Kamala’s meme-mentum

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Noelle King: Noelle King, have you been on the internet lately?

Host: Yes. Have you heard, like, you know, Kamala mashed up with Britney? You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?

Noelle King: Yes. America. America has a coconut tree. Coconut tree. And I guess my last question is, have you heard Kamala mashed up with my personal fave, Charlie XCX?

Host: Coconut, coconut, coconut, coconut, coconut, coconut, coconut, coconut, coconut. Okay. On the show today, we're going to ask what the heck's going on and also figure out if any of this means anything for this campaign. But you're going to do something too. What are you going to do?

Noelle King: All right. Vice President Harris has got a lot of attention. Coconut, coconut, coconut. But what should she do with it to help her campaign? We're going to ask.

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Host: Today Explained here with Charlie Warzel, staff writer at The Atlantic Magazine. Charlie, I don't usually open interviews this way, but can I ask how online you are?

Charlie Warzel: Wow, what a loaded question. It's going to be important, I promise. There are ebbs and flows to my onlineness for sure. But as we get into the last stretch of a presidential election cycle, my onlineness ramps up to weapons-grade levels of onlineness, right? I'm jacked into the matrix right now.

Host: So with that all established, as someone who is weapons-grade online, how would you describe Vice President Kamala Harris's presence on the internet right now?

Charlie Warzel: Yeah, July has been a renaissance for the Vice President's internet presence is how I would put it. Out there right now on the internet, it's kind of been blanketed with Harris memes. Everything is in context. The coconut tree speech, the normal version of that is everywhere on the internet. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you. Then it's also been super cut and remixed. Dance. While you've been getting down and out about the context. Dirty, dirty coconut world. You could have been getting down to this coconut tree. It's been remixed with dancing from the 2020 campaign to Charlie XCX's brat album. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context. Coconut, coconut, coconut.

Host: There's a mashup of her laughing and singing wheels on the bus. All round and round. With all the Joker music from The Dark Knight plays, there's a bunch of, you know, like Venn diagrams out there. I love Venn diagrams. It's just something about those three circles and the analysis about where there is the intersection, right?

Charlie Warzel: Now people are saying that they are coconut-pilled. It's a little bit unhinged out there, but the general feeling of her online presence is real enthusiasm. You think you just fell out of a... Can I explain? Can I explain?

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Host: Today Explained here with Angela Rye, co-host of Native Land Pod. Angela, you understand influencer culture. Which meme should Vice President Harris lean into? We get the brat meme, the coconut meme, the cop meme among people who are not young and very online.

Angela Rye: I think the best thing that Vice President Harris could do as she runs is to do a complete 180 from meme culture. We are living in a day and age where people, I think, are having a hard time deciphering fact from fiction. They're having a hard time figuring out what is real and what's not. And when the reality show credits roll for America, I don't want to be there. You know, right? I don't want to be a part of that.

Host: Okay, so one of the things that you know we hear about Kamala, especially since she became vice president, is that she's kind of unknowable. You don't seem to agree with that. Give me a few lines on who you think the vice president is and who she should be presenting to the American people.

Angela Rye: Yeah, I think relatively unknown and unknowable are a little different. You know, I would just phrase that a little differently. I think that she has tried to be deferential to the president of the United States so as to not outshine, so as to not, you know, divert when they disagree on policy positions. And I think what we can expect from Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket is a more relaxed, approachable, the person that we all know and love.

Host: She is a friend to me. She's like a big sister to me. And she's someone who, you know, gives the best advice, solicited or unsolicited. She's someone who sees you going through something and is going to pick up the phone and ask you how you're doing and what she can do to help.

Angela Rye: She's discerning. She's intuitive. She kind of always knows the right thing to do. And I think when she now has that spaciousness to lean into her own intuition and her discernment about what's right to do, you get things like her saying, actually, I'm not going to preside over that joint session for Netanyahu. Vice President Kamala Harris skipped the prime minister's address today, speaking instead at a sorority conference in Indiana. And I think that that is what our folks need to hear. Our folks, meaning all of the American people, people of different policy, like ideas, different opinions.

Host: Knowing that she's going to lean into her convictions is one of the most important things that we need right now when you're on the opposite side of someone who has demonstrated a very treacherous relationship with the truth.

Angela Rye: I think there's been some shock in the media like, oh, my God, she was great in Milwaukee. We are not going back. People just started chanting along with her. What I hear you saying is, no, I knew that was there. It's always been there. And the thing that I think that as a black woman, I, too, know what it's like to be underestimated. You know, when people are like, oh, my God, you sounded so brilliant. Well, what did you think I was going to sound like? You know, she is someone who has won multiple elections, statewide elected twice. Like, she knows what it is like to win. And she don't like to lose.

Host: All right. I want to ask you about some specific issues. So we know that the Trump campaign is going to attack Kamala Harris about the border. President Biden tasked her with addressing the root causes of migration from Central America. And the attack line is going to be. Kamala threw open our borders and allowed 20 million illegal aliens to stampede into our country from all over the world. Americans are very unhappy about what they see as too much immigration. What is the message she should be presenting to voters about the border and her role there right now?

Angela Rye: I think she has to be honest in just saying that immigration is one of the most complex policy issues this country's seen. It's been that way for many years. It's one of those moments where she has to speak from her conscience. I know she doesn't want kids in concentration camps at the border like they were under Donald Trump. So what we know is what happened hasn't worked. Some of what President Biden offered up I thought was too conservative and I also thought was inhumane. Hopefully she dials back from that. I believe she will. And bringing a lot of different partners to the table, CBP, ICE, and also some of the groups that represent migrants crossing the border, seeking asylum, seeking a better life.

Host: What are the ways to ensure that people can have their day in America, get here, you know, not necessarily cut folks who have been waiting in line, but also make sure that they can escape whatever it is they're trying to escape?

Angela Rye: Let me ask you about her time as a prosecutor. So the attack line, one attack line from Republicans we know will be she's soft on crime. Keep in mind, she supported the Minnesota Freedom Fund. That was a fund that raised $41 million and literally put criminals back out on the streets.

Host: How does she combat a campaign that is going to be very interested in presenting her as soft on crime based on some things that she said during the 2020 campaign?

Angela Rye: Yeah, I think that this is one of those places where it could be an easy one liner. She is running against an indicted criminal and she's not going to be soft on Donald Trump. So what I think she should say in that moment is like, oh, you think I'm soft on crime? Let me show you how I'm going to treat this criminal. Watch me work. I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump's type.

Host: You think that a lot of that was hyperbolic. I think no we talked about it during South by you know I just I don't think that's a real thing what I do think is real is there have has been a lot of misinformation about Kamala Harris's record as a prosecutor in in the Bay Area and some of the things that have been said about her locking folks up for marijuana are simply not true.

Angela Rye: So what I would encourage the listeners to do is to go for it and look at what her actual record was. She was not soft on crime. She also was not tough on crime. She was fair on crime.

Host: I think that we have to stop placing black people in one black box. Like this is what black voters think. There are black voters who got on a call on Sunday, went with black women and raised over a million dollars for Kamala in 45 minutes. 44,000 black women on the Zoom call and another 50,000 in clubhouse. Almost 100,000 black women. The next day, black men raised over a million dollars for Kamala Harris in three hours. And there were thousands of them, I think over 50,000 black men on that call. Today, there is a gay and queer Kamala Harris call. There's a white woman for Kamala call. So when we talk about black voters and the apathy and the fear, I think what's legit, Noelle, honestly, is there's a little thing inside you there that asks the question, is the country ready for this? And that same question came up when Barack Obama was running, right? And that same question came up when Joe Biden selected Kamala Harris as his VP. And that same question came up when he decided he was going to nominate Kassanji Brown Jackson as the first black woman Supreme Court justice. There is not a time where that question doesn't come up. And for many of us who have experienced that ourselves, when we were a first somewhere, whether we were the first young person or the first person on a board or whatever it is, that question comes up. And the only way to beat back that no or not ready or I'm unsure is to press forward. It's just to press forward.

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Host: I will tell you, Noel, from a super spiritual standpoint, I just want to point out that I have been on a five-day cleansing fast. And this just so I ended it today. It just so happened to all go down during the cleanse in the past. I just want to shout out the power of the prayers of black women and stand in alignment with my sisters from that call on Sunday, which was just remarkably moving. So shout out to all the people who fast, all the people who pray and all the people who know that if we can push through that fear and the worry about what this country might not be ready for, we might just be able to make it a little more ready.

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Host: Angela Rye, co-host of Native Land Pod. Sean's back. Sean, you do the credits.

Sean Rameswaram: Peter Balanon-Rosen, Miles Bryan, Amna Alsadi, Laura Fullard, Matthew Collette, Rob Byers, Andrea Kristen's daughter, Noelle King. Can we say Today Explained together?

Host: Yes. Today Explained. Thank you.

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