The New Republic demystifies the Kamala Harris memes:
Many Harris fans have added the coconut and palm tree emojis to their social media handles, a shorthand for support. Her online supporters self-describe as “coconut-pilled,” much like people who fall down right-wing internet rabbit holes became known as “red-pilled.”
Knowledge of Harris and the coconut tree went from an internet joke to important context in the wake of President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not seek reelection on Sunday and his endorsement of Harris moments later. Memes are important currency for the terminally online, a population largely comprised of young people who will not be reached by cable advertising or classic campaign mailers. In a political era built on vibes, internet jokes can be as significant as actual campaigning.
The coconut emoji references a now-infamous Harris quote that transformed from an ironic meme to an earnest display of support. In a speech in May last year, Harris quoted her mother. “My mother … would give us a hard time sometimes, 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?’” Harris said with a laugh. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.” (The context of the comment—that she was quoting her mother—was lost when a clip of the speech went viral in February.)
The coconut reference is not the only time Harris has achieved meme fame. Another quote from her 2020 presidential campaign has taken on new life in recent weeks: “I can imagine what can be, unburdened by what has been.” Videos have sprouted on TikTok remixing her laugh to popular songs. One recent viral tweet remixed some of Harris’s most memorable quotes to a song by the pop singer Charli XCX. After Charli XCX wrote on X on Sunday that “Kamala IS brat,” a reference to her popular new album, the TikTok page for Harris’s campaign—recently rebranded from being the Biden campaign account—released a video alternating the tweet with “Kamala HQ,” with Charli’s song “Brat” playing in the background.
“The thing about having a candidate people are excited about is that you can actually have fun and be creative on socials, because people are going to embrace it, rather than find it embarrassing,” said Annie Wu Henry, a digital strategist who has overseen social media for Democrats such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator John Fetterman. “People don’t want to feel bad about politics. They want to have fun, they want to enjoy, they want to be excited about a candidate. There can be creativity and community.”
I just met Henry over the weekend at a fundraiser in Raleigh. I hope she’s on the Harris payroll.
Also, “Donald Trump is the joke to young people,” said Marianna Pecora, the communications director for Voters of Tomorrow.
How much was sheer dumb luck? Joe Biden might have held to his May 2020 promise to be a “transition” president and bowed out of the 2024 race last year. Democrats might have had a knock-down, drag-out primary season between members of its deep bench of next-generation leaders. The fights might have left the party embittered and weakened going into the fall campaign.
Yes, old party hands helped. They saw handwriting on the wall for the Biden candidacy and convinced him he had to bow out for the good of his party. In late July.
Somehow in spite of themselves, Democrats flipped the script (not in an Aaron Sorkinway) on the 2024 election and turned it from a contest between two, old white men with little curb appeal to one where an energetic, mixed-race, former-prosecutor Democrat faces an aged sexual predator, multiply indicted and convicted, a Republican with dreams of turning the United States into a dictatorship.
Within hours of Biden’s Sunday passing of the baton to his vice president, Kamala Harris, Democrats are unified and reenergized. Harris pulled in $81 million in donations in the first 24 hours, the largest one-day haul in presidential history, anecdotally, many from first-time donors. By Monday night, enough Democratic convention delegates had declared their support for Harris (nonbinding) to nominate her on their first August ballot.
“The first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the one who wins this election,” former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley predicted before Republican primary supporters in January.
Talk about dumb luck, a friend told me.
Now there is no joy in MAGAville. Republicans are stuck after massive investments of time and money into running against “Sleepy Joe” with having to rewrite their scripts for a race in which Donald Trump is the faltering old man in obvious decline, and still convicted and indicted. Team MAGA is in panicked disarray.
Never Trumper George Conway reduced the current state of play to a simple formula:
I always thought this election is relatively simple. In 2016, Trump won because Hillary became the issue. In 2020, Trump was the incumbent and he was the issue because of his behavior, because of Clorox, because of everything. What happens this year is whoever becomes the issue loses. The problem we were having was that Biden was becoming the issue when Trump needs to be the issue. Now, Trump isn’t going to be able to avoid being the issue… Now, Trump is the old man in the race. Now, after having raised the issue of cognitive decline, he’s the only one that argument applies to.
Conway: I always thought this election is relatively simple. In 2016, Trump won because Hillary became the issue. In 2020, Trump was the incumbent and he was the issue because of his behavior, because of Clorox, because of everything. What happens this year is whoever becomes the… pic.twitter.com/rEi9OY59QZ
When Donald Trump spoke of American carnage, he wasn’t promising to fix it but to bring it.
Get back on offense, Democrats. Yes, sell the brownie. “Paint the beautiful tomorrow.” Young voters care about the cost of rents, groceries, and about student loans. Tout what Biden-Harris delivered and what more help is coming for them and their families. But also make Trump the issue. Make Project 2025 the issue. Make Republicans becoming an authoritarian cult bent on taking your freedoms the issue. Women’s freedoms especially, but everyone else’s too. Make what kind of future we want for our country the issue.
Thank you President Biden for your service to our country and for having the grace to usher in Kamala Harris to finish the job.
Harris went to campaign headquarters today.
Kamala Harris: ‘I took on perpetrators of all types … predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain.
Biden: I hope you give every bit of your heart and soul that you gave to me to Kamala. I want you to know, I won't be on the ticket, but I'm still going to be fully, fully engaged. I've got six months left to my presidency. I'm determined to get as much done.. pic.twitter.com/9CmcAoikWM
VP: And I know it's been a roller coaster and we're all filled with so many mixed emotions about this, I just have to say, I love Joe Biden. I love Joe Biden, and I know we all do. And we have so many darn good reasons for loving Joe Biden. pic.twitter.com/lWZPXT9uSH
On the night of June 27, the various power centers within the Democratic party began a difficult conversation: Was Joe Biden still capable of running a vigorous campaign?
Over three weeks the party reached a diffuse—if not unanimous—consensus: He was not. This consensus was the product of all levels of the party: Elder statesmen such as Nancy Pelosi, elected Democrats analyzing their own future prospects, donors making decisions about spending, and the main body of public opinion among Democratic voters.
Once this consensus was reached, the various power centers began a dialogue with the party’s leader, President Biden. The party expressed its choice. Biden pushed back. The party took up the question again and, after due consideration, held firm.
Joe Biden then stepped aside for the good of the nation.
This is how healthy institutions are supposed to work.
[…]
He notes that the party vetted Harris over the three weeks of fretting, with voters, donors and elected Dems getting comfortable with the idea and when no anti-Harris movement surfaced they realized that she was the best candidate. In fact, the party is more unified than was before.
He makes the point that Harris has all the benefits of incumbency but can run as a change agent. That’s unusual and I think it’s a true advantage. Also, Trump now “holds the age bomb.” No one deserves it more.
Every split screen now makes Trump look old and decrepit by comparison.
He notes that since the announcement, Harris has raised over r $100 million from small-dollar donors And there’s news today that one of the big super pacs has also raised over $150 million, which means that the campaign has raised at least a quarter of a billion dollars in 24 hours. That suggests some very serious enthusiasm.
The Republicans are losing it, screeching about filing lawsuits to force Biden on to the ticket and other ridiculous tantrums.
Why? Last says this:
The Republican party is a failed state.
At the debate, Donald Trump also demonstrated (again) that he is unfit for office. He rambled and lied incoherently. He is a convicted felon. A jury found him guilty of sexual assault. He has said he wants to be a “dictator” and that he wants to “terminate” parts of the Constitution. He selected as his running mate a man who advised disobeying orders from the Supreme Court and forcing a constitutional crisis.
Until last week there was nothing stopping the Republican party from forcing Trump off the ticket. The party elders and elected officials could have demanded that Trump step aside. Republican voters could have said that they had no confidence in his ability to govern. Donors could have closed their wallets.
But the plain fact is that not one single Republican called on Trump to step aside.
Not one.
Why? Because the various precincts of the Republican party understand that they hold no power—at all—over Trump. They could not ask him to withdraw from the race. Even broaching the subject would be grounds for excommunication from the party.
The Democratic party is a functioning institution, with checks and balances; constituencies and power structures. Like any institution, it is amorphous and its decision making is mostly organic.
The Republican party is an autocracy where the only thing that matters is the will of the leader. All power flows through him. All decisions are made by him. There are no competing power centers—only vassal states overseen by his noblemen.
That’s right. And it’s one of those decrepit institutions that’s imploding from within. If we can keep them from power — again — it’s possible that it might just finally collapse and make way for something more normal. (Or not.)
On this historic day, I want to tell you a story about Joe Biden, and what he did behind the scenes to make the historic 2022 gun bill – the first major gun safety legislation in 30 years – a reality.
1/ It starts with a phone call he made to me days after the Uvalde shooting.
2/ After the tragic Uvalde and Buffalo shootings, Biden wanted to give a prime time address to push the Congress to act.
But several of his advisors told him not to waste one of his few prime time speeches on guns. Congress will never pass a gun bill, they told him.
3/ He called me to ask my opinion. In 2013, he and I had sat for hours with the Sandy Hook parents, and parents of kids killed in Hartford and Bridgeport. I knew how personal those families’ pain was to him.
“I want to give this speech, even if a bill is a long shot,” he said.
4/ Days later, he called back and told me he had made up his mind to give the speech – bc he worried if he didn’t, the urgency would dissipate (Congress was on recess that week) and our chance to do something would be lost.
Now, he wanted to go over the details of the address.
5/ He went through the speech with me, line by line, asking what words would spur on or hurt the bipartisan negotiations that had just begun.
Most presidents would send a staffer on this mission. But he was personally invested in getting every line right.
6/ His speech was perfect and deeply impactful. During a week when we could have lost all momentum, Biden’s prime time address helped keep the attention on the issue and pressure on the negotiations.
I’m not sure the historic 2022 gun bill would have passed without that speech.
Franklin Foer wrote a book about Biden recently and spent a lot of time with him. In this piece in the Atlantic he says that Biden’s self-confidence, skill and wisdom led him to have a unexpectedly successful term. (Foer wrote this before those same skills led Biden to make the decision to withdraw, saying they were leading him astray. They didn’t…)
Anyway, this is an excellent short rundown of what will make his legacy historic:
When Biden came to office, pundits liked to cast him as a placeholder—a well-meaning grandpa who would help restore the country’s equilibrium in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s madness. In Biden’s mind, that was just the members of the elite dismissing him, as they always did. Their underestimation stoked his determination to prove himself as one of history’s great men. He privately boasted that his performance would make him worthy of the presidential pantheon that included Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson.
With a one-vote majority in the Senate, he audaciously set out to test the limits of what he could accomplish. The American Rescue Plan, passed in the first months of his presidency, pushed social policy in novel directions. It transferred money directly into bank accounts through the child tax credit, the closest the federal government has come to experimenting with universal basic income. For a brief, glorious moment, the legislation helped cut childhood poverty in half.
But the American Rescue Plan was just the early harvest of an exceptionally verdant legislative season. At a moment when Democrats described moderate Republicans as useless toadies, Biden wooed them—and cobbled together bipartisan majorities to pass an infrastructure bill and the CHIPS Act. Like Biden, these bills were dismissed as unexciting. But Biden was trying to restore the American state to its postwar glories. Harkening back to Cold War investments in science, the CHIPS bill spends significant cash on research and development, and the infrastructure bill renovates the transit systems, byways of economic competitiveness.
His signature accomplishment was the Inflation Reduction Act, a dreadfully unexciting name for a hugely significant bill. With its subsidies for clean energy, it will be remembered as the first massive American effort to contain climate change. And perhaps just as significantly, it will be remembered as the moment when the nation reembraced industrial policy. That is, the state began using its resources to guarantee the international dominance of American firms in electric vehicles and alternative energies, the industries of the future.
That’s the most surprising part of the Biden presidency. He broke with the economic paradigm that dominated policy in the Clinton and Obama administrations. Whereas those presidents choked when delivering the praise for unions that party politics demanded, Biden walked the picket line and lent presidential prestige to the movement. He reversed several generations of indifference to the problem of monopoly and installed regulators who went after Big Tech ferociously.
His supreme self-confidence allowed him to buck the conventional wisdom of foreign-policy mandarins. Both Barack Obama and Trump wanted to end the war in Afghanistan, but only Biden had the courage to actually follow through on that decision—although his chaotic execution of a move that voters overwhelmingly supported eroded confidence in his presidency. A devoted believer in old-fashioned transatlanticism, he plowed money and arms into the defense of Ukraine, as if the future of Europe depended on it. These were bold decisions that a president with lesser experience—and a lesser sense of his own acumen—wouldn’t have had the gumption to make.
Biden hates abstraction and pretension. But in his best moments, he could think like a grand strategist. I once heard him extemporaneously describe everything he had done to counter China, and it was impressive to behold. He deepened America’s entanglement with Australia. He helped mend the long rift between Japan and South Korea, so that they could focus on the shared threat they now faced. He successfully schmoozed Narendra Modi, so that India shifted toward the American sphere of influence. Without receiving much credit, he actually managed the pivot to Asia that Obama first promised.
Over the course of Biden’s term, when the press dismissed him as a failure, he kept pushing forward. He never shifted blame onto his aides—and never fired them to cover his own mistakes. He pushed ambitiously, even though he often did so at the risk of his own humiliation.
Before his age became the source of his political demise, it supplied him with wisdom. Before his stubbornness inured him to the inevitable, it carried him to unlikely triumphs. His response to criticism was to always double down on himself.
And in the end those characteristics led him to the right decision.
Beshear on Vance: "I want the American people to know what a Kentuckian is and what they look like, because let me just tell you that JD Vance ain't from here. The nerve that he has to call the people of eastern Kentucky lazy … nobody calls us names." pic.twitter.com/4mDTG8Y9Gv
I know Tom is for N. Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper for Veep and he makes good points. If he put the state in play he’s obviously the front runner. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is also mentioned frequently and he’s very good. He’s also from a state that knows from Appalachia and can counter JD Vance’s gross propaganda which I think is useful.
I have no dog in this fight. There are a number of excellent choices. I just thought I’d feature this one since he’s on the short list.
Sunday July 21st was one of those “where were you when you heard” days that you’ll remember for a long time to come. I was online and I saw the news that President Joe Biden was withdrawing from the presidential race come across my social media feed in real time. A friend texted me “You were right, it wasn’t going to happen until the moment it happened.” That’s what I’d been saying for the past couple of weeks when people would get anxious whenever Biden would say that he was absolutely not dropping out. No candidate would ever say “well, I’m thinking of giving up.” They’re all in until they’re not.
Since the night of the debate I was fairly convinced that the Biden candidacy was over. I kept an open mind, thinking maybe he really was just under the weather that night but it had opened the floodgates of concerns that had been out there for a while. The presidency ages everyone who is in it, even the younger ones, and it has clearly taken a toll on the president. I figured the polls would take a while to show a drop and it was obvious that the media’s 24/7 crisis mode was almost certainly going to have an effect. Reports from behind the scenes this weekend say that Biden was shown polling that said he had no chance to win and that’s when he finally pulled the plug.
Everyone I know reported feeling sad when they heard. He’s been an excellent president, far exceeding the expectations of many of us. If time had not caught up with him, as it does with all of us, most Democrats would have been happy to see him continue. But Biden is a tough old bird and he’s a canny political veteran who understood that if he lost the race his legacy would be utterly destroyed. More importantly, he understands the stakes and knows that the country may not survive another Trump term. As much as I’m sure he loathed having to withdraw, in a long life filled with searing personal tragedies, having to drop out of the race for a second term as president doesn’t rank among his worst days.
Wisely, he immediately endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris, as I predicted he would some time ago. Setting aside various logistical complications, Biden needed to take the lead in settling down the chaos and reassure his own loyal voters about the campaign carrying on with his imprimatur. I wasn’t sure if the rest of the Party was going to get with the program but a long string of Harris endorsements from elected officials, state party chairs and delegates throughout the day indicate that there is no appetite for the kind of open primary free-for-all contemplated by some pundits and strategists. (The unspeakably daft proposal for a “blitz-primary” with events featuring Oprah, Taylor Swift, Pastor Rick Warren and Tim McGraw among dozens of others seems very unlikely now, thank goodness.)
There is some talk of W. Va. Sen. Joe Manchin, the diva who ostentatiously left the Democratic Party just a few months ago, throwing his hat into the ring, backed by some disgruntled conservative donors. And perhaps someone else will decide that this is his moment to shine as well. But for now the Democrats appear to be forming a consensus that Harris is their best bet under the circumstances. In fact, judging from the monster fundraising through the Act Blue platform for small donors yesterday, enthusiasm is off the charts.
So what do the Republicans think about all this? Surprisingly, they didn’t seem to see this coming, which is astonishing. The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta who published a long disturbing piece a couple of weeks ago called “Trump is planning for a landslide win” noted in an update on Sunday that they had convinced themselves the window for Biden to drop out had closed and that the election was in the bag. He wrote:
Republicans I spoke with today, some of them still hungover from celebrating what felt to many like a victory-night celebration in Milwaukee, registered shock at the news of Biden’s departure. Party officials had left town believing the race was all but over. Now they were confronting the reality of reimagining a campaign—one that had been optimized, in every way, to defeat Biden—against a new and unknown challenger. “So, we are forced to spend time and money on fighting Crooked Joe Biden, he polls badly after having a terrible debate, and quits the race,” a clearly peeved Trump wrote Sunday on Truth Social. “Now we have to start all over again.”
They seem to have been caught completely flat-footed. Trump was all over his social media platform whining that Republicans should be reimbursed for spending money to run against Biden and running away from debating in September unless the debate will be held on Fox News. The best Sean Hannity could come up with was that Harris wants to take away their plastic straws and is “detested” for laughing:
Hannity: Here’s just one reason voters seem to detest Kamala Harris
And Trump’s close adviser Stephen Miller pretty much had a shrieking tantrum on Laura Ingraham’s show about the Democrats allegedly overturning an election. (Yes, his chutzpah knows no bounds.)
It seems that they may not have anticipated that Joe Biden gracefully withdrawing from the race might be seen as an act of selfless patriotism in contrast to their leader Donald Trump, the grasping egomaniac who incited a riot rather than admit that he lost. The contrast couldn’t be more vivid. And while the country has spent the last few weeks contemplating the toll the pressures of the presidency took on Joe Biden as he entered his 8th decade, starting today similar thoughts about Donald Trump are inevitable.
Trump’s remarkable recent run of political good luck came to an end with a crash. The old man in the race now is Donald Trump, 78 years old and only occasionally coherent, with a record as president that is viewed by historians as the worst in history.
The following ad is from 2019 but it is even more potent today. It’s a new race and Trump is now the former president who tried to stage a coup, perpetuated the Big Lie and is a 78 year old convicted felon.
I prosecuted sex predators. Trump is one. I shut down for-profit scam colleges. He ran one. I held big banks accountable. He's owned by them.
President Biden upset someone’s evil plans by handing off his party’s (presumptive) presidential nomination to VP Kamala Harris.
“Discount Goebbels” has a sad. Trump adviser Stephen Miller is freaking out. This is absolutely delicious. I could have stripped naked and danced in the street. Christmas came early.
Miller is as vile as Trump, but far more strategic. He relished the idea of running Trump against Biden almost as much as sending troops to round up immigrants in detention camps and deporting them by the millions.
The prospect of Biden resigning and handing Harris the presidency meant she, not Trump, would be president No. 47. All that Trump 47 merch would be instantly obsolete. But with Biden’s withdrawal, a whole lot more MAGA gear is obsolete as well as demolishing Miller’s and Trump’s campaign plans.
Trump hates losing money almost as much as he hates America. (He could declare bankruptcy on the Taj Mahal, and did, one of several Trump bankruptcies.)
But never fear. They’ve already moved on to deploying misogynism and racist stereotypes against Harris.
Pay attention to propaganda narratives that will consolidate in next days. Propagandists know you should build on existing prejudices when introducing a new hate object or theme. Here Conway invokes racist stereotypes already familiar to many in MAGA. https://t.co/iyjpqgxoDH
Will Trump dare debate Harris, former prosecutor os sex offenders, or be branded a coward? Stay tuned.
And there it is. Trump backs out of scheduled debate. Afraid to face Kamala one on one. Trumpers, pls help Ole Man Don regain his composure. pic.twitter.com/zlXvS7DrMX
“Sunday was the single biggest day for online Democratic donations in years, reads the subhead at The New York Times this morning. With President Biden’s withdrawal Sunday, with his endorsement of his vice president as his replacement, and with Kamala Harris the clear pick of multiple state Democratic delegations, now comes the veepstakes.
An avalanche of cash for the Harris coffers followed the announcement — more than $50 million. Endorsements flooded in as well, including 50 state Democratic chairs, members of Congress and governors. A palpable sense of relief flowed through the Democratic Party.
The next big question, and Harris’s first big decision, will be her vice presidential pick.
Swing state governors are clear favorites. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (46), Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (51), and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (52) are in Slate’s Tier 1. But Whitmer has said she doesn’t want it. When did Kentucky become a swing state? Donald Trump won it with over 62 percent in both 2016 and 2020. Shapiro is a possible. He could bring with him 19 electoral votes. Others mentioned in the press are more fantasy football. California Gov. Gavin Newsome brings no new electoral votes into the Democrats’ column, and he’s got a 12th Amendment problem. Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker has been named, but he brings no additional electoral votes for Democrats either. Quick-witted Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, would be an excellent foil for Trump’s VP pick, Sen. J.D. Vance.
Slate names some replaceable senators as possible VPs: Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet (59), Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly (60), and Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy (50).
I’m going to make a pitch for North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (67). “I’ve literally never heard of Roy Cooper,” a Left Coast friend said over the weekend. Let my friends at Carolina Forward introduce you.
With today's big news, speculation is rampant about who @KamalaHarris's Vice Presidential pick will be. One name floated has been North Carolina's own Governor @RoyCooperNC.
For those of y'all not from NC – welcome. Allow us to introduce you to Governor Cooper. 🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/5bDtlXcdWP
Background: @RoyCooperNC was born and raised in rural Nash county in the eastern part of our state. Grew up working in his parents' tobacco farm in the summers. Went to UNC (Morehead Scholar), and again for law school. Moved back home to Nashville (NC) and worked as a lawyer. pic.twitter.com/1FlWPCtNVz
.@RoyCooperNC wound up running and winning 4 consecutive terms as North Carolina's Attorney General. He absolutely crushed those elections. In 2012, the Republicans didn't even bother fielding a candidate against him – he won unopposed. pic.twitter.com/s8jCgnG4l8
Then again in 2020, @RoyCooperNC ran for a second term as Governor and won – even as Trump won NC again (though this time, by only 1.3 points).
To date, Roy Cooper has never lost an election. He's the winningest elected leader our state's ever had – right up there with Jim Hunt. pic.twitter.com/dUf3LADMEG
Governor @RoyCooperNC's steady leadership during COVID saved a lot of lives in North Carolina. He fought back against both COVID denialism and panic. His recruit for state health director, Mandy Cohen, was so successful that she has gone on to lead the @CDCgov. pic.twitter.com/xABGLLDGvh
North Carolina (16 electoral votes) has not gone blue since 2008, but it has been narrowly contested. Trump won it in 2016 by under 4 points, and in 2020 against Biden by under 2. Cooper won the governorship in this purplish state in both those elections. He knows Harris going back to their days as attorneys general. He is past president of the National Association of Attorneys General and past chair of the Democratic Governors Association.
The Biden-Harris campaign sees North Carolina as in play and has been pouring more field organizers into the state (and farther out into the red counties than I’ve ever seen). Biden appeared in Raleigh the day after his debate. Harris popped into the state days ago for a rally in Fayetteville that received national press. She has appeared in the state a half-dozen times so far this year. Democrats’ Gen Z state chair Anderson Clayton cut her teeth as an Iowa field organizer for Harris in 2020, so as with Cooper they have a personal connection.
Harris has spoken at length with both Beshear and Cooper. Cooper is also term limited. His dance card is wide open.
