According to Donald Trump, Kamala Harris is “dumb.” Really? Harris is the daughter of parents who both earned Ph.D. degrees at the University of California Berkeley, one of the world’s best universities. Both had distinguished careers, Harris’s mother as an acclaimed cancer researcher, her father as professor of economics at Stanford. Given their obvious intellect and achievements, it is right from the cradle highly unlikely that their elder daughter Kamala is “dumb.”

What do we know directly of Harris’s intellect? Well, she graduated from Howard University, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious historically Black university. She then earned her law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Hardly the achievements of someone who is dumb. Finally, consider the evidence of her career: district attorney, attorney general of California, four years in the U.S. Senate, and nearly four years as vice president. She is now the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.

No, Kamala Harris is clearly not dumb. Neither is Donald Trump. The trouble with him is that he too often puts his intelligence to malicious use. He calls Harris dumb to smear her with a vicious racial stereotypes that has long been used by white people to keep Blacks “in their place.” Flummoxed by the sudden change in the presidential race that has upended its dynamic, he is now resorting to the worst sort of dog whistling. I hope most Americans are above such muck.

John Connolly

Haydenville