1y ago

"She’s a woman, she's colored": Ex-Trump official Seb Gorka calls Kamala Harris a "DEI hire"

www.salon.com

The former Trump official joins a group of Republicans who have referred to the vice president as a diversity hire

Newsmax personality and former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka described Vice President Kamala Harris a “DEI hire” and “colored” in an interview on Tuesday.

In the segment, Gorka, himself accused of inflating his credentials as a terrorism expert, predicted that Biden will be forced to withdraw from the presidential race if major Democratic donors “pull the plug.”

78 comments

They've watered it down to the point of meaninglessness. She's not a hire. She's elected. You can't even call it DEI unless you poll every American about why they voted for her.
Spoiler: because she was attached to the ticket.
- DEI is just a slur now. It’s their new broad-stroke insult for anyone who isn’t a straight cis white man.
  Consider the people who, after the ship hit the bridge, referred to “Baltimore’s DEI mayor.”
  
  Yup, they latch onto concepts that they don't really understand but know are opposed to white superiority: woke, DEI, CRT. Then they use them as a catch all for "bad thing."
- She's not a hire.
  She was chosen by Joe Biden to be his running mate, after Biden had already cinched the Democrat nomination.
  
  Thank you for elaborating without contradicting.
  
  President and Vice President are elected as a team. I'm sorry that you see that as her "not getting elected" because you are wrong.
  She was elected Vice President. She is first in line to be President.
  Ask Sarah Palin if the VP name on the ticket matters.
- You should dig up that tweet so we can all spam him with it. Papa Musk can't save him from all of us
Right right so DEI just means "anyone not white, male and cishet".
- I've never seen cishet written before and I'm here trying to pronounce it... Maybe it's pronounced "cishay" like French? I figured it out in the end.
  
  cis-het
  
  Pretty sure it's sashay because it's French and it drives people nuts on multiple levels /s
- As long as DEI, Affirmative Action, positive discrimination, w/e state encouraged discrimination is called nowadays exists, people will always question whether someone is there on merit or if they're here to fill a quota.
  
  I thing you meant to say "Bigots will use it as an excuse to question."
What kind of non-Aryan name is Gorka? I don't think that this guy is white enough in name, and certainly not in looks, to start popping off on ethnicity and race.
- It's Polish. So definitely white, but not one of the good white places (to them).
I hope she gets the candidacy, not because I'm particularly enthusiastic about her politics (beggers can't be choosers these days), but if for no other reason than to watch the right's wall-eyed, impotent rage.
- We got a small taste of that during the Obama years… just imagine what happens when you multiply African-American with South Asian and female! I think we’ll see those whose masks have been slowly cracking through the ‘45’ years go absolutely balls-to-the-wall mask off. It will be an interesting four years to say the least!
  Honestly, a part of me wants the Dump to be completely disqualified from running; Biden to step aside; and Nikki Haley to come back from the grave so that there’s a contest between two South Asian women for president. The voting public’s mind would EXPLODE.
  
  The right is entirely consolidated though, there is no room for a burst of silent bigots. Trump only garners around a quarter of the electorate, probably even less at this point, he is easily beatable it just needs to be someone who's not Biden.
  Also, Obama won both terms, so I'm not sure what you mean. Dems ran a really bad candidate in 2016, depressing turn out of their own potential voters. Harris doesn't have the baggage Clinton has.
  Conceding to misogynists and bigots from the get go is a non-starter as far as I'm concerned.
- Not a good reason. I'm of the opinion that half the reason we got Trump in 2016 was because the right's wall-eyed rage against Hillary turned out to be not so impotent after all. Everyone thought Trump would lose, but the right hated Hillary so much, it gave even those who were unmotivated by Trump a reason to go out just to vote against her. Anything that motivates the right to get up and go vote is a bad thing.
  
  Nah, she also has better polling than Biden. I'd rather have a chance to win than definitely lose, Harris is the most realistic option.
  The rage from the right has reached its saturation point, there simply aren't enough bigots left to boost Trump's numbers. Only way Dems lose is they fail to produce turn out, Biden simply has too much toxic baggage.
Meanwhile a British Hungarian Nazi grifter is essentially a diversity hire for the GOP.
- No...his qualifications as a racist douchbag clearly made him the best choice for this role.
He may be wrong in his motives and his word choice but he's right that the fact that she's black and a woman was just as important as her credentials when she was picked as the VP candidate in 2020. If you don't believe that just go read the post primary articles from that year talking about how Biden needed to pick someone not white as his running mate to pull in minority votes. Obviously this doesn't mean she isn't also qualified but you're kidding yourself if you don't acknowledge the reality that her skin color and gender were both primary factors in her selection. I'm not sure why that's so difficult for people to say out loud.
- Because without context it comes across as racist.
  Which is exactly what these people are being when they are saying that she is a diversity hire. Basically that she was only hired because she is black/indian, and a woman, not because she is qualified.
  
  Republicans worship the concept of meritocracy as long as the discussion is only about white people and not about billionaires or minorities...
  
  He's definitely saying it for racist reasons it just seems odd to me that people usually push back on that by saying race had nothing to do with it. It obviously did it's just not the only factor like he's saying it is.
We're supposed to give a shit what racist Count Olaf from Lemony Snicket's thinks!?
You ever seen someone who just wants to scream the N word? I can feel the n word circling his body like it's a pee just pushing at the ancient prostate you know?
Fuck racists.
Colored
And somehow I’m not surprised that a crusty old racist just straight up used a Jim Crow era descriptor to refer to the VPOTUS..
Gorka much prefers nepotistic hires, like the kind you find in the governments of China, Russia and Trump's cabinet.
This guy has a radio show that I found while searching for a station in the rural south. It is oddly fascinating (and enraging) to listen to on long drives.
The people calling in are especially... Enlightening? It's particularly interesting how many easily disprovable outright falsehoods that people fervently believe and want to call in to talk about.
Yet under that logic, he's one of those born outside the US poisoning the country.
Despite my general pacifism, I think this sort of person is best judged by the theoretical punch-ability of their face. Gorka is "I'm gonna need a baseball bat" level.
The good news is that not even the Trumpkins like him.
Our nation is backsliding at supersonic speed. We need more bre..er, brakes
Tell him he's a gypsy DEI.
- Thought he looked more like a goblin or maybe a vampire from dusk till down
  
  As a Hungarian, he'll be more offended at being called gypsy
He looks more and more like a Dick Tracy villain every time I see a picture of him.
- Flattop?
Newsmax doesn't even hire people, let alone a "personality".
Is this the same Seb Gorka who called himself "Doctor" and the magabrained never said anything, then went on to have fainting spells when Jill Biden was called "Doctor"?
There will come a time when Kamala will tear apart somebody like Gorka, limb to limb, and then they'll be saying "she's too mean". It's happened before.
Of course she was a DEI hire, just like KJP, or is there anybody that thinks she was really the best person for the job? And Kamala was put in charge of the border early on. Look how that turned out.
Considering nobody likes her I don't think he's wrong. She's like Biden only even more right wing and pro-police.
- Still better than Trump.
  
  Obviously but I don't believe in whataboutism and I don't see what this has to do with Trump.
- I hate that lemmy has become reddit. Downvoted for stating facts. You can easily Google "Kamala Harris favorability" and her political positions.
  
  I literally just stared facts but the person who said "but what about Trump?" got two time more upvotes. People on this platform cannot hold nuanced political discussion, it's all whataboutism and logical fallacies.
Biden himself gives the impression that Harris is a diversity hire when he repeatedly sidelines her and refuses to step aside and let her take over.
- Wow, it's like an NYT Pitchbot headline: "Trump supporters are unapologetic, mask-off bigots. Here's why that reflects poorly on Biden."
  
  My point is, are the Republicans wrong? Is she not a diversity hire? Biden chose her, and he certainly acts like she’s a diversity hire.
  If Biden didn’t pick her as a diversity hire, he should act like it.
  Edit: Also, the fact that Democrats aren’t all rallying around Harris suggests that Democrats see her as a diversity hire.
  They want Buttigieg. They want Newsome. They want Whitmer. They want everyone but Harris.

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