Trump Baffled by Basic Intersectionality

Debating without an opponent, Trump suffered numerous cognitive challenges

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For years, the right wing has mocked Vice President Kamala Harris for using Venn diagrams. That’s how good the economy is.

Here’s the Republican National Committee (RNC) doing it in 2022. Here’s Fox last year:

In fact, the economy was so good last year, and the border so secure, that Fox could dedicate an entire produced segment, with banners and soundbites, to ridiculing Harris’s fondness for the explanatory power of overlapping circles:

Fox made the point that Venn diagrams are unsophisticated, tools for educating young children. And yet, yesterday, Pres. Donald Trump confessed he was so confused by the concept of two co-terminous things that, without the visual aid of the most basic of Venn diagrams — just two overlapping circles — he was unable to conceive of the concept that there is more than one.

Trump was speaking at the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). And he appeared to have multiple cognitive challenges during his appearance. His request for special accommodations included asking for a definition of “DEI.”

When ABC’s Rachel Scott explained that “DEI” stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Trump was still confused and requested further explanation. In addition, Trump remained unable to pronounce correctly the first name of the vice president of the United States, despite years of practice.

Just the day before, Trump had said he was unable to understand the established scientific principle that Jews can be Democrats.

But it was the concept of overlapping circles that really threw the 78-year-old into a state of admitted confusion yesterday. Here’s the exchange with Scott:

Scott: “Do you believe that vice president, Kamala Harris, is only on the ticket because she’s a Black woman?”

Trump: “Well, I can say, no, I think it’s maybe a little bit different. So, I’ve known her a long time indirectly — not directly very much — and she was always of Indian heritage. And she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. [At this point, Trump weirdly pronounces and emphasizes ‘Black’ like a weird person]. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”

Trump keeps talking as Scott interjects: “She has always identified as a Black woman. She went to a historically Black college.”

Trump: “But you know what, I respect either one. 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 went, she became a Black person, and I think”

Trump keeps talking as Scott interjects: “Just to be clear, sir, you believe—”

Trump: “I think somebody should look into that, too.”

Trump has declared himself a genius, but, in a tragic irony, actually has a history of cognitive shortcomings. That’s especially true when it comes to Black people. Even when he was a decade younger than his 78 years, Trump was unable to grasp rudimentary geography when asked to locate the birthplace of Barack Obama on a map.

After Trump’s remarks yesterday, a number of journalists and scholars launched multiple investigations into how Harris could somehow claim to be both Indian-American and Black. It turns out that her father was a Black Jamaican man. Her mother was Indian.

As multiple outlets reported, the result of that union, in a stunning advancement for the field of human biology, is that Harris is a Black Indian-American person. This dynamic can be easily represented in a Venn diagram:

For those still unable to grasp how this might work in Harris’s case specifically, a similar Venn diagram illustrates how the vice president in particular could simultaneously be both Black and Indian-American.

For those with advanced degrees, Venn diagramming the beautiful complexity of humanity can get even trickier. As Scott noted, Harris is a woman. This is yet another element of her identity and humanity that simultaneously occupies the exact same point in the space-time continuum as her Black and Indian-American identities.

Ironically, Trump’s father was of German descent. But as his own website says, at some point Trump all of a sudden made a turn, and he became a Scottish person:

Then there’s Trump’s vice-presidential candidate, who was born James Donald Bowman, but all of a sudden made a turn and became a different person…three separate times in the course of his 39-year-long life so far. Most recently, he has decided to become JD Vance™.

Like Harris, Vance’s wife Usha Vance is of Indian descent. Her parents come from India’s Telugu Brahmin community and Andhra Pradesh’s Krishna regions, making her both Telugu Brahmin-American and Andhra Pradesh-American, a fact that Secret Service agents must keep from Trump to prevent the rest of his head from exploding.

And Vance himself self-identifies as being of not one but two ethnicities. 

In fact, Vance is not merely a Hillbilly of Scottish descent and of Irish descent. He also identifies as American, a man, and a Catholic. He previously identified as atheist, Protestant, and a Never Trumper, making Vance some sort of freakish hybrid ex-Protestant ex-atheist ex-Never-Trumper Scots-Irish-American Catholic pro-Trump Hillbilly man.

Somebody should look into that. Because it’s weird.

TCB

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