During CNN’s coverage of Tuesday’s election, CNN Political Commentator and former Obama Adviser Van Jones stated that while you can’t really say what exactly determined the result of the 2024 election, President-Elect Donald Trump had leeway to behave poorly that his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t due to race and gender.
Jones said that while it’s hard to say exactly what determined the outcome, “I do think it’s bitter in the mouth, the racial and gender dimension of this. And the only way that you can kind of begin to see it if you don’t see it right away is, can you imagine a woman of color acting like Donald Trump acted, even for one day? The kinds of stuff that he said, the kinds of things that he did, the way that he would insult people. If you’re a person of color, you don’t feel like you have that freedom. You feel like you really are somewhat constrained. You’re always running something in the back of your mind, like how am I going to be perceived? And also, if I say this, will they think that all black people are this way or all women are this way? So, there’s a license that he had to just be a fool, just to be an obnoxious ass to everyone, and for people to go well, he can still be president. There is nobody who doesn’t have that phenotype that feels that free.”
He added that lots of factors could have been at play in the result of the election.
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