Sean Hannity Workshops Scary-Black-Pastor Narrative Against Kamala Harris: ‘A Brand New Jeremiah Wright’

 

Fox News host Sean Hannity dusted off conservatives’ unsuccessful 2008 playbook to tie the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to a Black pastor who criticized the United States over its history of racial oppression.

Republicans have been feverishly trying out various narratives against Vice President Kamala Harris, who next month is set to become the first Black woman nominated for president by a major party. Former President Donald Trump and his allies had been laser-focused on President Joe Biden’s age and cognitive slip-ups, but had to scrap those plans after he exited the race this month.

For the moment, Republicans are emphasizing Harris’s “radical” record and the shortcomings of the Biden-Harris administration on immigration. But so far, Republicans are lacking the sort of non-policy issue they’ve deployed with some success in previous elections, such as Hillary Clinton’s emails (2016) and John Kerry’s military service (2004).

In 2008, the right wing tried its damnedest to torpedo Barack Obama by highlighting the fiery sermons of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, whose greatest hits included lines like, “God damn America!” Wright also said that 9/11 was “chickens… coming home to roost” after America’s history of supporting “state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans.” 

On Tuesday’s edition of Hannity, the host pointed to Harris’s association with Pastor Amos Brown. In doing so, Hannity even invoked Wright:

We have a brand new Jeremiah Wright. His name? Reverend Doctor Amos Brown. Now, last year on the official vice presidential Instagram account, Kamala posted a glowing picture of the reverend with the caption, “It’s always an honor to spend time with my pastor, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown of the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco. He remains a source of inspiration to me always.”

Now, this is the same pastor that told the San Francisco Chronicle that, “I know America. America is a racist country.” And the very same pastor who blamed racist America for 9/11/01, only six days after we 2,977 of our fellow Americans, he said, “Oh, America. What did you do? What did you do two weeks ago when I stood at the World Conference on Racism when you wouldn’t show up?”

It’s worth noting here that Hannity’s outrage is selective when it comes to pastors blaming Americans for 9/11. The late Jerry Falwell Sr., whom he called a dear friend, blamed the attacks on gay people.

“I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America,” Falwell said just three days after the attacks. “I point the finger in their face and say ‘You helped this happen.’”

It’s also worth pointing out that shortly after the towers fell, Hannity’s pal Trump bragged during a phone interview that he now owned the tallest building in Lower Manhattan. And, in classic Trump fashion, even this gauche bit of braggadocio turned out to be a lie.  

Hannity then slammed Harris for previously supporting “some form of reparations” to compensate Black Americans.

“We’re looking at more than 200 years of slavery,” she said in a clip from 2019 that the host aired. “We’re looking at almost a hundred years of Jim Crow. We’re looking at legalized segregation and in fact, segregation on so many levels that exist today based on race. And there has not been any kind of intervention done.”

After the clip ended, Hannity wondered aloud whether Harris still supports reparations. He then cited a report stating that after Biden ended his reelection bid, Harris called her pastor to pray for her.

Hannity is far from the first conservative in recent days to point to Harris’s connection to Amos Brown as evidence of her supposed radicalism, but so far the host is the most prominent. Given his audience, it’s hardly surprising he would lean into this angle. And over the next few weeks, Republicans will continue to workshop potentially viable narratives against Harris that can break through past the Fox News audience and into the mainstream. Amos Brown, however, may not be the ticket. After all, the Wright of Hannity’s “brand new Jeremiah Wright” fame didn’t catch on. Barack Obama won in a landslide.

On the other hand, this is the same GOP whose own House speaker had to hold a meeting with his Republican conference to tell them not to use race as a cudgel against the presumptive Democratic nominee. So, when all is said and done, conservative politicians and pundits alike may not be able to help themselves.

Watch above via Fox News.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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Mike is a Mediaite senior editor who covers the news in primetime.