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Notes -
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.
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.
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 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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