On Harris and DEI, an Exercise in Missing the Point

Will Saletan argues at the Bulwark that anyone who referred to Kamala Harris as a “DEI hire” has an obligation to say the same of Tim Walz because Harris herself was very obviously deliberate in considering a short list of running mates composed entirely of white males. It’s amusingly ironic to note that when you hire for race and gender, that leads to . . . more hiring for race and gender by the person who was hired for those reasons.

Of course, some perspective is important: American politics has always been representative. National tickets and cabinets have always been constructed with one eye on an identity politics balance of one sort or another, be it regional balance, a balance of party factions, or a balance of religion, age, or other demographics. As I’ve noted in my two-part history of VP picks, Thomas Jefferson took Aaron Burr because he was a New Yorker, George H. W. Bush took Dan Quayle because he was young, JFK needed LBJ because he was a more experienced Southern Protestant, etc. But the key question is always: Did your ticket-balancing lead you to pick somebody with no business on a national ticket? That was the argument leveled by Democrats against Quayle and Sarah Palin, for example. And it reflects the problem with Joe Biden’s choice of Harris, which ended up bequeathing us not just Harris as vice president but now Harris as a presidential candidate who has never won a single presidential primary.

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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Will Saletan argues at the Bulwark that anyone who referred to Kamala Harris as a “DEI hire” has an obligation to say the same of Tim Walz because Harris herself was very obviously deliberate in considering a short list of running mates composed entirely of white males. It’s amusingly ironic to note that when you hire for race and gender, that leads to . . . more hiring for race and gender by the person who was hired for those reasons.

Of course, some perspective is important: American politics has always been representative. National tickets and cabinets have always been constructed with one eye on an identity politics balance of one sort or another, be it regional balance, a balance of party factions, or a balance of religion, age, or other demographics. As I’ve noted in my two-part history of VP picks, Thomas Jefferson took Aaron Burr because he was a New Yorker, George H. W. Bush took Dan Quayle because he was young, JFK needed LBJ because he was a more experienced Southern Protestant, etc. But the key question is always: Did your ticket-balancing lead you to pick somebody with no business on a national ticket? That was the argument leveled by Democrats against Quayle and Sarah Palin, for example. And it reflects the problem with Joe Biden’s choice of Harris, which ended up bequeathing us not just Harris as vice president but now Harris as a presidential candidate who has never won a single presidential primary.