On Thursday, Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign team attached a viral tweet to a press release and pressed send.
The press release didn’t just criticize or condemn Donald Trump for the chaotic press conference he held hours earlier, in which he ranted, ranted, and foamed at the mouth about how big his crowds were compared to those of his rival – it also mocked it. There is an important difference.
“Donald Trump’s very good, very normal press conference,” it trumpeted, further mocking him for “taking a break from the break to put on some pants and press conference public collapse.”
Above it was a screenshot of a 2014 tweet from @dril, a notorious X-user known for firing off absurd non sequiturs, also known as shitposts. “And one more thing: I’m not mad,” the tweet read. “Please don’t write in the newspaper that I’m mad.”
Since Harris took office as the presumptive (now confirmed) Democratic presidential nominee, the message has changed subtly but noticeably. This change in tone – let’s call it a change in mood – has apparently caught Republicans off guard. Their clumsy attempts to counteract this have so far all come to nothing and in substance resemble nothing more than another @dril tweet: “‘I don’t belong! I don’t belong!’ I continue to insist as I slowly shrink and turn into a corncob.”
Since the 2016 election, trolling and shitposting have become the preserve of a certain, vocal part of the Republican Party. Democrats, on the other hand, preferred to exercise the kind of restraint that best embodies Michelle Obama’s motto, “When they go low, we rise high.” As a result, Trump rode a wave of far-right memes into the White House.
But Democrats, no doubt aided by a new guard of internet-savvy Gen Z staffers and interns, have finally gotten it: In the age of the attention economy, the ability to denigrate your opponent, preferably over and over again, is a key political strategy. If that means trolling or even shitposting—posting deliberately provocative material to upset others or derail discussions—so be it.
To be clear, the Harris campaign has also deployed other, more sophisticated digital strategies, from organizing mass Zoom calls to securing the support of pop culture icons to reclaiming the camouflage hat. But trolling of Democrats has also reached unprecedented levels.
First of all, there is the “weird” thing. The (probably, but not demonstrably false) claim that Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance, once had sexual relations with a couch. The Abby Lee Miller edited. The @dril shitposts that are part of the official message of the campaign for at least a week.
It’s also crucial that none of these memes come from Harris herself. Another cardinal rule of political trolling: The candidate herself must never stoop to creating her own memes. diversity Critic Alison Herman advised Harris when the KHive, as her online fan base is known, was resurrecting: “Do NOT acknowledge the coconut memes… the kids will turn on you.” (Trump, for all his odd remarks and confused posts, understood this too and never became a full-blown shitposter himself.)
But Harris has her official campaign doing the trolling for her. “Low energy, @realdonaldtrump?” it teased in a recent tweetand published a list of Harris’s numerous campaign appearances scheduled for the week, alongside the former president’s only rally. (The campaign team also chose a really bad photo of Trump for the graphic.)
She also has her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the king of dad vibes (or, to use the internet’s term, the Midwest Princess) when it comes to denigrating Republicans. His style of trolling is light and casual. He effortlessly popularized calling Trump and Vance “weird” and made a sly couch joke at a rally appearance in Philadelphia earlier this week — when Harris visibly fought to suppress her laughter behind him.
Other pro-Harris groups followed suit, and a Super PAC released a viral ad Late last month, a horde of lecherous-looking, increasingly sweaty “Republicans” talked about wanting to be “much more concerned” with voters’ genitals.
The result of all this trolling is beyond any liberal strategist’s wildest dreams. It turns out that Trump and the rest of the MAGA world can dish it out but can’t take it. And recent polls have shown the vice president steadily catching up, overtaking her rival as of Thursday.
As it turns out, trolling may well be a winning strategy. But Democrats must continue to tread carefully. To paraphrase a popular internet meme, shitposting requires a clear intent and goal to have the greatest impact. In other words, it can’t just fall out of a coconut tree without context. It requires finesse. Direction. A certain elegance.
So far, it seems that Harris’ campaign has plenty of that.
Under these circumstances, you just have to let them do it.