"Real Talk" from Kamala Harris on the Voting Rights Act Says the Quiet Part Out Loud

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist

04 Aug 2026

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Kamala Harris engaging in performative politics at the Bloody Sunday anniversary on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, March 2024. Now she and the Democratic Party dismiss the importance of the Voting Rights Act. (Photo: AFP)

The evisceration of the Voting Rights Act (Voting Rights Act) is of great concern to Black voters. But most of them are affiliated with the Democratic Party, whose leadership has no real interest in once again making the VRA a political instrument that protects their rights. Recently Kamala Harris made that lack of concern quite clear and demonstrated the urgency of redirecting Black politics away from the misleaders.

Kamala Harris’ tone-deaf response to a question about the Voting Rights Act (VRA) at the National Urban League convention was exceptionally bad, even for the woman known for odd nervous laughter and incomprehensible “word salad” remarks. On this occasion she had one simple job to do, answer what should have been a softball question about a fundamental legal right that has been neutered by the courts but which Black people hold dear and want to see restored.

Urban League President & CEO Marc Morial asked her about the status of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and how its enforcement provisions were essentially gutted by two Supreme Court decisions, Shelby County v. Holder in 2013 and later by Louisiana v. Callais in 2026. “How do we best respond to what is really a setback in terms of a tool that we've used to protect our voting rights?”

Despite having been the Attorney General of California, a United States Senator, a presidential candidate, and Vice President of the United States, Harris is often either flummoxed in situations where most politicians are glib or completely misreads her audience and appears dismissive. The clue that she was heading in the direction of indifference was her use of vernacular before answering the question. When she responded, “Real talk?” it was clear that not only had she not read that particular room, but she knew or cared little about the mood of millions of Black people.

“I honestly don't believe that it will be anytime soon that we are going to revive the voting rights act. So, I don't believe it is going to be the best use of our energy right now to try to get that done because I don't know that it will get done right now the way this congress is composed and the way they have been treating civil rights issues.”

Harris did not bother to say what she does think is the best use of the peoples energy nor did she go through the motions of expressing care about a fundamental tool in the exercise of voting rights since 1965. Most politicians know when they should feign concern and readily express what may seem sincere but what they are actually not taking seriously. We should not seek insincerity but no one should be happy about getting the back of the hand of the most recent Democratic Party presidential nominee at a major civil rights gathering.

Although it can be argued that Harris actually did the discerning public a favor with her miscue. She let the cat out of the bag as it were, revealing that the Democratic Party establishment, which depends on Black voters to win the presidency and other offices, isn’t at all serious about restoring the Voting Rights Act.

They may pretend and go through very elaborate motions. In fact, they will propose new legislation and call it the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, in honor of the late congressman who was somehow anointed with the title “civil rights icon.” First introduced in 2021, it has never received enough votes in the Senate needed to pass. This legislation is in good company, as democrats failed to pass signature legislation like Build Back Better, which they also claim to support.

But the end of the pre-clearance provisions which gave the Voting Rights Act its teeth was viewed as a major political loss. Kamala Harris did herself no favors by falling back on the tired refrain of powerlessness in the wake of the second Trump presidency. It is remarkable that she was unable to even utter fake platitudes. Of course, no one expects the Voting Rights Act to be restored by Donald Trump and a republic run congress. But Harris couldn’t muster enough common sense to talk about the future, to say that the Act was a high priority for democrats, who were eager to bring it back to life once they were back in office. Instead her fumble told the unvarnished truth about her and about her party.

Harris is not alone in running from a political fight and from political promises. Barack Obama ran for office in 2008 vowing to codify abortion rights into law as the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision which protected those rights was under attack. Just a few months into his first term in 2009 he announced that such legislation was not his highest priority after all. He got away unscathed because the corporate media and democrats both covered for him. In 2022 the worst fears about Roe were realized when it was overturned by the Supreme Court and Obama remained largely untouched and escaped the criticism he so richly deserved.

The reaction to Harris’s complete abdication of responsibility as a leader and dismissal of Black voter concerns was extraordinary however. No one needed Harris to tell them that republicans won’t pass a new Voting Rights Act which can withstand Supreme Court hostility. What people did need to hear was that she and her party want to restore the VRA and that doing so is a priority for them. But it actually isn’t a priority, and Kamala Harris is too incompetent to utter a fake promise or to speak with a vision of the future that would give people some hope.

Harris couldn’t manage it because she is the epitome of the hollow person, made even emptier by the Democratic Party donor class which is committed to doing as little as possible, certainly not fighting a good fight on behalf of their most loyal voters. But she happily engages in performance. In 2024 she made the obligatory pilgrimage across the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama, the site of the Bloody Sunday attacks on marchers which took place on March 7, 1965. The movement was galvanized by the heroism of so many people, and the Voting Rights Act was passed later that year because of their actions.

It was passed by a mass movement of committed people who created a political crisis in defiance of the country’s political leadership. There is no mass movement today and the likes of Kamala Harris can therefore get away with uttering offensive foolishness. What can and should happen is that she should be declared unwelcome, persona non grata, on the Edmund Pettus bridge or any other hallowed site of the liberation struggle. Should she try to show her face the responsibility will be on Black people to send her packing or to turn their backs when she delivers nonsensical and insulting drivel.

Condemning Kamala Harris is not difficult but showing some spine when the Black misleaders think they can get a pass may be harder for many of the people who were at the very least disappointed in her remarks. She differs only from the other misleaders in her lack of political skill. The Voting Rights Act or any other legislation of importance is touted when democrats are out of office but disappear when they get back into the white house and congress and the vicious cycle of cynicism and lies to voters, especially Black voters, go on and on.

In any case, the Democratic Party is fast losing legitimacy and is being challenged by its left wing. This dynamic is a positive one for many reasons and if Black voters are shrewd, they will seize the moment and kick all of the misleaders to the proverbial curb. That will be real talk, the realest and most meaningful of all.

Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on X/Twitter, and Telegram. She can be reached via email at margaret dot kimberley at blackagendareport dot com.