The Rhetoric of Permanence and Change
Why Trump is obsessed with Kamala Harris' ethnic identity.
On July 31, Donald Trump was interviewed on stage at the National Association of Black Journalists. Not surprisingly, it didn’t go well.
Trump, again and again, has shown a lack of audience awareness when addressing a Black audience, even saying that his mugshot and selling gold high tops would bring him Black votes.
Early in the interview, Trump questioned Kamala Harris’ ethnic identity: “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or Black?”
On The Bulwark YouTube channel, Tim Miller said, “This is the craziest shit I’ve seen in a long time.” Tim pointed out the obvious–that she has a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, that she can be both, and that’s okay. That should be how we all respond.
Since the interview, many pundits have said that Trump’s comments are racist, but Trump is doubling down, as he often does. Clearly, one of Trump’s attacks on Harris will be that she has changed her ethnic identity to garner more votes from Blacks. The Trump campaign actually hoped, when still running against Biden, the white guy, that they might jump from about 8 percent of the Black vote to about 28 percent, drawing more male Black voters to their cause. Now, facing Kamala Harris instead, this seems unlikely. It was probably unlikely anyway.
One commentator has said that Trump has a 1970s view of race. I think it is more of a 1950s Strom Thurmond Dixiecrat view. Race is certainly a complicated issue, which is why MAGAs, who like binary thinking, don’t like identity politics.
I am not going to go deep into the complexities of race and how we talk about race. I will simply say that race, however conceived, always involves power issues. Trump wants to believe that Harris should be one thing that he can easily stereotype (he is saying, basically, know your place and stay there) and that Harris has no right to determine her own identity, especially if it is complex.
The desire to make racial identity orderly and rational always ends in absurdity, and that absurdity is nowhere more apparent than in Louisiana's 1724 Code Noir. The code has 54 articles that attempt to deal with the complexity of free Blacks living among slaves and the whole mess of sorting out mixed races and where they should be placed in the social hierarchy. The code, as I am sure that an eighteenth century Louisiana white man would point out, contains rights for slaves, so it’s not all bad. Slaves should be fed, and they should not be made to work on Sunday and holidays. Also, slaves can only be whipped for certain offenses.
But the code is mostly about making sure everyone knows their place and doesn’t get uppity. It prohibits, for example, marriage and intercourse between races. That didn’t work, so systems and terms to define race multiplied: Creole, Mulatto, Octoroons, etc. Trump didn’t call Harris a Mulatto, but he is part of this history.
There is, however, more to Trump’s strategy than just race–it relates to our core ambivalence, as humans, about change.
Put simply, we generally view change as positive when we control how we are changing and what is being changed in our environment. At the same time, we fear others who might force us to change. This is a concern about power. I want to control my own destiny. It is hard to understand and control the world around me when others, especially marginalized groups, keep changing.
We tend, not surprisingly, to distrust others who seem to change randomly, especially when we think we have figured them out. If we embrace a stereotype of Blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, and and they change, that is, they act in a way that does not fit my stereotype of them, then my whole world view is shaken. I may even be confused about who I am and how I fit in.
The charge of being a “flip-flopper,” that is, changing one’s views on an issue, goes back, at least, to the nineteenth century. There is some sense behind this charge. If we are electing a person to represent us and make decisions for us, we want to know what they stand for and we want their views to be consistent. Trump is one of the most inconsistent politicians in recent memory, probably in the entire history of our country. He used to be pro-choice; now, he brags about overturning Roe v. Wade. Yet, he claims that he has not changed his views—ever.
It would be nice, however, if politicians could change in positive ways, if their views could evolve. Harris will, almost certainly, be criticized for changing her views on fracking. Fracking will be an issue in some swing states, like Pennsylvania. She will need to frame this as an evolution of her thought, not a flip-flop.
More importantly, we need to accept that politicians might change, not just on issues, but in more important ways, like maturing in character or learning to see the world in new ways. A change in character is more likely to be viewed as positive if it fits into a narrative arc and if there is an event that precipitates that change. George W. Bush was a bad boy until he met Laura and experienced a religious conversion. Not simultaneously, but the events might have fused in George’s memory. With a clear narrative arc like this, it is difficult to use the old George W. (the bad boy) to criticize the new George W. (the sober and stable husband, father, and Christian). Before Bush ran for president, Boomer politicians were typically asked, during confirmation hearings, if they had ever used marijuana. Bill Clinton, who never lied, had to admit that he smoked dope–but he did not inhale. Since George W., smoking marijuana was no longer disqualifying.
Despite our concerns about change, the archetype of transformation is generally extremely persuasive. Just notice how many titles of YouTube videos promise to change your life in minutes by adopting a new habit or taking a new supplement. Yet, it is not an archetype that Trump uses in speeches. As I pointed out when discussing The Authoritarian Personality, the massive study published in 1950, those who are drawn toward totalitarianism tend to fear change, especially when it comes from the outside. Trump has repeatedly said that his views have been consistent for decades, even though he contradicts himself multiple times in a single speech.
He wants to present himself as stable and unchanging–therefore, as the person who can bring outward stability to the inner chaos of hardcore MAGAs. It is not surprising that he wants to portray Harris as being inconsistent–even in her racial identity.
There is another archetype that relates to change–the Trickster. The Trickster is a creature—not fully human—that is constantly changing. Examples are the Shapeshifter, werewolves, vampires, and witches. This figure not only changes its own identity; it also tricks others to act against their own interest. It can even disrupt the social order. Depending on the changes it forces upon others, it is either viewed as a savior or the devil. In psychology, as opposed to myth and folktales, it is the Shadow, the dark demon within, that causes us to act against our conscious character. Jung writes that the Trickster archetype is about the power of the unconscious to change the individual–for good or ill:
The so-called civilized man has forgotten the trickster. He remembers him only figuratively and metaphorically, when, irritated by his own ineptitude, he speaks of fate playing tricks on him or things being bewitched. He never suspects that his own hidden and apparently harmless shadow has qualities whose dangerousness exceeds his wildest dreams. As soon as people get together in masses and submerge the individual, the shadow is mobilized, and, as history shows, may even be personified and incarnated. (Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, p. 267)
Trump is trying to say that Kamala Harris is a Trickster. But the quote from Jung sounds more like Trump and hardcore MAGAs. It should also remind us of recent history. Jung wants us to remember what happened in Nazi Germany.