Harris is confronting the ‘war on woke’ head-on: And voters are listening

Over the past several months, Republicans have waged a so-called “war on woke.” 

State legislatures have passed bans on the teaching of critical race theory and “don’t say gay” laws, prohibited healthcare treatment for transgendered minors, limited abortion to as few as six weeks and banned books from school libraries dealing with race, history, sexual orientation and gender identity.  

This April in Tennessee, the Republican state legislature expelled two African American legislators, Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson, depriving 135,000 people in their districts of representation. A white female representative, Gloria Johnson, was saved from the same fate by just one vote. These actions came after yet another school shooting, this time in Nashville, when three nine-year-olds, the school’s principal and two teachers were gunned down. 

The so-called “Tennessee three” protested the intransigence of Republican legislators from even debating the state’s gun laws just as the House Speaker turned off their microphones. Instantly, they were vaulted from obscurity to fame, and received an invitation to meet with President Biden who thanked them for “standing up.” Shortly after, Memphis City Council reinstated their positions and, in June, voters officially returned the two expelled legislators to their rightful places.  

Now, in Florida, the State Board of Education — in compliance with the “Stop Woke Act” signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in 2022 — has instructed that middle schoolers should be taught that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” DeSantis hailed the mandate as setting "the most robust standards in African American History in the country" and denounced opponents as favoring “woke indoctrination.” 

Into the breach has stepped Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls Republican leaders spearheading these efforts "extremists," saying, "They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, and we will not stand for it." 

As the first woman, first African American and first South Asian to occupy the vice presidency, Harris is uniquely positioned to speak to these issues. On the one-year anniversary after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Harris condemned the Dobbs decision: 

“The highest court in our land — the court of Thurgood [Marshall] — the court of RBG [Ruth Bader Ginsberg] — took a constitutional right, that had been recognized, from the people of America, from the women of America. A fundamental right. A basic freedom.” Harris then added, “How dare they!”  

After the Tennessee legislature ousted the two Black legislators, Harris immediately traveled to the state and condemned those who told the “Tennessee three” to “sit down and be quiet.” She derided those who supported their ouster, saying: “You can’t walk around with your lapel pin, and you’re not representing the values we hold dear as Americans.” Summoning the memory of civil rights protests during the 1960s, Harris declared, “We march on.” 

After the Florida board adopted its new curriculum standards, the vice president immediately instructed her staff to rearrange her schedule and plan a trip to the state. Speaking before an enthusiastic mixed-race audience, Harris denounced the newly enacted Florida mandate. 

Citing the abuses inflicted on African Americans, Harris accurately noted that slavery “involved rape. It involved torture. It involved taking a baby from their mother. It involved some of the worst examples of depriving people of humanity in our world. It involved subjecting to people the requirement that they would think of themselves and be thought of as less than human.” 

She concluded: “How is it that anyone could suggest that in the midst of these atrocities, that there was any benefit to being subjected to this level of dehumanization? In the midst of these atrocities, that there was some benefit?”  

Republican presidential candidate Will Hurd, himself an African American, joined Harris in denouncing the new standard, dryly observing that “slavery wasn’t a jobs program.” But in more ways than one, Hurd is a minority voice within today’s Trump-dominated Republican Party. In 2020, Donald Trump labeled critical race theory a “Marxist doctrine” whose teaching represents a form of “child abuse.”  

While Republicans wage their war on woke, Kamala Harris is mobilizing key elements of the diverse coalition that elected her and Joe Biden in 2020. Unlike the first-time voters of the 1930s who supported Franklin D. Roosevelt, or the young Americans who voted for Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, today’s young voters are not wedded to either party but require both persuasion and motivation to bring them to the polls. This is especially true for young African Americans for whom the civil rights triumphs of the 1960s are historical artifacts. 

Women are another key Democratic constituency whose support in large numbers is also crucial. In the post-Dobbs era, abortion has become a defining issue for these voters. A recent NBC News poll found that, on a scale of 1 to 10, 43 percent of women chose 10 in naming abortion as an “extremely important” issue.  

Harris labels herself a “joyful warrior” in urging all these key constituencies to organize and vote. 

Congressional Republicans like to mock Harris, with some stating that having her ensconced in the vice presidency gives them pause in exacting retribution against the double impeachments of Donald Trump by inflicting the same punishment on Joe Biden. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) derisively calls Harris “a shrewd insurance policy” against any potential Biden impeachment.  

Boebert is right that Kamala Harris is an insurance policy — one that, in this case, is helping to ensure the reelection of the Biden-Harris ticket.  

John Kenneth White is a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America. His latest book, co-authored with Matthew Kerbel, is titled, “American Political Parties: Why They Formed, How They Function, and Where They’re Headed.”