How will The New York Times treat the Democrat’s sudden frontrunner for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, VP Kamala Harris? Monday’s front-page Times story by Michael Shear was supportive but relatively muted, expressing a little uncertainly among Democrats: “After a Shaky Start, Harris Is Suddenly on Brink of Leading Democratic Ticket.”
But if Harris is crowned Trump’s official challenger for the presidency, expect the tone to shift dramatically in favor of Harris and perhaps even more so against her Republican critics.
Before Harris actually assumed the office of vice president in 2020 and proved herself an embarrassing dud via her many gaffes and awkward public appearances, the New York Times fiercely, falsely defended her against “racist, sexist attacks” from Republicans and Fox News.
The Times went on an absolute tear in defense of VP-candidate Harris, from calling Trump’s own vice president Mike Pence a sexist to turning every conservative argument against Harris into proof of her opponents’ underlying, yes, “racism and sexism.”
The opening sentence of an August 12, 2020 story after Joe Biden picked Harris to be his running mate set the hysterical tone of the paper’s coverage:
From the first hours after Joseph R. Biden Jr. chose Kamala Harris as his running mate, President Trump, his Republican allies and conservative hosts on Fox News unfurled a string of sexist attacks on Ms. Harris.
When the vice president’s debate rolled around in October 2020, reporter Maggie Astor plunged full force into the shameless smear in her pathetic defense of Harris in “Facing a ‘Double Bind’ of Racism and Sexism.” Astor unearthed racist tropes in every word a conservative dared use to describe Harris:
These caricatures and double standards have been accompanied by sexualization, common against women of all races but especially those who are Black. This is another racist trope, the promiscuous, hypersexual “Jezebel.”
Literally anything critical of Kamala was considered racist by deluded Astor:
But the same tendency can be seen in smaller forms, like the frequent mispronunciations of her name and descriptions of her as inauthentic, including calling her 'phony.'
Even before the VP debate, reporters Sydney Ember and Lisa Lerer wrote:
While many Democrats view Ms. Harris as a barrier-breaking hero, Fox News hosts and conservative media outlets have mounted racist and sexist assaults on her reputation, painting her as a radical leftist.
Fast-forward to early July 2024 and the Times’ Erica Green hailing Harris while accusing the GOP of, you guessed it, “racism and sexism.”
In recent days, the Trump campaign and Republican critics have amped up their attacks on her, hinting at how a Harris candidacy could lead to even more of the kinds of racist and sexist assaults that she has been fending off during her time as vice president.
