While young people historically have low voter turnout, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has taken to social media to try to bridge the gap — but young voters shouldn’t be so quick to applaud her get-out-the-vote tactics.
What began with Harris hopping on the “brat summer” bandwagon has expanded to a full-fledged (and cringe) meme crusade, with the campaign trying to paper over Harris’ lack of accountability and abysmal record by following the trends of “chronically online” voters.
Many failures of the Biden-Harris administration directly affect young voters, making the transition from adolescent to adult harder than ever. The price of groceries continues to rise, and sky-high interest rates make it nearly impossible for young people to own a home, all with the cost of a college education and youth unemployment rates simultaneously increasing. But thanks to memes, young voters could be duped into casting a Harris-Walz vote.
The July 21 Charli XCX statement on X, “kamala IS brat,” was the post heard ’round the world, with 56,000 retweets and 333,000 likes to date. The attention sparked Harris’ “commitment to the bit,” as young people would say, with her campaign focusing on all vibes and no substance.
While this strategy may garner likes and reposts, the point is simply to wrap her crumbling campaign and embarrassing record as vice president in a pretty bow for the country’s freshest voting class. She and her team hope young people are so absorbed in their phones that they don’t think to ask the
