Vice President Kamala Harris made headlines by giving a totally normal answer to whether America is a racist country.
The moment: During an appearance on “Good Morning America” on Thursday, Harris was asked about Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina’s rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s first address to Congress the previous evening.
- ABC News host George Stephanopoulos noted that Scott had said, “America is not a racist country,” and added, “Do you agree with that?”
“No, I don’t think America is a racist country,” Harris replied. “But we also do have to speak truth about the history of racism in our country and its existence today.”
- “What we know from the intelligence community, one of the greatest threats to our national security is domestic terrorism manifested by white supremacists,” she continued.
The reaction: While Harris’s partial defense of America would’ve been totally expected from most vice presidents, in her case, it was news.
- That’s because Harris, like Biden, has often promoted the ascendant progressive narrative that America is racist to its bones.
- “America has a long history of systemic racism,” she said last week after the Derek Chauvin verdict. “[Racial injustice] is keeping us from fulfilling the promise of liberty and justice for all, and it is holding our nation back from realizing our full potential.”
Critics of the left pointed out that commentators had just finished condemning Scott, often in racist terms, for making the point Harris agreed with.
Sen. Lindsey Graham triggered similar, albeit less intense, outcry when he earlier this week defended American in the exact same terms as his fellow South Carolina Republican.
- In an appearance on Fox News, Graham cited Harris’ election as proof that Biden was wrong to accuse the U.S. of “systemic racism.”
- “We just elected a two-term African American president. The vice president is of African-American-Indian descent,” he said. “So our systems are not racist. America is not a racist country.”
