In a recent appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump caused a furore by questioning the racial “identity” of Democrat Kamala Harris. “Is she Indian or is she black?” Trump wondered. “I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t, because she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn, and she became a black person.”
Lost in the days of press attacks that followed was the fact that both Trump and his critics were stuck in an outdated American electoral calculus of identity politics grounded in race. In fact, the key to a Harris win in November won’t be the support of black Americans or Indian Americans or even “brown Americans” — though she has identified at various points in her political life as all three. Rather, Harris is a flesh-and-blood avatar of a much more numerous, powerful, and radically dissatisfied demographic: never-married and childless American women between the ages of 20 and 45.
