Kamala Harris has been criticized by many on the right as the “DEI candidate,” since in 2020 Joe Biden made it clear he would select a “woman of color” for the role of vice president in advance of announcing her as his running mate. This line of attack may be counterproductive, though during her time in the Senate her legislative record was defined by trying to increase the role of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” within society, so one way or another she is the “DEI candidate.”
However, some of the same commentators taking this line, notably Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro, Blaze co-founder Glenn Beck, and Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon, have expressed anger that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was chosen by Harris as her own running mate over Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, alleging that “anti-semitism” within the modern Democratic Party could be the only cause of such a decision. In short, these individuals, “woke-servatives” I have been calling them, have shown they never had a principled opposition to “diversity hires,” even for the most important positions. It is clear that they simply want patronage to go to their favored minority group and are happy to cry “prejudice” if they don’t get their way.
One needs to allow that you can find Twitter users saying anything, and there surely were truly anti-semitic comments about the prospect of choosing Josh Shapiro as the vice presidential candidate. However, the three people listed above are major opinion-makers on the right, and are not random anons. The narrative that Shapiro was “snubbed” because of his religion is also being promoted by Fox News and much of the right wing media-sphere. Implicit in all of this is that Shapiro was the only reasonable pick for vice president and he could not be passed over for any other reason. This is one of the things that is commonly criticized about left-wing identitarianism: if you have that world view, whenever something doesn’t go your way you immediately attribute it to the prejudice of others. They remind me of Uncle Leo on Seinfeld, who believes the only possible explanation for his burger being overcooked is that the chef is an anti-semite.
Among what you could call “respectable” criticisms of Shapiro regarding Israel, the two biggest were an op-ed he wrote in college and his description of himself as having “volunteered” for the Israel Defense Forces as a young man. In his article he was skeptical of the Oslo Accords, and may have been immoderate in how he expressed skepticism that Palestinians would accept peace. But overall, his article wasn’t particularly hateful or offensive. For this, Shapiro has apologized, demonstrating that he is willing to acknowledge it’s a valid concern. Having volunteered for a foreign military—any foreign military—is a legitimate major concern about a vice presidential candidate. However, he did not mean that in the normal sense of volunteering for the armed forces; he meant that he worked with the Israeli embassy in Washington on a public service project as a teenager, helping them plant trees and that sort of thing. It was largely a misunderstanding, though of course it does demonstrate an attachment to Israel.
Personally, I don’t find either of the above facts to be particularly substantive once they are explained, but they are undeniably statements he made and actions he took. That is his personal record, not his religion or heritage being held against him. Even among leftists critical of Israel there was not consensus whether if Shapiro’s background was a problem. For example, Cenk Uyger of The Young Turks and Ryan Grim of Drop Site News felt that among the candidates Josh Shapiro was uniquely positioned to improve the United States’ Israel policy. Uyger argued that Shapiro’s ties to Israel might make him care enough about that country to work towards a long term solution since occupation is harming Israel’s soul, while Grim made an “only Nixon can go to China” argument; Shapiro is insulated from criticism and this uniquely positions him to rein in the relationship. I don’t buy either of those arguments, but the point is even anti-Israel progressives were split on him as a potential running mate. This mattering at all relies on the assumption that the Harris campaign even cares about anti-Israel progressives in the first place, something which is not really based on anything.
One of the main sources of consternation about the choice of Walz is that presidential running mates are known to primarily help with their own state and Democrats have the longest presidential winning streak in Minnesota of any state in the country. It could be that it is a cautious pick from a campaign that doesn’t expect to win, or a brash display of overconfidence, as if they don’t need help in any state. However, my thought is that Walz, who is deeply associated with draconian COVID restrictions and the BLM riots, is the pick for people who think that “blue states” were governed well in 2020. Only mental defectives, criminals, and the severely neurotic could possibly think that, but these are all core Democratic constituencies. Further, he is a white man which is their weakest demographic, and seems to have great appeal to white women who hate their fathers. There is a political logic to his selection, whether or not one thinks it was the right choice.
In most ways Kamala Harris was a far stranger choice than Tim Walz, given that she is from California, one of the strongest states for Democrats and further that black women are their most reliable sizable demographic. Of course, choosing only from that specific minority group was probably more designed to appeal to white liberals who want to give a “hand up” to a minority. However, if these identity considerations are paramount, it needs to be noted that since Kamala Harris’s husband is Jewish she already has a surrogate for outreach to that population group. We can at least take comfort in that for once standards seem to be evenly applied across the board: being married to an Indian woman does not protect J.D. Vance from accusations of racism, while Kamala being married to a Jew is not protecting her from accusations of anti-semitism. It may be stupid, but it is at least fair.
There are any number of reasons that the Harris campaign could have chosen Tim Walz. From what we know about the decision making process, it seems crucial that Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman—-a noted supporter of Israel—warned them against choosing Shapiro on grounds that he was too ambitious and self-serving. Since Shapiro is a rival of Fetterman within Pennsylvania state Democratic politics, it is possible that normal power dynamics within a party had the most impact on this decision. However, to the woke-servatives, all that matters is that Kamala’s ticket is not “diverse” enough because their favored minority wasn’t chosen, and they don’t feel equitably included. It seems that, yet again, the hacks on both sides have more in common than they would like to admit.
