A week has all the time been a very long time in politics, however this may need been the longest week in Kamala Harris’s life. Whereas Joe Biden continues to be technically the US president, he already feels irrelevant. All eyes are on Harris now. The pace with which she has gone from being one of many most unpopular vice-presidents in fashionable historical past to sitting on the prime of the Democratic ticket, with a military of enthusiastic followers behind her, is astounding. Biden’s trajectory has been broadly in contrast to a Shakespearean tragedy; Harris’s sudden reversal of fortune, in the meantime, is like one thing out of a fairytale.
A fast recap: Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris on Sunday. The Democratic institution then threw its weight behind her on Monday. So did lots of of hundreds of donors; Harris’s marketing campaign raked in a record-breaking $81m in simply 24 hours. By Tuesday, she had earned sufficient help from delegates to win the Democratic nomination for president subsequent month. On Wednesday, Democrats authorized guidelines which means that any Democrat who desires to compete towards Harris for the nomination solely has days to take action. Then, on Friday, Barack Obama endorsed the vice-president. Her coronation is sort of full.
Importantly, Harris doesn’t simply have the consolidated help of celebration elites. She’s additionally obtained giant swathes of social media cheering her on. The lady has undeniably mementum. “kamala IS brat,” the British pop star Charli xcx posted on X on Sunday. It will not be on the extent of an Obama endorsement however Charli’s approval thrust Harris into the center of the pop-cultural zeitgeist. Charli xcx’s new album, Brat, has undoubtedly been the meme of the summer time – the album’s lime-green aesthetic plastered in all places.
The truth is, quickly after Charli’s approving tweet, @kamalahq modified its backdrop to brat inexperienced. Cue a variety of marketing campaign employees attempting to elucidate to high-ranking Democrats like Nancy Pelosi what on earth is occurring. (“Well ma’am, Ms xcx, has defined a ‘brat’ as ‘just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes, who feels herself, but then also maybe has a breakdown, but kind of parties through it’. Yeah, I know that sounds confusing. But trust me when I say it’ll help us get out the youth vote.”)
Harris’s marketing campaign hasn’t simply embraced the brats, it’s leaning arduous into all of the Kamala memes which have been flooding the web over the previous few weeks, together with a variety of coconut-related content material. That’s not a racial slur, I ought to clarify to British readers, however slightly a reference to a speech the vice-president gave in 2023.
“My mother … would give us a hard time sometimes,” Harris mentioned at a White Home occasion about academic alternative. “… and she would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’” She then paused for profundity earlier than persevering with with the philosophical bit. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”
The coconut quote – which circulated on-line lengthy earlier than final week – is quintessential Harris: a bewildering sequence of phrases that sound like somebody typed “come up with a profound sentence” into an early model of ChatGPT. Traces like this have been a legal responsibility prior to now, utilized by her detractors to counsel she’s unserious. The web, nonetheless, is now turning Harris’s distinctive rhetorical model into an asset. The TikTok mashups and coconut memes have helped inject some much-needed pleasure and levity into what till now has been an especially miserable election cycle.
For the time being, Harris appears unstoppable. A brand new Axios/Era Lab ballot reveals she’s obtained a giant edge with younger voters and one other ballot has discovered she’s narrowed Donald Trump’s lead considerably. Nonetheless, it could possibly’t be emphasised sufficient that we’re nonetheless very a lot within the Harris honeymoon part. Individuals had been determined to not have one other Trump-Biden matchup and desirous to embrace change of any variety. The query is: can the momentum round Harris be sustained?
There may be actually precedent in US elections in terms of a lady being quickly constructed up, solely to be swiftly knocked down. And Republicans are already doing their greatest to knock Harris down with racist and misogynistic assaults. They’ve additionally attacked her report as vice-president, calling her the “border tsar” and blaming her for the migration disaster.
Then there’s the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. The web could have positioned Harris as a lovable goofball now however that picture shall be arduous to maintain amongst younger folks if she turns into the face of Biden’s horrific Gaza coverage – which has been deeply unpopular with younger folks and misplaced the Democrats a variety of help within the necessary swing state of Michigan, the place there’s a giant Arab American inhabitants.
To date, Harris has been strolling a cautious tightrope in terms of Gaza; attempting to not alienate progressives whereas additionally ensuring she isn’t branded “anti-Israel”. On Wednesday, the vice-president skipped Benjamin Netanyahu’s tackle to Congress and met him privately as a substitute. On Thursday, she mentioned it was time for a ceasefire deal to be completed, but in addition pledged “unwavering” help for Israel. There’s solely so lengthy she will play either side, nonetheless. She’s going to both proceed Biden’s coverage of letting Israel kill as many Palestinians because it desires, with solely meek protestations, or she gained’t.
Harris may even need to outline herself as a candidate extra broadly. This has by no means been certainly one of her strengths and a scarcity of substance was the undoing of her 2019 try and be the Democratic nominee. “She has proved to be an uneven campaigner who changes her message and tactics to little effect and has a staff torn into factions,” the New York Occasions decreed in a November 2019 piece about how her marketing campaign unravelled.
That mentioned, operating towards her fellow Democrats could be very completely different from operating towards Trump. Whereas Harris didn’t totally shine as the first candidate or the vice-president, she has the potential to come back into her personal now. She is the last word anti-Trump. She’s the prosecutor, he’s the felon. He’s the outdated man, she’s the comparatively younger girl. He represents the US’s previous, she represents its future. Just some weeks in the past, I used to be resigned to a Trump win. Now I believe the US has a preventing probability of seeing a Madam President.
Then once more, every week is a very long time in politics. And there are nonetheless 14 to go earlier than the election.
