Accusing Candidates of Being “DEI Hires” Avoids the Hard Work of Criticizing Them on Substance

In defense of effort

When was the last time you convinced someone to switch who they were going to vote for? Americans, more than ever, are showing an impenetrable solidity to their political opinions. Defections are becoming rarer, disapproval ratings of leaders remain stagnant, and there’s a documented trend of people disassociating from members of the opposing tribe.

Blame all the usual reasons, but also consider that it’s hard work making a substantive case for or against a presidential candidate. Noah Smith took over 5000 words to make the case against Trump and for Joe Biden (a piece he should probably update), and I doubt he just cooked these up on his ride to work. Even if we weren’t so politically polarized, most people aren’t like Noah, and just don’t have good arguments or a command of essay structure. Often this is a matter of effort, and so I use this piece to push back on choices that reduce the effort of criticizing or promoting leaders.

A prime example is the line of attack that Kamala Harris is a “DEI hire”. Here’s a stronger case of it:

I was working in DEI and diversity recruiting for tech before it took off, or the corporate equal of affirmative action. In theory, one is the beneficiary of affirmative action if one is put over the top due to race or gender, all other things being equal. I’ve also seen people get hired for their race or gender over their abilities, and it turned out badly. There is this idea that observing Harris as the beneficiary of affirmative action is a right wing talking point. At the outset, Biden said he was going to pick a black woman, which is choosing someone based on their race and gender. If the contest in this context is the primary, he chose someone who came dead last and dropped out before the first one. I’m struggling to understand how Harris was not an affirmative action pick. The left is truly allergic to stating things outright; uncomfortable truths become right wing talking points. Not only did he say he was picking a black woman¹, he was considering a shortlist of four black women at the time. If we don’t want to hand republicans talking points, maybe we shouldn’t act like caricatures.

I’m sympathetic to the strategic criticism implied here. It’s fair to argue that the Democratic party’s electoral interests align with moderating their image on affirmative action, regardless of your stance on affirmative action. It’s further fair to say that the VP selection process shouldn’t invite the impression that diversity was prioritized at all costs, regardless of whether that actually happened and regardless of your stance on diversity. But the object-level question of whether Harris is actually a DEI hire should receive a smaller share of attention, because it’s lazy and unimportant, regardless of your stance on laziness or unimportance. Move on already.

I continue by appealing to critics of affirmative action and identity politics. For them, a core frustration is that we’ve lost interest in substantive appraisals of things. In their minds, pop culture and politicians are being assessed more and more by appeals to identity, placing them outside the reach of legitimate criticism. “It’s her turn”, “I’m a woman, vote for me”, and “if you support him, you must be racist” are all mantras, imagined or otherwise, that illustrate this tendency.

Now, I have liberal brain worms, so of course I think diversity is good. I believe this for all the usual reasons: because I value heterogeneity of thought, because diversity isn’t in conflict with meritocracy, because I want to see the entire white race replaced, etc. Despite all that, I share some of the frustrations of anti-identarian types, and would like to see liberals focus more on merit – especially since it would often be a boon to their side of this debate. For example, if a movie features diverse casting, liberals should be comfortable saying that the most qualified actor got the role. To pick an example I have no personal stake in (because I am an adult), let’s look at the new Little Mermaid adaptation. It should be on the table to argue that Halle Bailey was the best fit for the role – diversity considerations aside – even by the dubiously meritocratic standards of the film industry. The fact that so few would even weigh in on that question is an embarrassment; it’s not as if “diversity picks” always involve barrel-scraping.

Similarly, if I support Harris, then that should be based on the totality of reasons why she is a suitable presidential candidate. I grant that diversity milestones could be one of those reasons – though that’s probably just my 9th COVID shot doing the talking – but my support is more robust when her other qualities get proportionate attention. If there are 100 reasons to support Harris, and diversity is only one of them, then we can’t expect it to be more important than the other 99 reasons combined, right? Taken another way, genuine enthusiasm about Harris should demand that we extol all of her good qualities, not just fixate on one of them.

Sadly, in these debates, I’ve found that identity politics skeptics can be just as guilty of an indifference to the substantive, often casting the first stone. I further accuse them of hypocrisy, since moving on from easy clichés about identity is ostensibly a goal of theirs. For example, obsessing over the DEI question actually reduces the primacy of merit, because now Harris’s critics aren’t talking about the issues, which should always be the starting point. Given the choice between making a detailed case against Harris, and insinuating that she was selected only for diversity reasons, most have opted for the choice requiring the least effort. Regardless of how passionately you believe it to be true, that attack is just as facile and unoriginal as any identity-focused defense of Harris, something affirmative action skeptics would universally oppose.

It’s easy to say “Harris is a DEI hire”. It’s hard to go into depth explaining why not to vote for her, or why to cast a vote for her opponent. When I see people parrot this line, I just find it so lazy. The fact that it takes so little effort makes me immediately suspicious of the fixation on it; it’s the easy mode version of criticizing a candidate. I felt the same way towards attacks on Ted Cruz for being born in Canada, as well as attacks on Canada for Ted Cruz being born in it. No matter what case can be made for these being true or important, they’re low on the list of reasons to oppose one’s candidacy, deflecting focus from their platforms – in other words, from substantive criticism.

The case for Kamala being a DEI hire is not that strong

Harris’s qualifications should be scrutinized no more or less than any other candidate. If you could make a slam dunk case against her, it might be worthwhile to question whether diversity was given too much weight in her selection as vice president. This could fairly be applied to Sarah Palin, who was certifiably a looney tune, and who would have been a danger to humanity if she assumed the presidency. Still, you should probably establish that before pivoting to whether she was chosen unmeritocratically. A campaign focused on Palin being chosen for affirmative action reasons would have been exceptionally weak; there existed much better arguments to deploy against the McCain/Palin ticket. One can criticize a process independent of its outcomes, but with Harris the outcomes aren’t being discussed nearly enough, probably because that would take effort.

In the past 20 years, VP’s haven’t been chosen solely for their direct qualifications. Biden, Pence, Kaine, and Cheney were arguably the most qualified to step in as president should disaster strike, though Edwards, Palin, Ryan, Harris, and Vance likely weren’t selected on that basis. Even in the first four cases, on top of their qualifications, candidates were chosen for reasons of optics and contrast: Biden was white and old, Pence was pious and experienced, Kaine was male and Virginian, and Cheney was cute and relatable.

Some diversity considerations always factor into the selection of a running mate, including regional diversity, age diversity, and, yes, racial and gender diversity. No hallowed traditions were defiled in choosing Harris as Biden’s successor. One might still push for a normative shift towards prioritizing qualifications, even if that’s not how we’ve always done it. Now would be a suspicious time to enforce such a norm, but arguing for it would at least take effort, which is more than can be said for typing “Kamala=DEI”, then pressing “send”.

I would note that mainstream Harris defenders are at least consistent with their diversity appeals. It’s sad that Harris was basically required by law to choose a white guy as her running mate, but most also thought she should, because duh. Matt Yglesias’s insistences to the contrary were baffling, saying that he was “very intrigued by a Buttigieg + Ritchie Torres ticket”, or one of Harris and Whitmer. The fact that this was such a minority position should have made it suspect in a context where electability is at issue. Two gay guys on a presidential ticket? Two women on a ticket? In America? For real? I think Selina Meyer put it well:

KENT: Well, we could go all female, ma'am.

SELINA: Are you trying to blow up the universe now?!

This doesn’t mean Harris could have chosen any unqualified dufus as her running mate, but neither did Biden. If you disagree, then actually address that question, preferably using complete sentences.

Harris has been VP for almost four years. Unless you have a cartoonish understanding of the VP’s role as just “someone who cuts ribbons and attends funerals”, the burden is on her detractors to explain why she is currently unqualified. The ball is in their court. When they actually do something with the ball, it will be because they applied effort.

1. Some minor factual errors that don’t detract from the overall point: firstly, it’s misleading to say Harris came in “dead last”, since there were dozens of serious candidates and she outpolled the majority of them. Secondly, in his final primary debate against Sanders, Biden only promised he would pick a woman as his running mate, not specifying race. However, it’s true that as circumstances changed, he narrowed his options down to Harris, Susan Rice, Val Demings, and Karen Bass.