Sen. Kamala Harris enjoyed a lighthearted moment in the rain but conservative columnist Peggy Noonan has derided it as “embarrassing.”
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When Harris, the vice-presidential Democratic candidate, was on the campaign trail last week in Jacksonville, Florida she glided her Chuck Taylor’s in rhythm to Mary J. Blige‘s “Work That” during a downpour.
Harris dancing along with an umbrella quickly went viral. After she shared a snapshot on her social media account, Noonan took aim at the California senator’s moment of fun to suggest she wasn’t serious about the election.
“For her part, vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris is, when on the trail, giddy. She’s dancing with drum lines and beginning rallies with “Wassup, Florida!” She’s throwing her head back and laughing a loud laugh, especially when nobody said anything funny,” Noonan wrote in a critique for the Wall Street Journal.
“She’s the younger candidate going for the younger vote, and she’s going for a Happy Warrior vibe, but she’s coming across as insubstantial, frivolous. When she started to dance in the rain onstage, in Jacksonville, Fla., to Mary J. Blige’s “Work That,” it was embarrassing,” she wrote.
Though President Donald Trump has taken to dancing at his campaign rallies Noonan didn’t say anything negative about him. Rather, she lauded Trump for continuing to hold “lively” gatherings despite the coronavirus pandemic.
She also claimed he was “smart” and “controlled.”
It didn’t take long for social media to call out President Ronald Reagan’s former speechwriter for her double standards, especially weaponized against a woman of color.
“Peggy Noonan can’t figure out why the voters who recognize we’re in the midst of a surging plague aren’t attending mass spreader event rallies—even as they stand in line for hours, wearing masks, waiting for their turn to vote Trump out,” activist Bree Newsome Bass tweeted.
“View it through the lens of racism and her comments make sense,” broadcast journalist Soledad O’Brien tweeted. “Also recall the President has simulated sex at his rallies, mocked journalists, made lots of stuff up… and also danced.”
Others believe that Noonan was simply triggered by a Black woman’s joy.
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“Peggy Noonan is that one racist woman who thinks that black women need to remain silent, stay in their place so that she can go on pretending she’s better than us. In reality, she ain’t shit and deep down inside of her cold, dark, dirty going to hell heart, she knows it,” one user wrote.
Noonan has yet to respond to the backlash.
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