Friday, July 26, 2024
BY CROOKED MEDIA
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Vice President Harris took the internet by storm this week. Will all the excitement on TikTok turn into Gen-Z votes in November?
- Harris’ ascension to presumed Democratic nominee touched off a frenzy of memes and coconut-themed content on TikTok. When Harris created her own account on Thursday evening, she surged past a million followers within six hours, and doubled that number by Friday. Her first eight-second video introducing herself received over 14 million views by Friday afternoon.
- The musician Charli XCX supercharged Harris’ memeification with a single, three-word post, “kamala IS brat,” just hours after President Biden threw his weight behind his veep last weekend. Harris HQ embraced the moment, plastering its social media in lime green, modeled after the British pop star’s hyper popular new album, BRAT. Huge swathes of the internet got “coconut pilled” with astonishing speed, turning clips of Harris laughing, dancing and repeating some of her goofier public statements into jubilant, ironic, celebratory videos. Many play on Harris’ famous line, in which she quotes her mother saying, “You think you just fell out of the coconut tree?... You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.
- Ironically, some of the raw footage in this meme tsunami came directly from clips originally circulated by Republicans in an attempt to embarrass her. (Nice try, guys!) In the hands of internet creators, those moments instead became jokey and fun. One such video, originally circulated by Republicans, featured four minutes of Harris repeating her now-famous line about “what can be, unburdened by what has been.” But in one of those self-owns the universe delivers sometimes, that video became rocket fuel for pro-Harris content. As one internet user put it: “The Republican intern who put this together and had no idea that it would be used to unify the online Democratic base behind Kamala Harris.”
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The Harris campaign hopes to turn this internet momentum into IRL support at the ballot box in November — and is treating the web as a key recruitment zone for young voters.
- Polls showed younger voters drifting away from President Biden after overwhelmingly supporting him in 2020. Harris’ TikTok explosion is backed up by polling data suggesting she’s doing better with young voters. In one recent poll, Biden led disgraced former President Trump by only 6 points, 53 percent to 47 percent, among voters between the ages of 18 and 34. The same pollsters found Harris has a much wider lead of 20 points — 60 percent for Harris vs 40 percent for Trump.
- Coconut jokes aside, the youth vote is no laughing matter: Some 41 million members of Gen Z will be eligible to vote this cycle. Since Harris leapfrogged to the top of the ticket, her campaign said that of the 1.1 million people who donated to her campaign within the first 36 hours of her candidacy, almost two-thirds were first time donors.
- The excitement around Harris’ campaign is also inspiring more young people to register to vote. For context, Taylor Swift set a one-day record last September on National Voter Registration Day by inspiring 30,000 people to sign up, according to the nonpartisan group vote.org. But within 48 hours of Biden bowing out and Harris stepping up, more than 38,500 registered. By Friday, that number exceeded 100,000.
All these memes are fun as hell, too.
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It should come as no surprise to anyone with a Twitter account that the Republicans are already hard at work trying to discredit Kamala Harris as she begins her historic presidential bid. Two ways to make sure you're informed and ready for the fight ahead are to listen to Dan's Pollercoaster for insights from the latest voter polls and to sign up for his Message Box newsletter for the relevant political talking points you need to help contribute to a Democratic win this November. For a limited time, unlock a one-month free trial offer for both Friends of the Pod and Message Box at crooked.com/yeswedan. |
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Harris made a forceful case for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in public remarks following her one-on-one meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday. Trump then met with Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-A-Lago on Friday, where he greeted the embattled Israeli leader with a big smile and a warm welcome.
Trump is waffling about whether he’ll debate Harris, after all. Shortly after his campaign expressed interest in multiple debates, Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement that debate details couldn’t be finalized due to “continued political chaos surrounding Joe Biden and the Democratic Party” and the possibility Dems could “change their minds.” Sounds like chicken shit to us!
Trump announced plans to hold another rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the same town where he survived the July 13 assassination attempt. All Trump rallies are pretty weird, but that one will probably be weirder than most.
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Join Bookshop.org in uplifting independent bookstores today. Happy reading! |
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New inflation numbers reinforced certainty that the Federal Reserve is on the verge of victory in its battle with inflation. Overall prices were up 2.5 percent in June from a year ago, a figure approaching the Fed’s target of 2 percent, according to data released Friday. As Axios put it, “it looks like the monster has indeed been vanquished.”
Harris has effectively erased Trump’s lead and pulled within the margin of error, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll. The national poll testing a two-person matchup found Harris with 49 percent and Trump with 47 percent. |
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