A campaign logo as offensive as it is false is circulating on the Internet: a “Harris 2024” in which the H is formed with the silhouette of a woman giving fellatio to a man. That's how sexist attacks have become explicit just hours after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, making her the front-runner. to become the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. “Cumala”, “Kamalasutra”… The list of insulting nicknames created by the most radical extreme right is endless, but there is another thing: most of it is recycled material. As soon as Biden threw in the towel, most AND MAGIC members of the MAGA movement were quick to resurrect all the material with which they unsuccessfully tried to sink Harris in the 2020 election. And one man fired to start the race: Donald Trump.
“It is very important at this historical moment that we label these narratives and lies for what they are: an attempt to undermine the public service of a powerful woman because of her gender, her background and the color of her skin,” said the activist against disinformation. Nina Jankowicz of the American Sunlight Project, which in 2021 conducted a study on insults against politicians, in which Harris stood out as the most targeted. The pretext is usually the least important part of these disinformation and dehumanization operations. But analyzing the most repeated falsehoods, which “went to the top” (dating back to the 90s), helps to understand the dynamics of these attacks and how, in general, they crystallize from the elites of political groups . : the opinion leaders, the most followed influencers or, as it happens now, Trump himself.
On July 4, when the possibility that Harris could replace a weakened Biden Already considering it, Trump posted on his social network Truth Social that the vice president had run a very bad campaign in the past, adding: “But that doesn't mean she's not a 'very talented' politician! She just ask his mentor, the great Willie Brown of San Francisco He was alluding to an old rumor, fueled during the 2020 campaign, that Harris started his career in the 1990s solely because of his sexual relations with Brown, then the mayor. from San Francisco; the rumor was that they were having an affair while he was still married. A Reuters investigation debunked the hoax: Brown had been separated from his wife for 13 years and his relationship with Harris was perfectly public until who finished it in 1995.
But Trump knew what he was doing. One of the most classic (and most reliable) sexist stereotypes related to politics was back on the table: women are good at conquering men sexually. From that seed planted by the former Republican president, who has uttered all kinds of atrocities about Harris, the insults grew in tone, and even more so after Sunday's announcement that Biden was withdrawing from the race, a analysis of With cable magazine shows. Manipulated images of Harris in the White House in sexually suggestive poses have begun to circulate online, while right-wing influencers revel in this degrading narrative.
“She became vice president because Biden needed a non-white woman on the ticket. […] He's made a career out of demanding the handover of powerful men,” far-right activist Matt Walsh posted to 12 million users on the X Network. One of Trump's most toxic supporters, Milo Yiannopoulos, has devoted a series of tweets to “Cumala”, who she asks how many abortions she has had because of her “sordid sexual history”.
Race, background, GOD
Harris is not the first woman accused of gaining her position through sex, nor will she be the first presidential candidate whose eligibility is called into question because of her background. To happen to Barack Obama, whom Trump himself accused of not being American, but Kenyan. With Kamala, the racist falsehood is repeated and it is falsely said that her parents, from India and Jamaica, were not residents of the United States when she was born and did not have legal status. Who was one of the first people to spread this hoax in 2020? Again, Donald Trump.
To online trolls, Harris isn't black enough or Indian enough to be considered the first black Asian-American vice president. In fact, to some she isn't even a woman: one of the falsehoods that has dogged her for a long time is that she is a trans person. In 2020, they claimed that Harris could not have reached a position of power without secretly being a man. They falsely claimed that he had been a man named 'Kamal Aroush' before the transition,” explains Jankowicz.
Harris is also the perfect target for one of the Republicans' latest obsessions: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs. “It's a great example of DEI. We're talking about a person who … has a skin color, but skin color does not … denote merit, it does not denote competence, and he is a very incompetent person,” said Rep. Burgess Owens, a Republican. A Fox talk show host Charles Gasparino wrote an article on the New York Post headlined: “America Could Soon Be Subject to the Country's First DEI President: Kamala Harris.”
Jankowicz is clear about the reason for all of this: users who engage with the denigrating narrative against Harris are more likely to engage in other harassment and misinformation campaigns. This expert points out that misinformation and gender abuse, which occur on both sides of the political spectrum, undermine women's participation in public life. Sexist and anti-feminist misinformation has been strong since Trump's assassination attempt: the attack has been held up as proof that women should not be part of the security forces.
The queen of memes
Efforts to attack Kamala Harris on social media have an added explanation: she is the queen of memes. His outgoing nature, loud laugh, and off-the-cuff comments are the perfect bait for a generation that turns everything into memes. It may not all be ideological, analysts concede: it's simply entertaining for young people. An anecdote that Harris told about his mother talking about “falling out of a coconut tree” has been generating countless memes and remixes for a few days.
Harris also has her own army of highly motivated followers on social media who are called the K-Hive and are capable of not only defending her, but also generating campaigns of punishment against her rivals. They have already launched a counterattack, resurgent a 2020 announcement who said of her: “He prosecuted sexual predators. He is one.” In any case, there is no doubt that the vice president generates engagement (clicks, comments and visibility), which has always been one of the strengths of her Republican rival. Now, Trump is the old man and Harris has new generations of voters watching his videos with a smile.
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