Hillary was a beltway insider and a policy wonk that came across as whiny when she needed to be seen as confident and firm. Harris will do better against Trump than Hillary ever could.
Clinton didn’t call trump out on being a weird little freak during debates. Harris will. If he tries to creepily follow her around like he did to Hillary, Kamala will stop, turn around, and be like “wtf are you doing, you gross creep? Quit following me. See, this is what I’m talking about. He’s a predator. He doesn’t know how to conduct himself. He’s too antagonistic and weird to be trusted to keep tensions low and Americans safe. This sex pest belongs in prison, not the oval office. No other world leader behaves in this manner. I don’t know why my secret service detail is even allowing this convicted felon to be this close to America’s Vice President in the first place, especially while he’s practically foaming at the mouth. Why are you so angry? Just retire and go golfing already. Stop forcing Melania to make public appearances to reinforce the illusion that the third time was the charm just so you can take credit for Nazis ruining the country some more… Anyway, back to the question…”
I firmly believe that “will you shut up, man?” was what won 2020 for Biden. Kamala Harris needs to keep her cool like 98% of the time and then allow her frustrations as a fellow human in this absurd time to leak out past her diplomatic filters 2% of the time. It just needs to be firm and calm, and she needs to not apologize afterward when Fox News tries to pretend that she’s unstable or “hormonal” or whatever misogynistic/racist framing they come up with. I hope she would double down and say “the man’s an asshole. I’m not apologizing for him being an asshole. If you want an apology, go bother him for one.”
I’m so out of the loop on the coconut thing. What’s even implied by that? squints eyes Is that a fucking brown on the outside white on the inside thing??? That’s fucking gross if that’s what it is.
I just spent 10 minutes reading up on it. It’s SO convoluted that I could not follow what has happened and why. I still do not understand, and I want those 10 minutes back.
I, too, have been atomically dissecting that meme to find the racism, and you know I won’t rule out that when the GOP makes a joke about that actually is what they mean, but it appears to be a thing fans of Harris also meme about.
She was telling a folksy story of growing up and she recounted how her mother had asked if the kids had just fallen out of a coconut tree. It’s a cute alternative to “were you born yesterday” or something like that.
I dunno, it has big “what doesn’t everyone say ‘porch monkeys?’” energy.
Basically, it comes from a speech she gave in May 2023 at a White House event about Hispanic excellence. In her speech, she also touched on how the democratic party can better support young leaders by understanding the context they grew up in.
This led into her personal anecdote from her mother, saying:
“My mother, she 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?! (Laughs) You in exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.’”
This basically took off and got mixed up with the whole “pill meme” terminology. Those that wanted Biden to pass the torch to Kamala started saying they were “coconut-pilled” and the rest is history.
Yes - they’ve been attacking her pretty much from day one, but that was just to feed the base - to keep them on a steady diet of hatred.
It’s different now, and at this point, pretty much the dumbest thing the GOP could possibly do would be to try to attack Harris personally. It would appeal to the base, but they don’t need to appeal to the base, since the base is voting Trump no matter what. They need to appeal to the moderates and independents, and I don’t see any way personal attacks are going to do that. If they try it from a moral or legalistic stance, Harris clearly has the high ground, and will mop the floor with them. And if they try to do it in a personal level, it’s guaranteed that somebody, and likely the wannabe dictator himself, will say something overtly racist and/or sexist, and that will pretty much immediately hand Harris the victory right there.
They’re already saying overly racist and sexist things. They said plenty of sexist things about Hillary Clinton too. I hope you’re right about how people will react, but after the last few years I have less faith in that.