by John Solomon
Back during the 2008 presidential race, then-Sen. Barack Obama paid a heavy political price when he mocked Americans he claimed were clinging to “guns and religion.”
His opponent for the Democratic Party nomination, Hillary Clinton, immediately pounced and suggested he was an elitist out of touch with Americans who believed in God. Republicans called him intolerant and anti-religious. And the mainstream media declared Obama was “forced on the defensive” by his insensitive – if not elitist – remark.
Two decades later, the candidate for whom Obama is now stumping – Vice President Kamala Harris – just made a similar comment that could have similar repercussions even though the mainstream political reporting corps this time around have avoided giving it much attention.
“Wrong rally”
At a Harris campaign event in La Crosse, Wis., last Thursday, two pro-life students in the crowd shouted “Jesus is Lord” as she spoke about her support for abortion, and Harris immediately made clear the two were not welcome at her event.
“Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally,” she declared, exhorting cheers from the crowd. “No, I think you meant to go to the smaller one down the street.”
That clip has now been played endlessly on social media, and some conservative media outlets like Real America’s Voice and Fox News have covered the comment and the alienation it has created in communities of faith. But traditional campaign reporters have given few words to the whole matter.
In the 2008 election, Obama’s tart words became costly because legacy media covered them. In 2024, Harris’ retort is proving costly because the traditional news industry didn’t cover them but new media and social media like Tik Tok amplified the moment to millions of Americans.
“Vile hatred”
The faith community has taken note. “Kamala Harris exposes her vile hatred toward Christians once again by ridiculing a rallygoer for invoking the name of God,” the Catholic Vote group blared on X.
The two students who shouted out sayings at Harris event like “Christ is King” and “Jesus is Lord” recounted the treatment they got from the crowd once Harris made her pronouncement that they didn’t belong there.
“I was pushed by an elderly woman. We were heckled at, we were cursed at, we were mocked, and that’s the biggest thing for me personally,” University of Wisconsin-La Crosse junior Grant Beth told Fox News on Sunday. “In reflection of the event, Jesus was mocked. You know, his disciples were mocked, and that’s okay. In reality, we did God’s work, and we were there for the right reasons, and God is watching us in this moment.
The episode has boiled to the top of political conversation at a time when the Democrat Party that once welcomed Catholics to its fold under John F. Kennedy and courted black ministers for decades with the likes of Jesse Jackson and Bill Clinton now finds itself having openly and repeatedly offending members of America’s faith community.
Before last week’s episode in Wisconsin, Harris had already sent a bad vibe in Catholic communities by skipping a personal appearance at the Al Smith Dinner hosted by the Catholic Cardinal in New York. While Donald Trump showed up, Harris only videotaped a message to be played.
Doritos communion
A few weeks earlier, Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was forced to apologize for what many saw as a viral skit mocking the Catholic rite of communion that appeared to use a Dorito chip as the sacramental wafer. Catholic bishops in Michigan’s condemnation forced the governor to issue a non-apology apology, saying she apologized for how a recent social media video “was construed” after Catholic groups said the video mocked the sacrament of the eucharist.
“It is not just distasteful or ‘strange;’ it is an all-too-familiar example of an elected official mocking religious persons and their practices,” the head of the Michigan Conference of Catholic bishops lamented.
Republicans understand the opportunity these Democrat recent insults have created, especially in Midwest battleground states heavily populated with Catholics and evangelical Christians who earlier saw the Biden-Harris Justice Department treat traditional Latin Rite Catholics as an extremist threats worthy of FBI scrutiny just a few short years ago.
“2/3 of America is Christian. 1/4 of America is Catholic,” Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida posted on X this weekend. “Kamala has made it clear that she DOES NOT want YOUR vote.”
The tenor of Harris’ and Whitmer’s condescension towards people of faith is amplified by their bad timing. They both came within the last month of a razor-close presidential election, and Harris’ episode came as she was planning a visit to a church this weekend while her rival was about to get an massive audience in front of faith leaders Monday in North Carolina.
The warm-up speakers at that Monday event wasted no time taking on Harris, suggesting her campaign to scare, smear and tear apart Americans of faith was divisive and unnecessary.
“Well ladies and gentleman, you are at the right rally,” presidential son Eric Trump quipped in a clear reference to Kamala’s speech last week. “Could you believe that comment? Somebody went out and says ‘Jesus is King’ and what did Kamala say? ‘You’re at the wrong rally.’”
Former presidential candidate and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson challenged the notion that Harris’ comments were mere gaffes, quoting from a Bible verse that declares “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” Carson has unabashedly said that while he was “not a religious person,” he has “a very deep and abiding faith in God.”
“She didn’t have time to think about what she was going to say,” Carson told the crowd, “She just said what is in her heart. So maybe she is the one who doesn’t belong.”
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John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist, author and digital media entrepreneur who serves as Chief Executive Officer and Editor in Chief of Just the News. Before founding Just the News, Solomon played key reporting and executive roles at some of America’s most important journalism institutions, such as The Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Newsweek, The Daily Beast and The Hill.
Photo “Kamala Harris” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
