Can Vice President Kamala Harris do even one small thing without Republicans attacking her over it? Evidence suggests not.
The latest: The Republican National Committee is circulating an out-of-context video of Harris introducing herself at a roundtable event by saying, “I am Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, and I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.” As we know, Republicans do hate the idea that a person’s pronouns might not be immediately the most obvious thing about them, but about that “woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit” part. The missing context is that Harris was at a roundtable on the overturn of Roe v. Wade as a disability rights issue, and she was describing herself for the benefit of visually impaired people at the event.
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The RNC wants people talking about Harris having the temerity to introduce herself in a way that would be helpful to the people she was speaking to. Because Republicans want us to believe that a major problem in our government and our culture is the vice president taking an extra four seconds to give a brief description of herself to be respectful of people who cannot clearly see her.
They don’t want us talking about the substance of the event, which was held on the 32nd anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act and weeks after the Supreme Court allowed extreme abortion bans to go into effect in many states.
The “abortion restrictions that are being put in place around our country by extremist so-called leaders in various states will have a disproportionate impact on people with disabilities,” Harris noted in her opening remarks. “People with disabilities have higher rates of pregnancy complications, and, in fact, 11 times more likely to die before, during, and after childbirth. This is a fact.”
There are other impacts as well. “We know that people with disabilities have more difficulty traveling to then receive the type of reproductive care that they need,” she pointed out. “People with disabilities are more likely to experience poverty and mobility challenges. People with disabilities experience higher rates of sexual violence. And this is compounded by poverty and mobility issues when it comes to this subject, which is access to reproductive care, and so many other issues.”
That’s the substance: The harm Republican policies are doing to people with disabilities. Republicans don’t want to focus on that. “A woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit” was basic courtesy. Republicans are eager to advertise that they oppose that.
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