ excitement over his “courageousness” in saying exactly what he thinks. After all, such demagoguery worked to grab attention before, when he pushed birtherism to cast doubt on the legitimacy of President Barack Obama—a false and nasty campaign doubting Obama’s birth certificate in order to curry favor with the bigots and the haters among us.

But what was on display Wednesday was not just Trump trying to exploit race to manipulate the public. Annoyed by the questions of Black women journalists—particularly Rachel Scott of ABC News—his anger, petulance and thin-skilled hostility was obvious to anyone paying attention. It started with Scott’s first, factually detailed question—the kind of direct questioning we have sorely missed over the years. Permit me to share in total what Scott asked:

A lot of people did not think it was appropriate for you to be here today. You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals, from Nikki Haley to former President Barack Obama, saying they were not born in the United States, which is not true. You have told four congresswomen of color, who were American citizens, to go back to where they came from. You have used words like ‘animal’ and ‘rabbit’ to describe Black district attorneys. You have attacked Black journalists, calling them losers, saying the questions they have asked are stupid and racist. You have had dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar-a-Lago resort. So my question, sir, now that you are asking Black supporters to vote for you: Why should Black voters trust you after you have used language like that?

Did Trump answer Scott’s question? Of course not. “I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner,” he began. “You don’t even say ‘hello, how are you?’ Are you with ABC? Because I think they’re a fake news network, a terrible network…I think it’s a very nasty question…I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.”

Scott followed up by asking him if he agreed with the some elected Republicans and other supporters that the vice president is a “DEI hire,” a put-down intended to cast doubt on her competence and legitimacy. After demanding a definition of DEI—as if he doesn’t know that the acronym stands for diversity, equity and inclusion—Trump soon began his attack on Harris’ heritage.

As Trump’s campaign has faltered as Harris rises, Trump may have hoped that his racist assault would trigger the vice president to defend her racial background and enable him to regain dominance. After days of witnessing the earthquake-level excitement surrounding the Democrats’ presumptive nominee, wouldn’t this be the way to take hold of the media’s attention and control the conversation?

Hours after Trump’s comments, Harris took the stage in Houston. Would she confront his racist remarks? Would she take the bait?

In short: No.

She began with a knowing smile as she mentioned that Trump had spoken earlier in the day at the NABJ’s annual meeting. Then she got serious:

It was the same old show: the divisiveness and the disrespect. And let me just say: The American people deserve better. The American people deserve better. The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth, a leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us—they are an essential source of our strength.

See what Harris did? She didn’t let Trump define the conversation. She took control of the narrative by emphasizing what Trump’s despicable behavior illustrates. She refused to be dragged into his tired, repetitive efforts to incite a racist fight. She focused on the kind of leader that America needs. And she made Trump look like a loser, a candidate who’s running scared and only able to employ his worn-out routine.

Harris’ remarkably effective approach over the last 12 days—incredibly, President Biden endorsed Harris’ candidacy less than two weeks ago—has benefited from her confidence, joyful exuberance and plain talk. Rather than speak in abstractions or largely conceptual policy language, she’s been tapping into the power of plain talk to make a strong emotional connection.

The use of the term “weird” to describe Trump and J.D. Vance has gotten plenty of attention and usage. You may not know what “fascist” or “authoritarian” or “tyrant” means exactly, but you know “weird” when you see it. Like Vance talking about “childless cat ladies” and insisting that childless women are miserable. Like Trump’s repeated discussions of the fictional Hannibal Lecter, as if he were a real person. Like Trump’s orange makeup and highly constructed hairdo.

I’ve been particularly struck by several other examples of this easily understood language, which, in her speeches before growing crowds, quickly have become lines to repeat. Several days ago during her campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia, she said, “So he won’t debate me, but he and his running mate have a lot to say about me. And by the way, don’t you find some of their stuff to just be plain weird?”

Then, winding up with great delight, she said, “Well, Donald, I do hope you’ll reconsider. Meet me on the debate stage...because as the saying goes, if you’ve got something to say, say it to my face.” She even gestured toward her own face as the boisterous crowd began to chant it. This is a confident candidate who’s not about to be bullied by Donald Trump.

You’ve probably also noticed the line she’s been using at the beginning of her speeches, referring to her history as a prosecutor and Trump’s history as a criminal convicted of fraud and liable for sexual assault: “Hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”

Those words help introduce her own bio and her readiness to prosecute the case against her opponent. But while that plain talk may not have staying power, this surely will: “We are not going back.” It’s a line that resonates at so many levels, from the GOP policy agenda and the rulings of the Supreme Court to a more general emotional place about the desire of Republicans to strip away freedoms and end American progress.

A week ago, Harris talked about Project 2025, “a plan to return America to a dark past.” She referenced agenda items such as cutting Medicare, $35 insulin, eliminating the Department of Education and ending the program Head Start, which provides pre-school for children in need. This is an “outright attack on our children, our families, our future,” she said. “But we are not going back. We are not going back.”

A week later, in an Instagram post with Megan Thee Stallion after the Georgia rally, the performer asked the vice president “What do you have to say to the American people?” Harris had one sentence: “We are not going back.”

It’s a message and a theme that will stick. When she said it during the Atlanta rally, the exuberant crowd began chanting it. And its simplicity has the kind of resonance that will make a flailing Trump—relying on racist tropes that will not expand his voting base—more and more scared. I don’t know what other plain talk will emerge over the next three months, but this approach is one powerful reason for hope.

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One last note: What a beautiful day yesterday to learn how successful diplomacy and strong engagement with American allies (particularly Germany) yielded the release from Russia of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, Putin opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and other pro-democracy dissidents. The murderous Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, negotiated the return of Vadim Krasikov, a convicted Russian assassin, and other criminals.

Most of all, this landmark exchange involving at least two dozen people is a win for the hostages and their families, but also for America’s president, vice president and every American who yearns for freedom and justice. President Biden called it “a feat of diplomacy.” No praise from Trump, of course, who would rather they all stayed imprisoned in order to exploit the false notion that he alone could make a deal happen with his buddy Vladimir.

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