Trump supporters resurrect sexist and racist lies against Kamala Harris: “She rose to prominence using the bed”

A logo for Kamala Harris’s campaign, as offensive as it is false, is circulating on the networks: a “Harris 2024” in which the H is formed by the silhouette of a woman performing fellatio on a man. This is how explicit the sexism that has already been launched against the possible Democratic candidate after the resignation of President Joe Biden is. “Harris the Easy One”, “Blowjob Harris”, “Kamalasutra”, “Putahontas”… The list of insulting nicknames that the most radical right has given her is endless, but there is something even cruder: most of it is recycled material. Since Biden threw in the towel, the most magician Among the MAGA members, they have rushed to resurrect the entire arsenal with which they tried, without success, to sink her in the 2020 elections. And one man gave the starting gun: Donald Trump.

“It is important to 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 origin, her skin color,” reacted immediately the anti-disinformation activist Nina Jankowicz, who conducted a study in 2021 on insults to female politicians, in which Harris stood out as the most punished. The pretext is usually the least important thing in these operations of disinformation and dehumanization. But analyzing the most repeated of the falsehoods, which “rose using the bed” (dating back to the 1990s), helps to understand the dynamics of the hoaxes and how, in general, they crystallize from the elites of the political groups: the opinion leaders, the influencers most followed or, as is the case, the boss of all.

On July 4, when the possibility of her replacing a weakened Biden was already sounding strong, Trump posted on his social network that the vice president had run a very bad campaign in the past, and added: “But that doesn’t mean she isn’t a ‘very talented’ politician! Ask her mentor, the great Willie Brown of San Francisco.” He refers to an old rumor, fueled during the 2020 campaign: Kamala Harris began her career in the nineties thanks solely to her sexual relations with Brown, mayor of San Francisco, with whom she was allegedly a lover while he was married. A Reuters investigation refuted the hoax: Brown had been separated from his wife for 13 years and his relationship with Harris was perfectly public until they ended their relationship in 1995.

But Trump knew what he was doing. He was once again bringing up one of the most classic (and most effective) stereotypes of machismo in politics: women thrive by sexually conquering men. From that seed planted by the former Republican president, who has already said all kinds of outrageous things about Harris, the insults skyrocketed, even more so after Sunday’s resignation, as analyzed by WiredManipulated images of Harris in the White House in sexual positions are circulating on social media, and right-wing influencers are reveling in this degrading narrative.

“She got her start in politics by sleeping with Willie Brown. She became vice president because Biden needed a non-white woman on his ticket. She has made a career out of begging powerful men for handouts,” ultra-activist Matt Walsh posted for 12 million users of the X network to see. One of Trump’s most toxic fans, Milo Yiannopoulos, has dedicated a string of tweets to “Cumala” (a play on words between Kamala and the word semen in English), asking her how many abortions she has had because of her “sordid sexual history.”

Race, origin, quota

Harris is not the first woman to be accused of having achieved her position through sex, nor will she be the first presidential candidate to be accused of not being able to run for office because of her origin. It happened to Barack Obama, when Trump himself accused him of not being American, but Kenyan. With Kamala, the racist hoax is repeated and it is said, falsely, that her parents, from India and Jamaica, were not residents of the US when she was born and did not have legal access to citizenship. Who was one of the first to spread this hoax in 2020? Also Donald Trump. Now, of course, he has been resurrected.

This miscegenation is also used against Harris, because for social media trolls she is not black enough to be considered the first black vice president, nor Indian enough to be the first Asian vice president. For some, she is not even a woman: one of the falsehoods that has long dogged her is that she is a trans person. “In 2020, they claimed that Harris could not have risen to a position of power without having been a secret man. They falsely claimed that she had been a man named ‘Kamal Aroush’ before transitioning,” Jankowicz now explains. It is a common hoax among prominent women in international politics.

Harris is also the perfect target for one of the Republicans’ latest obsessions: diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies that make room for women and minorities. “She’s a great example of DEI. We’re talking about a person who has a skin color, but skin color doesn’t denote merit, it doesn’t denote competence, and she’s a very incompetent person,” said Republican Congressman Burgess Owens. Fox commentator Charles Gasparino wrote in the New York Post an article titled: “The United States may soon be subject to the country’s first female DEI president: Kamala Harris.” Something like the first female president by quota.

Jankowicz is clear about the reason for this: users who engaged with the denigrating narrative against Harris were more likely to engage in other harassment and disinformation campaigns: “They tried to undermine her suitability for office. Gender-based misinformation and abuse, which occurs on both sides of the political spectrum, undermine women’s participation in public life.” Sexist and anti-feminist disinformation has been rife since the attempted assassination of Trump – his attack has been reinterpreted as proof that women should not be involved in law enforcement.

The queen of memes

The effort to attack Kamala Harris on social media has an added explanation: she is the queen of memes. Her extroversion, her loud laughter and her unexpected outings are the perfect breeding ground for a generation that mememizes everything, especially if it has a bit of an extravagant edge. Perhaps it is not ideological, analysts concede: it is simply entertaining for young people. An anecdote he told about his mother talking about “falling out of a coconut tree” has been generating endless memes and remixes for the past few days.

Harris also has a mobilized army of followers on social media, calling themselves the K-Hive, who are capable of not only defending her, but also of generating punishment campaigns against her rivals. They have already launched a counterattack, recovering a 2020 spot in which it was said of her, in front of Trump: “She prosecuted sexual predators. He is one.” In any case, it is undeniable that the vice president generates engagement (clicks, comments and visibility), which has always been one of the strengths of her Republican rival. Now, the old man is Trump and Harris can have the new generations of voters watching her videos with a smile.

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