Identity politics slanging match no help for the Donald

The former president at least met his critics head on. Where was Kamala Harris?

Donald Trump speaks at the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention in Chicago on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

Half of politics is showing up, even for a roomful of critics. That’s the best way to think about Donald Trump’s appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago on Wednesday.

In her opening question to Trump, Rachel Scott from ABC News told the former president “a lot of people” didn’t think he should be invited.

“You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals … saying they were not born in the United States”; told “four congresswomen of colour … to go back to where they came from”; and “attacked black journalists”, saying the questions they asked were “stupid and racist”, Scott said.

Trump called the question “rude” and “disgraceful”, but the Republican nominee had to know this wouldn’t be a lovefest.

Trump also said, oddly, that Kamala Harris was “always of Indian heritage” and he “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”.

That’s the identity politics trap Democrats want Trump to fall into, and he dived right in. Harris is multiracial and was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus as a senator and went to Howard University, a historically black college.

Trump’s answer stepped on his own best campaign message.

The former president has a good case that his economic policies helped black voters in his first term, especially compared to the Biden-Harris inflation that has cut real wages.

Trump also cited his support for historically black colleges and universities, as well as low inflation, robust economic growth and border controls, as reasons to support him.

That’s an argument journalists should want to hear and report to inform the public, instead of arguing to deplatform candidates they don’t like in the tradition of university cancel culture.

In the run-up to the event, journalist Imara Jones tweeted: “When I accepted my NABJ Journalist of Distinction award in 2022, I said that we have to resist our training which says that the truth always has two sides.”

That’s not journalism; it’s politics.

Scott said the NABJ was working to schedule an event with Harris in September.

The Vice-President originally declined the association’s invitation to appear in person, and she’s doing almost no interviews these days where she might get a hard question.

Give the NABJ credit for standing by its invitation to both candidates.

And to Trump for facing a hostile crowd.