Of all the embarrassing things that could happen to a political candidate, this has to be among the worst.
Esther Kim Varet, who is running for Congress in California, put out a promotion on her campaign website celebrating Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s (D-30) endorsement.
The problem? Her team used the wrong picture. In fact, the woman who appears in the picture resembles Crockett about as much as I resemble Danny DeVito.
From Fox News:
A campaign website for a California Democratic congressional candidate mistakenly promoted an endorsement from U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett using a photo of a different Black woman instead of the Texas Democrat.
The website for Esther Kim Varet removed the image Thursday afternoon after Fox News Digital inquired about the error.
"Racist. Arrogant. Totally out of touch. Good thing @estherkimvaret’s hate-filled, bigoted self isn’t getting anywhere near Congress," Christian Martinez, national Hispanic press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee, wrote on X.
Varet, owner of Various Small Fires, a chain of art galleries in Los Angeles, Dallas and Seoul, is running to unseat Rep. Young Kim, a Republican representing California’s 40th Congressional District, which includes portions of Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
Varet, the child of Korean immigrants, called Kim, who was born in South Korea, an "ESL puppet" in a social media post criticizing the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
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Esther Kim Varet, a Democrat running for office in California, received a new endorsement from Texas rep. Jasmine Crockett.
— Olivia Murray (@americaliv1) December 19, 2025
Except...this is obviously not Jasmine Crockett. pic.twitter.com/O6HFLbgomV
Naturally, people are slamming her on social media over the mistake. Apparently, we all really DO look the same — at least to folks like Varet’s team.
Varet is an American art dealer whose family is from South Korea. She was raised near Dallas by her immigrant family and studied at Yale and Columbia University, where she started a Ph.D in art history.
And she still hasn’t learned how to tell the difference between individual Black Americans.
Now then, I don’t normally like to do this, but let’s go ahead and put the shoe on the other foot for a moment. What if Varet had been running as a Republican?
We already know what would happen, don’t we?
The legacy media would go aploplectic, claiming it’s yet another example of how racist Republicans are. They would claim the candidate has a clear racial bias and is not fit to hold office.
You can already imagine how Crockett would respond — even though she has been remarkably silent on this matter. She would jump in front of the first camera she saw to excoriate the candidate and claim it’s one of several illustrations showing the racism she faces on a daily basis in racist America.
Of course, in all likelihood, it was an honest mistake — even though the difference between the two Black women is clear. Perhaps someone on her team wasn’t familiar with Crockett, which should make one wonder why they are serving on a political campaign in the first place.
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