Opinion: Why abortion attacks and diatribes against Harris’ race and gender miss the mark in Michigan

In this op-ed, CEO of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan, Paula Thornton Greear, says that attacks on Kamala Harris over her race and gender fall flat in Michigan, where voters prioritize diversity and inclusion.

When Vice President Kamala Harris launched her presidential campaign, voters nationwide quickly mobilized. In just a few weeks, the first Black and South Asian American woman to earn a major party nomination secured record-breaking campaign donations, volunteers, and swift endorsements from reproductive health organizations like Planned Parenthood Action Fund, climate and environmental coalitions, youth advocacy groups, racial justice advocates, and major labor unions.

Unfortunately, Harris’ opponents chose to meet this moment of history and hope with a resurgence of blatant racism and sexism. U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) was among the first to issue an attack labeling Harris a “DEI vice president,” a line that’s since been echoed and amplified by Donald Trump, his followers, and political leaders nationwide.

While they seem to think they’re being clever, this line of attack is hardly new. Conservative movements have a long history of perpetuating narratives — which are steeped in white supremacy and cloaked in the guise of meritocracy — that Black people and other historically marginalized groups can only succeed and ascend to leadership roles due to quotas and preferential treatment rather than their qualifications, education, and experience. 

These attacks — like the people perpetuating them — may be old and tired, as Harris rightly pointed out during the recent presidential debate, but we can’t afford to ignore them. We must call these attacks out for what they are: a strategy designed to reinforce the belief that only white men are qualified to run our country — and a political tool to distract and divide Americans along the lines of race, religion, national origin, and immigration status.

For anyone who knows Michigan, these racist attacks reflect a disconnect with the broader electorate. Michigan’s electorate is more diverse than ever before, and the age-old politics of division and hatred struggle to align with our values — and they don’t win elections. Our voters include Indigenous peoples, immigrants and their descendants, as well as the descendants of those who were enslaved. 

Indigenous peoples have called this land home for thousands of years, while others have come to Michigan from all corners of the globe to find meaningful work, escape war, enjoy religious freedom, and seek opportunity for their families. This rich tapestry of experiences, including the enduring legacy of Indigenous peoples and the enslaved, has shaped a political landscape where Michigan elects leaders who protect our freedoms and govern in our name.

This is the state that, in 2018, elected Garlin Gilchrist II, a Black man, as Lt. Governor and several women to statewide office, including Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, and Attorney General Dana Nessel. It’s a state where, in 2022, voters turned out in record numbers to enshrine abortion rights into our state constitution and deliver pro-reproductive freedom majorities in both the Michigan House and Senate for the first time in nearly four decades. While challenges remain, it’s a state that continues to reflect a political climate that is complex and evolving, serving as a political bellwether for the country.

Despite this — and signals that some in the Republican Party desperately want Trump to focus on Harris’ policy positions — Trump’s hateful attacks on Harris’ racial identity and gender continue to escalate. Both are likely signs of desperation; while Trump charges full steam ahead at the helm of the Titanic, his party is trying too late to change course.

This same tension plays out in their attempts to run from their anti-abortion records. Nearly two-thirds of Americans support abortion access in all or most cases. For people under 30, that number rises to nearly 80 percent. They know this. Yet Republican-controlled state legislatures have banned or severely restricted abortion access in 22 states since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and anti-abortion extremists have already laid out a blueprint, known as Project 2025, for enacting a national abortion ban if Trump wins in November.

They must have thought that their years of partisan gerrymandering would protect them from the consequences of their actions, but recent attempts at gaslighting voters are revealing cracks in their confidence. Republican Mike Rogers, who is running for Michigan’s US Senate seat, has downplayed his long record of attacks on abortion rights in Congress. A vulnerable Republican candidate in Nebraska quietly deleted anti-abortion endorsements from his website. After proudly governing and campaigning on extreme anti-abortion policies, North Carolina’s Republican candidate for governor put out an ad sharing his wife’s personal abortion story. 

The morning after the Democratic National Convention, Donald Trump posted, “My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights,” to his Truth Social account, but in the weeks since, he’s repeatedly flip-flopped on whether or not he’ll vote to uphold an abortion ban Florida in November, publicly contradicted his running mate on whether or not he’ll sign a national ban into law, and continues to repeat his wild claims that Democrats support “post-birth abortion.” None of them can seem to get their stories straight — and they aren’t fooling anyone.

In contrast, Harris, who has promised to sign reproductive freedom into law as president, has her fingers on the pulse of American values far better than her opponents do — and they know it. That’s exactly why they’re attacking her identity rather than her policy positions. It’s all they’ve got. They don’t even have “concepts of a plan.”

Despite their coordinated attempts to smear her as a “DEI candidate,” the Vice President’s popularity continues to soar, both in Michigan and nationwide, because voters know that Vice President Harris is immensely qualified with years of governing experience at the highest levels. And they know that being a Black and South Asian American woman gives her multiple lenses through which to see our nation’s challenges — and their solutions.

While Trump continues to run a campaign centered on bigotry, hatred, and division — most recently using the presidential debate stage to passionately and inexplicably double down on a widely-debunked internet conspiracy theory that immigrants in Ohio are eating people’s pets, without a shred of evidence — Harris’ campaign is instead laser-focused on amassing a winning coalition centered around a vision of moving forward, not backward. And rather than hand-wringing about her electability, we are celebrating her ascent because representation is powerfully important.

For far too long, women and underrepresented racial groups have been overlooked, ignored, and passed over for opportunities for which they were deeply deserving — and we are tired of it. So if Harris’ election in November makes her a “DEI president,” so be it. When our leaders reflect the best of every kind of citizen, more people than ever may finally be heard.