‘White Dudes for Harris’? Kamala is the queen of cringe

‘Man buns of the world, unite!’

That’s the call that seems to have gone out across blue America in the past few days, as fear-addled liberals have coalesced behind a woman who, up until five minutes ago, was a national joke.

I have to hand it to Queen Bee Kamala Harris and her team. They have leveraged white guilt very effectively, summoning thousands of white-saviour worker bees from their hives. When it became clear that Harris had clinched the Democratic nomination, they descended upon social media in droves to profess their allegiance to her. Now hardly anyone is talking about those pesky old white dudes, Donald Trump (who still leads in the polls) and Joe Biden (who is still the US president).

Look, I know I have been quite hard on the liberal white women of America in the past. But they do keep on giving me reasons to mock them. When a Zoom call was held last week – called ‘White Women: Answer the Call’ – more than 160,000 well-coiffed white ladies assembled to gush and fawn over the new Dear Leader. ‘Have you seen Kamala glisten in the brilliance and shine of her true power and leadership?’, asked actress Connie Britton. ‘What does that feel like? It feels like self-love.’

This particular demographic of females cannot see outside the myopic lens of therapy-infused narcissism. They are more than happy to ignore cold, hard realpolitik, as long as they get to feel good about themselves. But what are the white, liberal men up to? It turns out they are doing exactly the same thing – only worse. So I apologise, ladies, I had forgotten how utterly embarrassing the men were, too.

Let’s talk about the somewhat recognisable actor, Josh Gad. He joined a ‘White Dudes for Harris’ Zoom call on Monday, alongside actors Mark Ruffalo, Sean Astin and Mark Hamill, as well as ‘Mayor Pete’ Buttigieg. According to reporting from the Associated Press, this ‘attracted 180,000-plus people’ and raised a whopping $3.7million for Harris’s campaign. ‘I’m a white dude’, Gad announced, while resembling a garden slug in a very expensive pair of sunglasses, as palm trees swayed behind him in the background.

‘I also happen to be a father of two girls. I have a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old. I’m not sure you guys can recall that feeling you had on the night of Tuesday 8 November 2016. I stood over my kids’ bed, and I wept. I wept because I felt like I had let them down.’

Yes, Josh, that’s right. National political races are, in fact, all about your emotions.

A lot of the white liberals emoting on these Zoom calls have been at pains to warn each other not to make themselves the main character, or steal the thunder of people of colour. Yet, ironically, both the ‘White Women: Answer the Call’ and the ‘White Dudes for Harris’ Zoom calls got thousands and thousands more participants than their black counterparts – and tonnes more media attention. The separate pro-Harris Zoom events held by black men and women earlier this month did not even break 60,000 attendees. How awkward. These high-achieving, pick-me white ladies and their whipped male counterparts outshone the very groups they are supposed to be putting at the centre of the conversation.

While the liberal media are swooning like 12-year-old girls at a Harry Styles concert right now, all of these people are forgetting that the majority of working-class Americans loathe this kind of race-based identity politics. Dividing everyone up into racial categories is not going to win over anyone who isn’t already indoctrinated into the woke race cult, who would probably have voted for Harris anyway.

Similarly unpopular among the non-laptop class is the idea that masculinity is ‘toxic’ or unnecessary. So what are Harris’s fanboys doing? Leaning in to the idea. As one man-bun-sporting participant complained: ‘The myths around America that we grew up with… [are] we as men are expected to be protectors and providers.’ As if that were a bad thing!

I think it’s safe to say that the testosterone-challenged White Dudes for Harris won’t be winning over any Trump voters any time soon.

Jenny Holland is a former newspaper reporter and speechwriter. Visit her Substack here.