WASHINGTON — After Barack Obama became the nation’s first Black president in 2009, Donald Trump became a leading purveyor of the racist “birther” controversy that falsely asserted Obama was ineligible for office because he was born in Kenya.
When Hillary Clinton became the first female presidential nominee for a major party in 2016, Trump zeroed in on her gender in his successful White House bid, demeaning her appearance, intelligence, and stamina.
Now, with Vice President Kamala Harris on track to become the first woman of color to lead a major party ticket, Democrats said they are bracing for an onslaught of racist and sexist attacks on her by Trump and his allies in what could be a perfect storm for negative campaigning.
The ad hominem assaults already have started.
“I call her laughing Kamala. You ever watch her laugh? She’s crazy,” Trump said at a Michigan rally on Saturday, shifting his focus on her as President Biden faced increasing pressure to drop out of the race. “She’s not as crazy as [former House speaker] Nancy Pelosi. Crazy Nancy.”
The Trump campaign had floated a new nickname for Harris in early July: Cackling Copilot Kamala Harris. But with Harris on track to be the Democratic nominee, Trump on Monday flipped to labeling her “ ‘Dumb as a Rock’ Kamala Harris” on his social media site. Other Republicans, including Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee, called Harris a “DEI hire” as vice president, a reference to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
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“It’s nothing new to Kamala,” said Representative Ayanna Pressley, a Boston Democrat. “I think that as . . . women of color in politics, we’re so used to being underestimated. And if you do that with us and if you do that with Kamala Harris, you certainly do that at your own peril.”
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Harris said she’s ready for Trump, citing her past jobs as a prosecutor and California attorney general.
“In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,” she said Tuesday at a rally in Milwaukee. “So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type. And in this campaign, I promise you, I will proudly put my record against his any day of the week.”
Asked about the “DEI hire” comments, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, insisted Tuesday that Republicans would make the election “about policies, not personalities.”
“This is not personal with regard to Kamala Harris, and her ethnicity or her gender have nothing to do with this whatsoever,” he said.
A Trump campaign spokesperson did not directly address the personal attacks on Harris, responding with a statement that hit her on Biden administration policies. “Kamala Harris is just as incompetent as Joe Biden and even more liberal,” said Karoline Leavitt, the campaign’s national press secretary.
But Shermichael Singleton, a Republican political strategist, said in an email that the party needed to, “STAY AWAY from attacking her based on race/gender.”
“It is a strategic mistake to make racial innuendoes about Harris,” he wrote. “My advice to Republicans is to stay away from racial tropes, and immediately condemn those who don’t.”
Given what Obama and Clinton faced from Trump, Democrats said they’re steeling for what’s coming.
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Trump began his rise to political prominence in 2011 by resurfacing questions about Obama’s birthplace. During the 2008 campaign, Obama had released a “certification of live birth” showing he was born in Hawaii. But Trump questioned the legitimacy of that legal document and falsely suggested Obama was hiding his foreign birth, which would make him constitutionally ineligible to be president.
Even after Obama released his original, long-form birth certificate in 2011, Trump continued to peddle the conspiracy theory, and only in 2016 did he finally acknowledge Obama was born in the United States. But Trump often refers to him as Barack Hussein Obama, using his middle name as a dog-whistle to those who falsely believe he is secretly Muslim.
The attacks on Obama based on race and religion were relentless and Republicans are even more extreme now under Trump, said Patrick Gaspard, who was a top Obama political aide.
“The guard rails are literally off,” Gaspard said. “I expect the Godzilla of racial and misogynistic campaigning from them.”
In the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump accused Clinton of playing the “woman’s card” to win the Democratic nomination and frequently targeted her gender.
During their televised town hall-style debate, Trump kept positioning himself behind Clinton, appearing to loom over her as she answered questions. A Clinton campaign spokesperson accused him of “menacingly stalking” her. Then at a rally a few days later, Trump took a shot at her appearance saying, “She walks in front of me, you know, and when she walked in front of me, believe me, I wasn’t impressed.” Trump also said he didn’t think Clinton had the “look” or “stamina” to be president.
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Former California senator Barbara Boxer, a Clinton ally, said she thought the sexist attacks failed then and would with Harris now. Clinton tried turning them around — selling a pink “woman card” on her website for example. She won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes but lost in the Electoral College.
“They’ll replay their greatest hits that they used against Obama, that they used against Hillary, and my view is the country is different. It’s more used to women being in high positions . . . and I say it falls flat with the majority of people,” Boxer said. She predicted it would juice the turnout of the Republican base but repel independent voters.
During the 2020 campaign, Republicans tried a version of the birther attack on Harris that also could resurface.
Conservative attorney John Eastman wrote an opinion article for Newsweek suggesting Harris might not be eligible to serve as vice president because her parents are immigrants. Harris was born in the United States. Eastman later served as a lawyer for Trump and was indicted in Arizona in May on charges related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election results there. He has pleaded not guilty.
Harris faced a slew of race- and gender-based attacks during the 2020 campaign, and voters should be prepared for “a wave of misogyny over the next few months” on social media, now that she’s the likely Democratic presidential nominee, said Nina Jankowicz, chief executive of the American Sunlight Project, which works to expose disinformation. She was an author of a 2021 study about “gendered and sexualized disinformation on women in public life.”
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“Within minutes, we saw those same memes resurfacing, and they’re . . . fairly disgusting memes,” Jankowicz said of social media postings after Biden dropped out. Politicians engaging in similar attacks “normalizes” them, she said.
In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, Trump used variations of “nasty” three times in talking about Harris and her unsuccessful bid for the 2020 presidential nomination. He also accused her of playing “the race card” against Biden in that primary campaign.
Those types of attacks are nothing new to politicians like Representative Barbara Lee, a veteran California Democrat.
“I’m a Black woman, I’ve been in politics many years. I’ve had to deal with so much and still do, but we’re ready for it,” she said. “And I remind people to always remember what Dr. Maya Angelou said, ‘And still we rise.’ Nothing’s easy.”
Lissandra Villa de Petrzelka and Jackie Kucinich of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Jim Puzzanghera can be reached at jim.puzzanghera@globe.com. Follow him @JimPuzzanghera.