Freedom Rider: The Russians are coming, for Kamala Harris

The lightweight senator hopes voters will let her party off the hook for its failures if the word Russia is repeated often enough.

Kamala Harris seems to love the Russiagate narrative more than any of the other Democratic Party presidential candidates. The lightweight senator who made a name for herself as a jailer of black people has to distract voters from her troubling history. The Russian bogeyman is a perfect fit. She is no different from the rest of the Democratic Party in pushing the phony tale but she seems to have a peculiar predilection for going where others will not. In so doing she tells outrageous lies about black people and their experience in this country.

In an appearance on The View television show Harris said she advocated the use of paper ballots because, “Russia can’t hack paper.” The comment was particularly bizarre. Even the most ardent of the conspiracy mongers don’t make the claim that the Russian government prevented the casting of ballots or the counting of votes.

On the other hand, electronic voting systems have stolen millions of votes from black people. If every vote had been counted in 2016, Hillary Clinton might have been declared the winner instead of Donald Trump. But the woman who uses her biracial identity as a calling card doesn’t mention how black people’s voting rights have been stolen by a rigged system.

In this regard she isn’t much different from the rest of the Democratic Party, which in 2000 and 2016 said nothing about the theft of the presidency from their candidates. Twice they were robbed by the inherently unjust electoral college but they have made no effort to get rid of the anachronism which can make the winner a loser.

The signature nervous giggle and stupid statements didn’t end with fantasies of non-existent Russian vote hacking. Harris is now negating black people’s political agency and lived experience regarding a subject that is viewed with the utmost importance. The wanton killing of black people by the police was met with mass outrage and football player Colin Kaepernick’s very public protest was met with unwavering support among black people.

But in a Breakfast Club radio show interview Harris claimed that only Russians gave the issue a public platform.

“Remember the heat that ended up around the bend the knee and Colin Kaepernick. Many smart people have said it actually was not a thing. The Russian bots started taking that on.”

“Do you feel you’re being targeted by Russian bots now?”

“We already know we are.”

It is difficult to know where to begin with that nonsensical statement but let’s start with “actually not a thing.” Lest we forget, Colin Kaepernick taking a knee in lieu of standing for the national anthem was a protest against the rampant police murders of black people. He took a very public stance and he received support from every segment of black society. The protest was real and so was the anger and indignation which spawned it. The racist reaction against him was also very real and was personified by Donald Trump who referred to Kaepernick and others who followed him as a “son of a bitch” who ought to lose his job.

Kamala Harris hopes that black voters are amnesiacs who will somehow forget an issue which is very important to them. Then again, her vapid appeal is probably meant for white voters, who she hopes will let her party off the hook for its failures if the word Russia is repeated often enough. Of course, they also respond to efforts to diminish issues of importance to black people. Much like Obama’s claim, “There is no white America. There is no black America,” Harris hopes that her erasure of police brutality as an issue will win her friends with white people.

But she is no Barack Obama. Harris does not have his political acumen. She was a careerist who made being a prosecutor her leg up in the political world. The job is one that is inherently hostile to black people’s interests and she faces a conundrum.

Her name conjures up memories of sending parents to jail if their children were truants, and mocking concerns about prison proliferation. However, she is among the favorites of the Democratic Party donor class and the corporate media may follow suit and ignore her claim that Russian bots are after her.

Those of us who aren’t check bundlers shouldn’t accept her asinine remarks. If Russian bots really have targeted her, she should contact the FBI. If she hasn’t done that, she should retract the statement. But so far she has gotten away with spewing foolishness and telling black people that they didn’t really support Colin Kaepernick as much as they thought.

No one has to support her and at the very least her penchant for stupidity ought to be pointed out. We already lived through a black president who talked over our heads to white people. There is no need for a Harris repeat. One can only hope that her game is exposed and she becomes little more than an historical footnote.

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well at freedomrider.blogspot.com.  Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.