Stop playing the same old tunes

Resorting to ideological battles to fortify a support base jeopardizes national security.

Chung Jae-hongThe author is an international, diplomatic and security news editor of the JoongAng Ilbo. In her first interview with CNN last week after her nomination as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris was asked how she would respond to former President Donald Trump questioning her racial identity. Harris called Trump’s remark as part of his “same old tired playbook.” She then said, “Next question please.” After the interviewer asked, “That’s it?” Harris replied, “That’s it.” Earlier, Trump attacked Harris’s sudden emphasis of her Black identity after portraying herself as an Indian American for a long time. Trump attributed it to the strong need for Harris to get support from Black voters.

U.S. media gave Harris high scores for her “insensitivity” to Trump’s groundless accusations. Trump has a knack for spreading fake news about his opponents’ racial identity. During the 2008 presidential election, he claimed that Barack Obama was not qualified to run for president as Obama was not a U.S. citizen due to his Black father who was born in Kenya. Obama made public his birth certificate, but Trump didn’t accept it, citing the possibility of fabrication.

Throughout the CNN interview, Harris didn’t highlight her racial and gender identities. When asked about the possibility of becoming the first Black and female president of the United States, Kamala said she ran for president because she thought she best qualified for the position for all Americans regardless of their racial and sex differences.

Harris’s strategy could reflect the lessons from Hillary Clinton’s defeat in her 2016 presidential race against Trump. U.S. voters’ reluctance to accept a first woman president, coupled with their antipathy towards the political establishment, resulted in her election defeat. Clinton emphasized her gender identity to break the “highest, hardest glass ceiling” on the campaign trail. But Obama was elected president twice by avoiding mentioning racial issues.

Support for Harris surged after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July. In a recent poll by Reuters and Ipsos, a market research company, 45 percent supported Harris while 41 percent favored Trump. In an earlier poll by the same companies, Harris led Trump by one percent.

Harris’s popularity owes much to the emergence of a new face — as opposed to the competition between the two old politicians — and the consolidation of support for Harris among Democrats who are deeply worried about Trump’s re-election in November. In her acceptance speech on Aug. 22 — the last day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago — Harris declared, “America, we are not going back!” The declaration translates into a pledge to not repeat Trump’s way of orchestrating divisive and regressive politics based on character assassinations and conspiracy theories. Harris seems to be smooth sailing to the election, but it’s unclear who will be the winner. Harris needs to cement her Democratic base and draw support from swing voters.

The same old repertoire is being played out in Korean politics, too. In a Cabinet meeting last month, President Yoon Suk Yeol claimed that anti-state forces threatening the foundation of free democracy are still active across our society. His perception has been criticized for its detachment from public sentiment. In a recent Realmeter poll, the president’s approval rating fell below 30 percent again.

In the meantime, Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung is bent on exploiting anti-Japanese sentiment for political gains. After Seoul Metro removed Dokdo sculptures in the subway to remodel them to not block passengers’ way, the majority party linked the decision to the conservative government’s need to get along well with Japan. The DP claimed that the release of the wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plants would contaminate Korean waters, but the allegation proved wrong. In 2008, the liberal party fueled a public scare about the possible spread of mad cow disease if Korea imported U.S. beef, but it also turned out to be false. In 2016, the DP warned against the danger from electromagnetic waves from the deployment of the Thaad missiles in Korea, but it turned out to be totally groundless.

Resorting to ideological battles to fortify each party's support base jeopardizes national security. Korea is wrestling with many problems — the collapse of the self-employed businesses, soaring apartment prices in Seoul and the deepening concerns about a critical lack of future growth engines, for instance. But only pragmatism, not ideology, can address the challenges.