Be careful attacking Kamala Harris; your daughters are watching

We’re used to metaphorical sticks and stones in politics — biting, sometimes witty (though usually lame) barbs or sophomoric nicknames aimed at an opponent. Especially from foes with little of substance to say.

Especially from Donald Trump.

Instead of delving into any depth on matters that matter, he diminishes opponents to a bumper-sticker. An insulting label that evokes guffaws from minions and becomes infectious, incessantly repeated among Republicans as if they were reading from mocking points distributed via Mailchimp.

Sleepy Joe. Mean, but OK, we get it. Cute.

DEI Vice President. Not so much.

The Republican playbook for regaining the presidency is in scraps on the floor, torched to ashes with the tikis their proud supporters like to wield. Their giddy plan was to pummel the 81-year-old president about his age, to harp on his 81-year-old moments, then two-step into the White House.

Now, not so much.

Not since President Joe Biden acceded to the inevitable and ended his reelection bid, then endorsed his vice president — his female vice president of African American and Indian descent — to inherit the mantle atop the Democratic ticket.

Since then, Republicans have had to slap their hands over their mouths to avoid regurgitating instinctual racist and sexist sticks-and-stones barbs about Kamala Harris. Quips that just might expose the ugliest strands of their DNA.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, following a closed-door meeting last week among House Republicans, declared the election will be about “policies and not personalities.” Which is strikingly different than what smolders in the ashes of their previous playbook.

“This is not personal with regard to Kamala Harris,” he said, “and her ethnicity or her gender have nothing to do with this whatsoever.”

Translation: Stop it, fellow Republicans.

Stop it because now our mothers, sisters, aunts, nieces and wives are watching.

Your daughters, too.

Because thus far your attacks on Harris have reeked of racism and sexism — with “entitleism.”

Tainting Harris as “DEI” — as countless Republicans have done and continue to do; and even former GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley condemns — says that because she is a non-white woman (because white women, who’ve benefited as much as anyone from a half-century of affirmative action policies, have never been so labeled), she is somehow less than. Less than capable. Less than qualified.

Less than you.

Justify that to your daughter, who likely has more friends who look like Harris than you do.

To mock her laugh, challenge her intelligence and slime her with the silly Marxist label most of your supporters can’t even define exposes the depths of your desperation. And worse.

To intentionally and childishly mispronounce her name, for goodness sake — as Trump repeatedly, mockingly and arrogantly does — says demonstratively more about you than her.

In grade school, boys pulled a girl’s ponytail because they liked her.

Republicans childishly yank at Harris because they fear her.

Some of your mothers, sisters, aunts and wives may agree with you in opposing Harris’ candidacy. Maybe some of your daughters, too. That is their right in this nation.

Some of them may wonder this, though: If sexist/racist sticks and stones are your weapon of choice against the woman striving to be the first female president in U.S. history, how will you credibly respond when sexist/racist sticks and stones are someday wielded at them as they reach for their dreams?

At your daughters? At their friends?

At any of them who, say, struggle to birth children.

The most damning and sexist stone thus far — it’s still early, and no doubt every Republican will not receive Johnson’s memo — was hurled two years ago by the now-Republican VP nominee, JD “no exceptions” Vance.

In an interview on Fox News, he hooted that the nation was run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

He specifically named three people. “It’s just a basic fact — you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC — the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” he said. “And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”

Vance stirred the ire of actress Jennifer Aniston, who’s publicly shared her fertility struggles. On Instagram stories, she shared: “I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day. I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too.”

They’re watching, Republicans, so be careful. Or just be you.

Roy Johnson is a columnist for al.com.